The Box

TW: SH and SI

The Syringe.

It’s cold and I’m on my way to school. I keep my head down against the wind. That’s why I see it. The syringe.

I stop. My heart is the loudest thing in my vicinity. I happen to know that if I stick a needle in my arm and release an air bubble it will go to my heart and I will die.

I should leave.

I should walk away.

But there’s a notebook in my backpack. And on the very last page, there is a countdown. I’m a senior but the countdown isn’t for graduation or days until college. It chronicles the days left that I intend to breathe.

I stuff it in my bag and hurry to the bus.

Two Stuffed Animals and an Apology Letter.

I wish I remembered more about us. His hair is a soft golden brown. His eyes a vivid green. He smells like Irish Spring soap and the freckles on his face go down his back. See? I remember him.

But I don’t remember the dirty details or the specifics of my sins against him.

“I want an open relationship,” I say to him.

He’s crying again. All he ever does is cry. He cries more than me. I yell and he cries and it makes me hate the color of his eyes.

“Okay,” he agrees, giving me anything I want. And though I am the one that set these conditions it makes me want to scream.

The apology letter is a formality. Something he knows is the only thing that will end the fighting. At least for the day.

A few weeks later he throws a chair across a room because I am bleeding in his bathroom over a man that isn’t him. This new man told me it isn’t going to work.

I’m only twenty and I’m not sure that I work.

The Razor Blades.

“We were just a fling.” I don’t know why it hurts. He only kissed me once. We met four weeks ago.

There’s a mirror across from me atop a dresser. A dresser full of porcelain dolls that are prettier than me. I watch myself cry in the mirror.

I call three people before I make my move but no one answers and now there are drops of blood on the floor.

It’s not as deep as I thought. I should probably go to the hospital anyway. But I don’t.

Gauze.

I stay with a friend that night.

We walk to his house. He lets me wear his t-shirt and cleans and bandages my arm. He doesn’t say much. His mother makes me dinner. He asks me why but I don’t have a good answer. I fall asleep covered in the blanket with the sunflowers on it. I take a picture of the blanket in the morning. I post it on Instagram with a caption that says it’s been a long weekend and that I am too tired to do my homework. My mother comments: Don’t overdo it. I like those straight A’s.

I wear the bandage he made for as long as I can. It feels like a friend holding my hand.

Striped Underwear and a Condom Wrapper.

I’m on the bus to the house of the guy who called me a fling. We started talking again just a few days ago. I left my boyfriend. Officially. It’s over. I feel like a runaway. The cut on my wrist is mostly scabbed over but it twinges once in a while and the muscle around it is still sore.

It’s snowing when I get to his house. He lets me in and kisses me on the mouth. I’m nervous. He shares a room with his brother so we make a fort out of blankets in the living room.

Sweater.

The next morning, I steal his sweater. I tell him I’m borrowing it. That I’ll wash it and give it back. But I don’t. It smells like him and when he wears it you can see the tattoo, he got for me on his chest. He wants to go to LA. And I don’t want to be anywhere. I said I’d go with him. We’re making a plan.

Read more from The Sad Girl Saga:

People Need A Melody

Almost Girl

A Letter To: The Guy That Got His First Tattoo for Me

A Letter To: The Guy That Keeps Me Up at Night