Numb

like the angel you are you laugh creating a lightness in my chest,
your eyes they penetrate me,
(your answer's always 'maybe')
that's when I got up and left

Ellie drug her feet as she trudged through the snow on her way home from Ashley's house, humming to herself a song from the Sweetest Thing, a smile dancing across her lips. Ellie almost felt sick being in high spirits around her. Paige, Hazel, and even Terri tried their best to get her to break a proper smile the whole night. And she did - a few times, there was a good chance the group of them would be casually singing about male genitalia on the way to school.

But in the pit of her stomach, Ellie knew that no amount of romcoms, chocolate, and quality time with her best girlfriends was going to fix the heartbreak that Craig Manning had orchestrated. She almost felt bad for Manny - from the way Ashley described it, she had believed that Craig had broken up with her and had been single. But she knew that wasn't going to matter to Ashley, she was mad at the both of them.

Ashley was miserable.

Utterly miserable.

Ellie was in such a bright mood during this holiday season that it made her feel guilty when she was around Ashley in her dramatic depression of mood. They exchanged gifts nonetheless. Ashley had a smile on her face for a short moment in time when she opened one of Ellie's handmade gifts, a photo-shopped picture of Craig's head in flames and another with several arrows going through his head. It made her chuckle with delight to even see a photo-shopped picture of Craig in pain. Ellie gave her a few vintage band tee shirts from the thrift store and some pins for her bag. It brightened Ashley's day just a bit. Ellie had gotten a few little trinkets Ashley knew she would like and that was that.

As Ellie walked home in the twilight hour before sunset she felt her rear end become cold and wet. She spun around, her red hair flying about her face. Sean was standing behind her, loading another snowball into the pad of his gloves, and threw it playfully. "Hey!" Ellie whined, pulling her hands out of her leather jacket and scooping some snow into her hand, and pelted it in Sean's direction. Sean dove out of the way and laughed as he face-planted into a pile of fresh snow. Ellie walked over to him and stood above him. "You can dish it, but can't take it?" she asked as she placed her hands on her hips.

Sean rolled over and stared up at his girl. She looked so tall from his angle, and every feature on her face, the way her lips were carved to a beautiful smirk, the way the snow stuck to her hair, and the way she was wearing barely any makeup, save her classic black eyeliner made her look like a punk rock angel. He leaned himself forward and grabbed her legs at the knees and pulled her down on top of him and into the snow.

"Hey," he said softly, tucking some of her hair behind her ears.

Ellie just smiled and rolled her eyes, "smooth Sean…"

"I try" he muttered before planting his lips on hers. Ellie bit down on his lower lip and tugged gently before falling back into the kiss, and completely losing herself in him. It was a good few minutes before she broke away.

"I'm wet," she said laughing.

"Oh we are, are we?" He said smirking. Ellie's eyes widened and she slapped him.

"Not like that you perv!" she said trying to stand up.

"I don't make you wet?" he asked pouting, and then laughing. Ellie rolled her eyes as he pulled her back down. "Because I'd really like to get you soaking wet." Ellie just rolled her eyes again and struggled to get away from him as he balled up another snowball with his free hand and swiftly shoved it down the front of Ellie's shirt. She jumped to her feet and started shaking around in a dance-like form trying to get the snow out of her shirt.

"Sean…I hate you!" she shrieked.

Sean just laid there in the snow laughing, "And I just adore you, Ellie Nash"

Ellie looked down at him and laughed, "adore?" she asked, " you're expanding your vocabulary." She leaned down, pecked him on the cheek, bundled her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket and walked home.


"I can't believe he put us in separate rooms" Ellie muttered as she dropped her bag on the table and pulled out her journal and tape recorder. She kept rewinding the tape and listening to Sean's voice, "Yea, …because I steal it." Her face fell again. The way he had so readily admitted it scared her. Like he wasn't even apologetic about what he had done. Ellie scribbled some notes down in her journal and then turned the page…

To Expose…

Or Not to Expose…

That is the Question…

She read over the words she had just written and tapped her pen a few times before slamming her journal shut and throwing her stuff into her bag. She slowly opened the door and slunk over to the classroom Hazel was stuck in and opened the door. "We can't just sit here for three hours," Ellie said, "what do you say we get out of here?" Hazel's eyes lit up.

"You know, you're pretty cool Miss Nash," she said and grabbed her purse and went to get the boys.

Everyone thought about leaving Sean behind, but Ellie wouldn't have it. Not that she wanted everyone to know they were completely involved, and not just because they were, "No one gets left behind."

She heard Jimmy grumble in protest, but she wouldn't have it, she didn't care how much of a pain Sean was being towards everyone, it was a wall. She knew it, but they didn't.

The day went by in a blur. But what Ellie did remember was her and Sean's first fight. One that left her snapping her rubber bands against her wrists until they were raw and red, she hated fighting with people. By the time she got home she was a wreck, she expected the house to be empty, her father had returned with some troops to Kabul, and her mother was supposed to be at an AA meeting. The house was not empty. Her mother was sitting on the couch, staring at a shot glass full of vodka. Ellie wiped her tears.

"Mom?" she asked dropping her bag by the stairs and walking into the living room, "what are you doing home? Don't you have a meeting tonight?"

" I …I …I can't go, it's too hard," she said not taking her eyes off the shot glass.

" What are you doing?"

" I can have just one right?" Judy asked staring up at Ellie with puppy dog eyes.

"You shouldn't even have that in the house" Ellie answered, reaching for the glass. Judy slapped her hand away.

"It's just for comfort…to make sure it's there…in case I need it"

Ellie frowned, but understandingly, as she knew what it was like to keep something dangerous for comfort. Her mind floated to thoughts of her razor blades, pins, and knives hidden in that wooden box.

" Just...just…don't drink anything?" Ellie asked.

Judy shooed her away with a flick of her wrist and a swish of her hand. Ellie frowned and walked back to the stairs and grabbed her bag. She locked the door to her room and felt like a hypocrite as she reached under her bed and felt around for the small wooden box.

Her hands ran over the smooth wood grain as she pulled off the lid and pulled out a clean razor blade. Her eyes started to water. She didn't want to do this. She dropped the blade on the hardwood floor and snapped the rubber band against her wrist. She kept snapping harder and pulling the thing piece of rubber farther from her skin and suddenly as it struck her raw wrist it snapped. She hung her head. She couldn't take it anymore, with one swift motion she reached for the razor blade and pulled it quickly across the raw and swollen patch of skin around her wrist. "One Cut," she thought to herself. "Just this one." Ellie bit her lip. "Just one more" she whispered to no one. She felt nothing except a release as warm blood began flowing down her arm with every new cut she made.

Looking down she panicked and reached for something to stop the flow of blood down her arm. She grabbed a t-shirt that lay balled up nearby and wrapped it around her arm and raced to the bathroom. She fumbled through the medicine cabinet. "Shit" she muttered softly as she emptied the cabinet to find nothing but toothpaste and a tattoo band-aide. She slowly peeled back the tee shirt and started to breathe heavily as she noticed her arm hadn't stopped bleeding. She tied off the tee shirt and ran back to her room and grabbed her jacket and raced down the stairs.

"Goin' out Mom be back soon!" She shouted racing out the door.


" Just a sec" Tracker called out as walked to the door, grabbing a shirt on the way and pulling it on over his still shower-fresh head. He had a date tonight, and he opened the door half expecting to see his girlfriend, and not expecting to see Ellie Nash, tear-stained face and bloody t-shirt wrapped around her arm.

"Sean's not here is he?" she asked feeling so pathetic.

Tracker shook his head, "No, but when he gets home he'll never leave again…"

"No!" Ellie shrieked, "it's not his fault…we just fought…and my mom…" Ellie sniffled, "she's just home staring at the glass, …the rubber band…it broke…I …"

"Get inside" Tracker ordered and wrapped his arms around Ellie. She was shaking. But she wasn't at all cold. Her tears were dried and she just wouldn't stop dry sobbing.

"I tried to clean them up…but I only found toothpaste…" she said sitting down at the kitchen table while Tracker fumbled around for the first aid kit. "And…the rubber band it broke…"

Tracker just looked up at her. She wasn't even looking at him, she was just shaking and holding her arm, and rambling. He bit his lip and dropped the kit on the table and pulled out the hydrogen peroxide, butterfly stitches, and Neosporin.

" I didn't want to…but the rubber band broke. I meant to throw them all away but just looking at them made me feel better"

"Ellie…" Tracker said gently taking her hand, "relax, it's okay"

" I…I…I was doing good, right? Not cutting since Christmas is good right?"

"Very good Ellie, now let me see okay?" Tracker said pulling the t-shirt away from her arm, gently. "oh my…"

"I didn't mean to…I was only going to do one…but the first one looked so lonely." Ellie hung her head and reached her hand out to gently graze them with her fingertips. Tracker gently grabbed her hand and moved it to the table, where she gently scratched at the wood grain to keep herself distracted.

" Let me clean them up first Ellie," he said softly. He looked up at her as he gently ran a cleansing pad over her arm, and she cringed and tried to pull her arm away, "No Ellie, we have to clean it up."

He gently ran a pad of hydrogen peroxide over her cuts and they bubbled. He gently pinched together the cuts and closed them up with the butterfly stitches.

"It was only one," she muttered.

" There's more than one Ellie," Tracker said as she took a cotton swab and gently coated each cut in Neosporin, "there's at least twelve here." He looked at the few other cuts on her arm that looked like quick scratches she'd made before she cut deeper, as though she were testing her limits.

"I'm sorry" she hung her head, refusing to make eye contact with Tracker.

" Ellie…what happened?" Tracker asked, "Why are you so upset?"

" We fought. Sean and me…I wasn't going to use the tape,…he hates me…and my mom…she's…I don't know…I … the rubber band broke…it just broke" she said dropping her arms and her eyes watering up again, "it just broke…broke….it snapped." That rubber band had been her lifeline the last few days as she coped with her anxiety over the tape, over her mom... she hadn't even told anyone her dad had been deployed again and had gone dark on communication while they attempted to secure and evacuate refugees from a heavily hit area of terrorist activity.

Tracker stood still as she continued to ramble, he didn't know how to comfort her - should he hug her? tell her everything was going to be okay. Before he could even decide what he wanted to do Ellie shot up suddenly from the table to leave, "I'm sorry…I have to go…" she said, balling up her bloody t-shirt trying to distract herself from looking at Tracker, because if she looked at him, she'd think of Sean, and she'd just start to cry. And if she started crying she wasn't sure if she could stop.

"Ellie stop…"

Ellie paused in her tracks - just steps from the door before she started sobbing, "I didn't mean to it just snapped-broke" her knees buckled as Tracker caught her before she hit the floor as tears ran down her face, "I tried not to, but it was the only thing I could control."

"Deep breath, Ellie," he said and wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs and pulled her into a tight hug. "You're going to go home, get into bed, and get some sleep," he said as he gently smoothed her hair, "Everything will be okay in the morning." He handed her his spare helmet as he grabbed the keys to his bike from the hook on the wall and silently offered her a ride home.

His heart broke for her when he watched her look back from the porch as he dropped her off - her heart was broken. He waited until he saw the porch light go out before he pulled away, his thoughts racing to a time he'd rather forget.

"Leave" his father yelled, "Get the hell out of my house!"

He tossed his keys on the kitchen table and began to clean up the first aid supplies as he tried to distract himself from his own memories.

Tracker backed himself into the corner.

" I said get the hell out of my house you lousy, worthless shit!" John Cameron shouted at his eldest son. "You don't do anything, then you come home and cut yourself to pieces. You make me sick"

Tracker paused as he opened the trash lid and tossed the bloody gauze away and caught a glimpse of his own scars.

"I don't do anything? Dad, you haven't been to work in over a month! I go to my job every day after school and bring home the food that gets put on this table."

John Cameron threw his fist at his son, hitting him square in the jaw. "Get your shit, and get the fuck out of my house."

Tracker remembered every single cut - the deepest ones were from the last day he'd laid eyes on his father. He wasn't the first time he'd experienced his father's fist, but it was the last time he allowed it to happen.

Tracker grabbed a duffle bag and threw as much stuff as he could into it and walked out of the house. His hand went up to his jaw and felt it gently, it was swelling, and he could almost taste blood in his mouth. He slipped into an empty alley and reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife.

"This is for all the times you said I was an accident," he said dragging the knife across his bare forearm. "This is for all the times you came home drunk and I had to fix dinner for Sean and I" and cut another slice into his skin, "This is for all the times you should have been a parent" is another cut. "This is for me…and how I should have been a better brother to Sean."

"…Sean…it's me, Sean, you know, your brother?"

Tracker opened his eyes and Sean was standing in front of him waving his arms back and forth. He didn't even remember sitting down on the couch.

"Thought you were dead or something," Sean said digging his hands into his pockets, "um…Kemmie's waitin' for you" Tracker jumped to his feet and grabbed his shoes and slipped them on, grabbing his wallet he ran out the door.


"I'm home," Ellie said, her voice raw from crying. "Mom?"

Ellie walked into the living room and saw her mom curled up on the couch, a bottle of vodka clutched tightly to her chest. Ellie frowned and then noticed the shot glass still on the coffee table. Still Full. "Just for comfort" she remembered her mother saying. Ellie kissed her mother on the forehead and headed up to her room and picked up her razor and placed it back into the box and placed the lid on top and slipped it under her bed. She turned on her CD player and walked over to her desk as the music blared.

"Wasted paralyzed," she sang along as she looked at her inflamed arm, "one-last-cry..."

"Today was the worst day…ever" she laughed harder, as she recognized the song, "almost fitting he said." She pulled open the drawer of her desk and found a bag of rubber bands and slipped one on her wrist. In the heat of the moment - she hadn't even thought about just replacing the broken rubber band with a new one. "Stupid, Nash - you're just stupid."

She knew the next morning she'd be wearing long sleeves, hiding her scars and a million other secrets she carried on her body. Ellie hoped that Ms. Sauve wouldn't ask any questions so she wouldn't have to lie. She walked over to her bed as the song lingered over the speaker, "gravity gets to me, holds me here" and fell back, "without release," and stared up at her star-riddled ceiling.

"God help me make it home(1)" she mouthed the words before she fell asleep. Her body sprawled over her comforter, not even bothering to take off her shoes and clothes, her bloody t-shirt clenched in her hands.


The next day Ellie wandered the halls in a daze - her arm aching from the night before. She paused as she saw Sean at his locker. It felt like a lifetime had passed her by as she tried to find the courage to approach him. When she finally did - she had found him pretending she wasn't there as he grabbed a book from his locker, she snapped her rubber band. "Sean- I-" her voice breaking as she said his name.

"Come to record more confessions," he said finally looking her in the eye.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"I don't care -" he shrugged, "what- were you just using me the whole time, just to get a good story?"

Ellie bit her tongue when she couldn't feel the rubber band anymore, she could taste blood in her mouth. Sean had noticed, that her rubber band had broken and caught her jaw clenching. She took a deep breath, "it's not like that Sean - I wasn't even going to -" her shoulders dropped and she pulled another tape out of her bag " here's the real tape."

Ellie stretched her arm out, palms up, the tape laying gently in her hand. He noticed she was wearing long sleeves, it looked like she'd cut thumb holes into the bottom of her sleeves so they'd stay down.

Sean looked at the tape in her hand and took it, tossed it in his locker, and slammed it shut.

Ellie stood silently as Sean asked, "so I don't freak you out?"

She shook her head, "I don't freak you out?" she asked.

Sean just took her hand and interlocked their fingers.


A/N

1. Emery - By All Accounts (today was a disaster)