Warnings: sexual abuse, self-harm, drug use.


"When you were young, did you ever read The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Oh, it's a classic. It's about this caterpillar, and he basically eats a load of stuff and then he gets in a cocoon and becomes a butterfly… I'd just get inside my duvet and read it over and over. And it made me think that when I came out, I didn't want to be different. I just wanted what was outside to be different." –Chris Miles, Skins


Chapter 4: Miss Nothing

Misguided, high-minded, I'm missing the train.
And I don't know where I've been,
And I don't know what I'm into,
And I don't know what I've done to me.


Lucy comes home after midnight on Tuesday night. Her mother's working another double shift, and her asshole of a stepfather is sitting on the couch, guzzling beer and smoking a cigarette. She'd hoped he'd be asleep, or maybe passed out, by now, and she'd be safe for the night, but it appears her prayers are once again not to be answered. She knows she smells like pot, and her vision is blurry due to the little yellow pill she popped, and she doesn't care when he instantly starts screaming at her. Her whole head is foggy and everything's out of focus but she tries her best to concentrate on her stepfather's words.

"Where the fuck have you been?" He snarls when she attempts to walk past him and into her room.

She doesn't bother to respond, continuing on, but as she reaches the door, she feels his hand grasp her wrist as he yanks her around to face him.

"I asked you a question. Where were you?"

"Out," she mutters defiantly, knowing she'll regret her moment of rebellion. She should know better than to talk back, and usually she keeps quiet, but every so often things slip out. Especially when she's high, and recently, getting high is the only thing that makes her life still feel worth living.

"Out," he repeats. "At this time of night. Fucking whore." His face is too close to hers. She can feel his hot breath on her neck and his grip on her arm is uncomfortably tight. He opens the door to her room and pushes her inside, slamming it behind him though no one's home nor will be for hours.

He slaps her across the face and forces her to the bed and she doesn't fight back because she's tried before and it's no use. Instead she retreats to a place far away in the back of her mind, closing her eyes and waiting for it to be over. She feels his hands reaching under her skirt, forcefully pulling down the fishnet tights she has on, along with her underwear. She instinctively tries to clench her thighs shut, but he's obviously stronger than her and pries them apart, touching her roughly with his calloused fingers. With her eyes still squeezed shut and her buzz still going strong, she manages to convince herself that she's not where she is.

She's with Carlos. She's with Carlos and they're in the backseat of Wayne's car while Wayne is off who knows where. It's Carlos' hand teasing between her legs, Carlos' warm body pressing into hers, Carlos' breath and lips on her neck. And so it's Carlos her body responds to.

"You like that, slut? You're getting wet for me." His voice breaks her out of her reverie and ruins the picture in her head, forcing her back to the present. Again she automatically tries to resist him but he slaps her again and she stops struggling.

Tears well in her eyes as his hands move his belt buckle, releasing his erect member, and that's when she squeezes her eyes shut again. But closing her eyes sends her other senses into higher gear. She hears him rip open a condom packet, smells his beer-breath, feels his hands pinning her wrists into place. She stifles a cry when he thrusts into her roughly, doing her best to remain perfectly still as he moves on top of her. She doesn't know how long it goes on—she never knows, because no matter long it is, it feels like several eternities. When he finally finishes and pulls out of her with a grunt, she's trembling all over, wanting to disappear. Wishing the mattress would just swallow her whole.

He sneers at her as he pulls his pants back up. She doesn't move until he's left her room and shut the door behind him, leaving her in solitude again. It takes her a few moments to remind herself how to move, but eventually her body starts to respond to her brain's commands. She sits up and kicks off her tights and underwear, which had been left bunched around her ankles, and begins stripping off the rest of her clothes. She goes into the bathroom attached her to bedroom, grateful that she doesn't have to step foot into the hallway, and turns the shower on. She steps inside and turns the heat on as far as she can stand, thinking that maybe if it's hot enough, the water will wash away the disgusting way she feels.

It doesn't.

She scrubs until her skin feels raw, but nothing helps. She still feels dirty. Repulsive.

She ties her wet hair out of her face, not bothering to brush it out or dry it, and puts on a tank top and some pajama shorts. Back in her room, she pulls open a drawer on her night stand, and her hands are still shaking and she can barely focus on what she's doing, but she just feels so fucking gross that she needs to do something to make it go away.

She finds the small zip-lock bag she's looking for, plucking out a white pill and swallowing it with a swig of vodka from a bottle she keeps under her bed. Shaking her head a little, she continues rifling through the drawer until she finds a small matchbox. She grabs it and the bottle and goes back into bathroom, shutting the door and sitting against it on the floor.

Lucy opens the box and takes another swig from her bottle, staring down at its contents, both hating and loving them simultaneously. She carefully pulls out the small razor blade and holds it gingerly in her fingertips.

She's not supposed to want this.

Another gulp of the harsh alcohol convinces her that this is what she needs to make it all okay. Her grandmother's sad face floats across her eyes and Lucy's eyes well up again. Her grandmother is the one who started noticing her erratic behavior, spending exorbitant amounts of money to put Lucy in therapy at the Palm Woods. She's supposed to be trying to get better, or at least act like she's better, for her grandmother's sake.

It's hard though, because as much as her grandmother tries, she'll never know why Lucy is the way she is. Why she has to do what she does.

She inspects her arms, trying to decide on a good spot. After yet another gulp of the burning liquid, she presses the blade into the skin near her shoulder, wincing at the sharp pain. With a quick inhale, she drags the blade across her arm, making a cut about two inches long.

The first time Jack ever touched her, she was eleven years old. He had been married to her mother for six months. She was already in bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep, when her door creaked open and he stepped inside. Even back then, her mother often worked night shifts, and Lucy was left in the care of her new stepfather.

She watched apprehensively as he approached her. He was drunk, as usual.

"How ya doin,' Lucy-Goosey?"

"I can't sleep," she mumbled back.

He sat next to her on the edge of her bed and even then, it felt weird. She didn't want him there. She tried to scoot away from him, but he told her to relax, that he'd make her feel good, and she'd be able to sleep. She was paralyzed with fear when his hands moved up under her night shirt, running over the skin of her stomach, higher and higher until they reached her barely-budding breasts, tracing her nipples and back down again. She jolted away from him then, but he grabbed her hair and forced her back into place.

Lucy watches in morbid fascination as the blood drips down her arm. She wipes it away slowly before returning the blade to her arm, just underneath the spot she just sliced open.

"Now be a good girl, Lucy," Jack said. "I wouldn't want to hurt you."

By this time she was crying, pleading with him to stop, but his only response was to shush her gently, as if she were a child acting up in a movie theater. She tried to shove him away, tried screaming, tried everything she could think of.

"Get off me! Please!"

Jack pulled her hair and slapped her face when her nails dug into his cheek. "Shut the fuck up and sit still," he ordered.

This time his hand moved down between her legs and she struggled harder to get away from him.

The second cut feels better than the first. She's feeling lightheaded and she's breathing steadier. The slight rush of adrenaline from the injury has calmed her down, letting her focus her thoughts on it rather than what she just went through.

"Stop! I'll tell my mom!" She threatened.

Jack's hand went to her throat, squeezing the breath from her. "If you fucking tell anyone, you will be sorry. And so will your mother."

He left her room finally and Lucy succumbed to the sobs wracking her body.

The third cut is the best. It's also the deepest. She fuels her attention on the pain in her arm, wiping away blood and putting a bandage over the wound. She rinses the blade and returns it to its home, going back into her bedroom to put the box back into her night stand. The bottle of vodka goes back under her bed, but only after she chokes down a few more mouthfuls of it. She can barely stand to look at her bed, but she yanks the sheets and blanket off the mattress and throws them to the ground, not wanting to sleep on them. Instead she digs a sleeping bag out of her closet and curls up inside it.

She goes through the school the next day in a daze. Her head hurts and her arm is sore, her back and neck are stiff from lying on the floor all night, she's ridiculously tired, and she wants nothing more than to sleep and never wake up. She ignores everyone that day, including Carlos. It's always hard to be around him after nights like the one she just had, and she knows it's because if anyone could get her to crack her shell and talk about what's happening, it's him. She'd rather avoid him than open up that can of worms—he already knows too much anyway, already seen the scars on her body. At lunch, she and some of the guys sneak off campus to smoke a joint and she wonders if it's possible to smoke enough to just float away into the atmosphere. A text from Wayne during last period lets her know there's another party that night, and since it's Jack's night to work late, she agrees to go.

She's already high when she gets there, and she barely recognizes anyone. She puffs on a cigarette and heads over to where people seem to be congregating, thinking it must be where the alcohol is being kept. She's correct in her assumption. Lucy mixes herself a drink and looks around again. Carlos is in a corner dancing closely with some random girl who's grinding her ass into his crotch, and Lucy is vaguely jealous before remembering that Carlos isn't actually her boyfriend. They've never talked about what they are to each other, but ever since they hooked up the first time, it was just sort of understood between them that they weren't going to be a real couple.

Someone taps her shoulder from behind. It's Wayne. He pulls her in for a hug, twirling her around, making her head spin more than it already is. She can't help but giggle at him and he leads her away towards a back room. There a few other people in there, passing around a bottle of whiskey. Lucy takes a gulp from the bottle when it's handed to her, impressing the guys, who love it when girls can hang with the best of them, and then downs the rest of what's in her cup as a chaser.

She and Wayne sit down on a bean-bag chair together and his hand is on the small of her back and hers is resting on his thigh and she thinks for a fleeting second that there's a line here somewhere that they've never crossed before but, fuck it, there's a first time for everything. One of the guys pulls out a small bag of white powder and starts laying out lines on the coffee table. Seeing this, a couple of people leave the room, not down for what's about to happen in here, but Lucy leans forward. The guy grins at her and hands her a small slip of paper that she rolls up tightly.

"Ladies first," he says.

Lucy kneels down close to the surface of the table, bringing the paper to her nose and snorting up the line of cocaine quickly. Sitting back up, she wipes her face with the back of her hand and watches as everyone else has their turn, letting the effects of the drug course through her.


She wakes up before sunrise and she doesn't know where she is. She's in a bed. It's warm. She's naked. There's a body next to her, and the face is turned away from her. Where is she? The room's spinning but it still somehow seems familiar and it takes her several seconds to force herself to move. She slips out of the bed carefully, not wanting to wake the sleeping boy next to her, who she still hasn't fully recognized, and starts putting on her clothes. She can't find her bra and she really, really doesn't want to leave it here like some kind of gross souvenir from a night she has no recollection of, but then the boy rolls over, revealing his face, and she pauses for a moment to mentally roll her eyes at herself before deciding just to leave the damn thing. She yanks on the rest of her clothes and sneaks out his window, thankful that his room is on the bottom floor.

The thought of actually going to school today seems like torture, but she'll get suspended if she ditches again, so Lucy drags herself home to shower and change. Her mother and stepfather are, mercifully, asleep when she enters the house, and she doubts whether they even realized she was gone.

She gets ready for school through the fog clouding her senses. She feels like shit getting onto the bus, and it's only made worse when Carlos clambers on and moves toward her.

"Hey," he sits down next to her, letting his hand rest on her knee.

"Hey," she says back.

"You look how I feel," Carlos comments. "No offense."

"None taken," she responds dryly. "It's good to know I'm not the only one still feeling totally wrecked."

"You were so fucked up when you left with Wayne. Did he take you home?" Carlos chuckles.

Fuck, he saw her leave? She doesn't even remember leaving with Wayne. "Wh—oh. Yeah."

She's not sure why she lied about it; Carlos wouldn't care if he knew she slept with Wayne. Would he? They're certainly not exclusive, in any sense of the word (Lord knew she'd heard about his little tryst in the woods with some girl in a red shirt), but so far they've at least refrained from fucking each other's best friends. Common courtesy.

During lunch that day, Lucy sits with Carlos and a couple of other people. She hasn't seen Wayne all day and hopes to keep it that way. Andy comes up to the table and plops down beside her.

"Got something for ya," he grins. He begins digging around in his backpack while she and Carlos wait. "Aha! Found it." With a smirk on his face he triumphantly pulls out the bra she left at Wayne's house and tosses it into her lap.

The table erupts into laughter as she blushes furiously. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" She hisses, quickly balling it up and shoving it out of sight into her own bag.

"Where'd that come from?" Carlos chuckles. "You go on a panty raid this morning?"

"Wayne thought you'd like to have it back," Andy explains, looking Lucy in the eye.

The smile is wiped off Carlos' face as he puts two and two together. He looks at Lucy strangely for a second, but before he can say anything Lucy stands abruptly from the table and hurries out of the cafeteria. From the corner of her eye, she notices that Camille and Logan are sitting together, and she makes brief eye contact with Camille, who looks concerned.

Lucy marches towards the girls' bathroom and shoves the door open forcefully, startling a freshman girl who's washing her hands. Lucy glares at her until the girl, frightened, practically runs out of the room. She goes into a stall and sits down on the lid of the toilet, reaching into her bag and pulling out her small matchbox. It's been a long time since she's done it at school, but today feels like a special occasion.

She makes one small cut on her forearm, inhaling slowly while the blood pools. She's pressing the blade to her skin again when she hears the bathroom door open. She's momentarily stunned when a voice is speaking to her.

"Lucy? Are you in there?"

"Camille? Is that you?"

"Yeah."

Lucy quickly puts away the blade and rips off some toilet paper to wipe her arm and steps out into the main area of the bathroom.

"What are you doing in here?" She asks. She and Camille have never spoken outside of the Palm Woods.

"Just wanted to check on you. You looked upset," Camille glances down at Lucy's arm, which is still bleeding. "Do you have a band-aid?"

"Yeah," Lucy mumbles, fishing one out.

Camille doesn't ask what happened, and Lucy's not sure whether she's grateful for that or not. She sort of wants to talk about it, but she's never had any real girl-friends and isn't really sure how the whole confiding-in-other-people thing is supposed to go. She settles for patting Camille awkwardly on the back when the smaller girl quickly pulls her into a light hug.

"Are you going to be okay?"

Lucy shrugs. "Eventually." She hopes.

The bell rings, signaling the end of the lunch period and both girls exit the bathroom and head their separate ways.


Carlos doesn't sit with her on the bus that afternoon and she wonders what he's heard or what Wayne's told him, that dick. Why would he send Andy on his little delivery mission, anyway? Was he trying to humiliate her, or did he actually think it was funny? He's got a great sense of humor, if that's the case. Jackass.

By Friday afternoon, Carlos still hasn't spoken to her. He doesn't really seem angry with her, which she guesses is at least a small silver lining to the dark cloud of her life, but he doesn't seem all that interested in making up either. Not that he can avoid her for long. The Palm Woods will see to that.

She checks in alone because her mother is at work and her stepfather can't be bothered to make sure she goes. She's only doing it to make her grandmother feel better, otherwise she'd stop showing up completely. The lady at the front desk checks her bag as always, and hands her the key to her room. Her roommate's not there when she walks in, which is good, because even for someone in therapy, this chick is weird. They haven't talked much, but from what she's gathered, Lucy thinks she's a stalker or something.

In the lobby, James and Jo are sitting across from each other in some armchairs, and Jo is actually speaking to James, it looks like. Kendall walks up to them and smiles at Jo, who looks like she wants to smile back, but can't quite bring herself to do it. She's retreating mentally, Lucy can tell, and she wonders what it is Jo's been through that makes her this way.

She decides to go sit with her friends, but just as she reaches them, Carlos walks in with his parents. His father still has on his police uniform, and is gripping Carlos' shoulder as they walk in, as if to stop him from sprinting away the first chance he gets. He gets his key and glances toward the group, making eye contact with Lucy, and she thinks he might come over to them, but then he turns to go to his room without greeting anyone. This is minorly upsetting, but he'll have to face her sooner or later.

In group, Dr. Johnson decides to have them talk about the best and worst parts of their week. Lucy smiles mirthlessly because there are just so many horrible things that happened this week, how can she possibly pick which one is the worst? Similarly… there aren't a lot of options for what the best part would be.

When it's Carlos' turn, he says that the best part of his week was that his brother actually spoke to him (he asked him to pass the salad dressing), and that the worst was "being betrayed by someone I'm close to." Lucy doesn't miss how his eyes flicker to her when he says it.

They continue around the circle—the best part of Camille's week was seeing that she'd lost a pound. The worst part…was seeing that she'd lost a pound.

Jack didn't touch her again for three months after that first time. Lucy started wondering if it had all just been a nightmare, if she really had fallen asleep that night and dreamed the whole horrible occurrence up. But no, it wasn't a dream, it really did happen, and even if she thought she was dreaming before, she definitely wasn't dreaming anymore.

He entered room late at night again, while her mother was, of course, at work, doing her best to support herself and her daughter and new husband. She watched him with fearful eyes as he approached, wanting to scream and run and knowing it wouldn't be any use.

When she did whimper or make any noise of protest, or do anything suggesting she might try to get away, he made sure to slap her or pull her hair, or threaten her with her life. Finally he had to pull out the big guns: her mother's life. If she didn't shut up, if she ever dared tell anyone, her mother would pay the price. Did she really want that hanging over head? Of course not. So be good, Lucy-Goosey, be a good girl, and no one has to get hurt.

Everyone's staring at Lucy and she realizes it must be her turn to speak. "The best part of the week…" What was it? Was there anything good about this week at all that she can say? She's sitting beside Camille, who offers her a small smile in solidarity, and suddenly Lucy knows. "The best part of the week was feeling like someone cared about me. At least enough to ask if I was going to be okay."

Dr. Johnson nods. "And the worst?"

Lucy looks directly at Carlos when she answers. "Feeling like I lost someone I know cared about me."

Carlos blinks rapidly a couple of times in surprise, meeting Lucy's gaze. Their silent exchange doesn't go unnoticed by the rest of the group, though it does fly over the head of Dr. Johnson.

When Dr. Johnson leaves the group alone, everyone is uncomfortably staring between Lucy and Carlos.

"Is it always this awkward?" Logan stage-whispers to Kendall.

"No… usually we goof off and play cards or Truth or Dare or something," Kendall says, not taking his eyes off of Carlos, who's bouncing his knee and fidgeting like he can't wait to get out of there.

"Are you really not going to say anything to me?" Lucy finally asks Carlos. She's never been one to beat around the bush.

Carlos merely shrugs in response. "I don't have anything to say."

"Right," she mutters. If he doesn't want to talk, she's not going to beg.

"Maybe we should talk about something constructive," Logan speaks up again. "Isn't that the point of this?"

Lucy fights not to roll her eyes at him. He's a nice guy and all, but too much of a rule-follower for her taste.

"Fine," she says, sitting up in her chair. "Let's talk about something constructive. How many times did you think about killing yourself this week? Honestly." Her question and tone are rude, but she doesn't care. If Logan wants to have a group discussion, then he can start.

Logan looks taken aback and everyone else is glancing back and forth between them, torn between wanting to chastise Lucy for her harshness, and curiosity at what Logan's answer might be.

"Every day," Logan mumbles to the floor, exhaling loudly. "I think about it every day."

"You do?" Camille asks quietly.

He nods. "It's just… ever since I tried it… it's hard to explain."

James leans forward interestedly. "It felt like taking control of something for once," he offers.

Logan nods again. "Have you ever…?"

"No," James shakes his head. "But I—I know how you feel, I think. You just bottle everything up until…until you can't keep it in anymore. You just kind of snap. And maybe you try to… you know. Kill yourself. Or maybe you drink until the one thing that was important to you suddenly seems pointless," he says, looking at Kendall. "Or you press a blade to your arm," this time he glances toward Lucy, and she stiffens up. "Or," he smiles humorlessly, "you beat the ever-living fuck out of someone and get yourself suspended."

"When I finally decided to do it," Logan says, "I felt…not good, exactly, but… calm, I guess. Like it was the first time in a long time that I felt like I was doing something for me."

"Why did you?"

It comes out as a whisper and everyone is startled into silence. Six pairs of eyes turn towards Jo Taylor, each of them expressing disbelief. She never volunteers words, much less asks questions and invites discussion. She visibly shrinks back into her seat, uncomfortable with the attention she's receiving from everyone.

Logan scratches the back of his neck, searching for something to say. "It was… a moment."

Jo blinks at him and everyone else remains silent. He pushes on.

"I had a moment where I just figured nothing was worth it anymore, nothing was okay, and I didn't feel like anything would be okay ever again. And it didn't matter that my parents would come home and find me, that they'd have to tell my friends, that I just scored in the 99th percentile on my SATs, you know? All that mattered was me thinking this was it, it's been a long time coming, and was today the day I would do it? And I just dared myself. Do something, Logan, for once in your life, make a decision."

"So you took the dare," Kendall joins in the conversation.

"Why do you think about it every day?" Lucy wonders. She's surprised at the sound of her own voice; she meant for the question for remain in her head.

Logan meets her eyes and holds the gaze. "I like knowing that the day is mine to choose," he says seriously. "Even if I never… if I never act on it again, I know that the choice is always there. No one can take that away from me."

Lucy can relate to that. The cuts on her arms, the pills she takes—she always stops short doing something she might never recover from. Not because she has grand illusions about how her life will get better, or that her suffering means something, or anything like that...

She's just never taken the dare.


Carlos continues to ignore Lucy for the remainder of the weekend, and she begins to think this is pretty unfair of him. Sure, it was a mistake to sleep with Wayne, but did it really merit her receiving the silent treatment? Though, in his defense, Lucy isn't sure how'd she feel if Carlos fucked her best friend. But it's not something she has to worry about, since she doesn't have any girl friends, unless you count Camille and Jo, and they certainly aren't the type of girl he usually goes for.

Still, she doesn't apologize for it. He's not her boyfriend, he doesn't own her, and she doesn't owe him any explanations. If he wanted to set ground rules for whatever they were, he should have said so from the beginning.

By Sunday evening, Lucy and James are the last two from their group still at the Palm Woods. James is angrily typing away on his cell phone, which he just retrieved from the front desk, and frowning down at the screen.

"He fucking forgot me," James scowls as Lucy sits down next to him.

"Your dad?"

"Yeah. Asshole. He's on his way. Probably too busy fucking his new wife to remember to pick up his kid… What are you still doing here? Don't you check yourself in and out?"

Lucy shrugs. "I'll wait with you. It's not like I have much to go home to."

Mostly she's dreading going home because she's not sure if her mother will be there or not… and if she's not, well, Lucy would rather not be alone in the house with Jack.

She's not yet wearing her coat, and for once she's not wearing long sleeves, so she knows James can see the pale scars scattered down her arms. She doesn't stop him when he traces a fingertip lightly over a more recent one, and she knows he's wondering why she does it.

But it's a secret she won't tell. Not to her friends, her mother, her therapist.

It hurt the first time. She was fourteen and had just gotten home from a movie with a few friends. It was a silly comedy and Bryce had held her hand and asked if he could call her the next day. She giddily agreed, forgetting momentarily that she wasn't normal, that she was tainted, dirty, not good enough for a cool guy like Bryce.

She'd barely begun undressing and getting ready for bed when he came into the room. Angry. Drunk. Why was she out so late? Who was she with? Just some friends, bullshit. Little whore, I'll show you how whores behave.

The slap to her face almost knocked her to the ground, but he caught her before she could even hit the floor, dragging her to the bed and forcing her down before unzipping his jeans and forcing himself inside her. He ignored the cry of pain and terror that escaped her throat. She felt like she was being ripped in half, having no time to prepare for the intrusion. It hurt, hurt, hurt so bad, make it stop, please God, make him stop.

She said no. Over and over again, no, no, no, please don't, please stop, you're hurting me, and years later she could never be sure if the words ever actually came out or if they only existed in her head.

When he finally left her alone, she crawled into the shower and put the water on the hottest setting, not even feeling the heat scald her back. She ripped all the sheets off her bed, ignoring the spots of blood, ignoring the stinging pain and soreness between her legs, and fell to the ground, wanting to scream, but not daring to for fear that he might come back.

A nearly-complete art project lay undisturbed a few feet away, construction paper and glue and paint and pencils, and…scissors.

She doesn't realize she's been shaking until James wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her out of her memories. Sometimes they just attack her and she can't do anything but watch them play in her head, like a horror movie she can't turn off.

Her therapist knows a version of the truth, but it's nothing compared to real-life. Her therapist thinks it was an older boyfriend who pressured her into things before she was ready; and in a sick way, that's kind of true. Not that Lucy considers Jack to be her boyfriend—even she's not that fucked up—but in the sense that he was supposed to be someone she trusted, yes, it's sort of true. He made her do things she wasn't ready for, things that were supposed to be special and reserved for someone she decided to give them to.

Eventually she stopped protesting. Eventually she stopped fighting it. She didn't like getting hit, being held down. She didn't want him threatening her mother. So she learned how to block it out, how to go somewhere else in her head whenever he came to visit her.

James' warm weight comforts her slightly and she allows him to stroke her hair while they sit in companionable silence.

"Why do you do it?" He asks her suddenly. He's looking at her scars again and she can't do anything to distract him.

"Why'd you beat up Ross Donovan and Coach Owens?" She returns.

He frowns. "I was mad," he says after a moment. "It was the only thing I could think to do."

Lucy raises her arm and runs her thumb down her forearm. Three, four, seven, nine scars that she can see, not counting the ones on her upper arm near her shoulder, or the ones on her other arm. Or the ones on her thighs. Or on her stomach.

"It's the only thing I can think to do sometimes, too," she tells him.


This is stupid. I'm not a writer.

I don't need to express myself.

How is this supposed to help me? Writing it down doesn't make it any less true. It doesn't make it hurt less.

My stepfather rapes me, I cut myself, I'm on drugs (prescription and otherwise), I sleep with random guys, mostly out of boredom, blah blah, blah. Putting it on paper didn't make anything change.

I still feel like shit. Thanks, therapy. You're a real pal.

Oh, hey, now I'm talking to a sheet of paper. Awesome.

Screw this.


Thanks for reading everyone! Sorry I kinda blew it on responding to reviews this week, but I promise to pick up the slack! So pretty please keep reviewing and sending me questions on Tumblr. Love you guys. See you next Tuesday!