Chapter 37

Ileft after that. I walked through the middle of the cafeteria and past Hunter's table, but he didn't glance up. The walk home was mindless and mind-racing at the same time. I felt nothing and everything all at once.

The house was quiet, and I headed straight for my bedroom. I didn't bother to take off my coat and shoes until I locked the door behind me.

It wasn't because Hunter broke up with me, and it wasn't because Margo was a total bitch. Chris said I was dramatic, but I'd been reasonable. For two years, I'd been fucking reasonable.

I wrenched open my top dresser drawer, then dug through it until my fingers stilled on sharp metal. The blade was old, and I inspected it before rifling through my medicine cabinet in search of another. Sure, maybe I was vile, but I wasn't unsanitary. I knocked over boxes and bottles, and a container of eye shadow fell into the sink. It cracked into tiny pieces of blue.

I stared at it. I remembered begging my mom to buy it for me when we stopped at Walgreens. I'd sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor with Margo and Casey as we spread the blue powder over our eyelids, perfectly complementing our uneven eyeliner and burned curls. I still had a photo tacked to my wall of the three of us grinning at the camera. Chris had told us we looked like ladies of the night, and at the time, we were thrilled, thinking we'd been compared to the kind of regular adult women who frequented fancy restaurants and upscale bars.

I'm not sure what it was about those stupid memories, but I started crying, and once I started, I couldn't stop. The tears dripped down my face, soaking my cheeks and neck.

I found something sharper, and as I pushed up my sleeves, I admired the mangle of lines. I traced the one I'd inflicted the night prior with the tip of my finger, the line still red and angry. I carved a line to match, except this time, I pressed harder. Usually I cut without emotion, but rage coursed through me with urgency. Blood welled to the surface, and I slid down the wall. I sighed, leaning my head back and letting my eyes flutter closed as everything poured out.

* * *

I openedmy eyes some time later, jerking forward. "Oh, fuck ... motherfuck—"

I reached for the closest towel and hissed as I applied pressure, but the blood soaked through too quickly. There was way too much, and it was way too dark, and as I started to stand, I teetered to one side, feeling light-headed.

I stabilized myself against the sink with both hands, but the towel dropped to the floor. Everything was too slippery, and the corners of my vision went black. And that's the exact moment I panicked. Thick tears mixed with snot, and when I glanced up at my reflection, I froze, staring at the person staring back at me. Her eyes were a draining brown and her face was cadaver white, and I blinked at her, unsure if the words were out loud or in my head. "Holy shit. You did it. You're actually dying."

I flew from the bathroom. My backpack was in the middle of the floor, and I yanked at the zippers, blinking through blurry tears. My phone wasn't in any of the compartments, and sobs ripped from my throat. I crawled for my coat, then rummaged through the pockets, but still nothing. I curled into the fetal position, my sobs too debilitating for me to do anything other than lie there as I bled out onto my bedroom carpet.

I felt the same way I had during the few hangovers I'd experienced: utter regret mixed with the promise I wouldn't drink that much or even attend a party ever again. Chris told me life restarted after a bad hangover, and maybe this was similar. I wasn't vomiting, but I still hated myself, and I still clung to promises that all the wrong I'd done to myself, well, I'd never do it again.

My thoughts drifted to my life before, reveling in the memories. I thought of Chris on a bright stage, beaming out at a standing audience right before he bowed. As he straightened, his eyes always scanned the rows, searching for someone in particular. And when they stilled on me beaming back, he always winked.

I thought of my mom, sitting at our kitchen table, her colorful reading glasses perched on her nose as she threaded a piece of string through a painted Luke Skywalker. I pictured her stepping back from our Christmas tree, admiring my artwork upright and center.

I thought of Hunter's gaze, intent on mine as the sun glowed orange between us.

And I thought of the morning announcements a few weeks ago, Scott grinning as he held up his signed Penn State papers.

And then my thoughts drifted forward, imagining life after. Scott would go to college and hold hands with girls and laugh at parties, and I'd be a black-and-white obituary photograph. The same girls would whisper as Hunter walked past them in gym class. Can you believe she killed herself? And he'd have to stand there and take his free throws with nothing but memories of my lips against his.

He'd kiss someone else eventually, and right before his lips met hers, he'd whisper that the last girl he kissed ended up killing herself. Maybe he'd cry. Maybe he wouldn't. Either way, I was sure he'd be mad at me, because even though the things everyone said about me were true, we'd had a deal, hadn't we? Weren't we specifically trying not to kill ourselves?

Chris would definitely cry, and I sobbed harder thinking about it. I'd wreck my mom. I wouldn't just hurt her; I'd destroy her. She'd stop going to work and she'd live at my grave, talking to me as though I was still there. She'd tell me all the things I could've been and all the things I could've done. And I'd watch her with sadness, because how could I have been anything when I couldn't even manage decency?

And then, there'd be my funeral. My dad would fly in from California, and he'd sit in the front row with Chris and my mom, staring forward in a daze because he didn't even know me. He didn't know I'd stopped hanging out with friends. He didn't know I'd started lying in bed for hours at a time, and he didn't know Chris had had to sneak into my room and yank my blinds open. I must have been so exhausting for Chris, but I could hear his teasing voice as though he was standing right in front of me. Stop being so dismal, Alice.

The pews in the church would be full, and people would have to stand in back because the town was small and I was young. Everyone would be there—Hunter and Melody and Hudson and Kohen and Max and Brian and Margo and Casey and Mrs. Baker. Suzanne would post a photo about how we were such good friends, and as everyone took their seats, the church doors would open with a bang. Scott Henderson would slink into my funeral, and I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it because I'd be dead.

There was a shirt above my head, and I scrambled forward, grabbed it, and tied it around my wrist with clumsy movements. I pressed into the fabric, hard enough to make myself wince, and then I pressed harder, promising not to let go. It grew red, but the flow was getting slower, and I wrapped another shirt around it, tying it tight and pressing into it.

Everyone would read my obituary, and it'd list who I was related to and my mediocrity at Franklin High, but it wouldn't say why I did it. People would exchange confused glances and hushed guesses, but they'd get it wrong, wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong.

I wanted Scott Henderson's face plastered next to me on that obituary page. Maybe that picture of the two of us.

I had let the truth get twisted. I'd let rumors and doubts and self-hatred cloud my head, but there had been two of us there that night, and I remembered every second of what happened. I was dying because I'd let Scott Henderson take all of me. Not just once, two years ago, but over and over. Every day since. The evidence was right there in front of me, dozens of straight lines on my arms like the bruises on Hunter's face. The razor cutting across again and again and again, never relenting. I wanted blood, but for the first time, I didn't want mine.