Fuck. I should have never gotten these stupid tattoos.
I was a cutter before I started dating James. I was so far up in my head. The depression, the anxiety, all of it, it got to me so much.
I thought that if I died, nobody would care. My parents weren’t even around to notice.
And as bad as my mom was, I worried for her. At that point in my life, my mom hadn’t been home in nine months, and I thought she was dead. She had never been away for that long of a time before, and I was lowkey a little scared. I didn’t want her dead.
So when I started dating James and I had a tank top on when we hung out one time, he saw the scars on the back of my arm. He started crying when he saw them. Some of them were still scabbed up and not fully scarred yet.
He hated that I felt so bad about myself. Again, he never knew the real reason, but he hated the fact that I hated myself so much.
So when he saw my scars, he got a pen out and drew little stars around them. I thought it was so adorable that I teared up a little bit.
So I got a permission slip from a tattoo parlor for parent permission because I was still a minor, faked my mom’s signature, and went in the next day and got those little stars tattooed. Not with the professional straight lines either, I made the guy who did mine do them in the squiggly, imperfect lines that James did them in. And James loved them.
I did, too, until now. I hated that I had a permanent reminder of him.
I decided that I would show him how much I hated that.
I went and got a semi-sharp knife from the kitchen drawer where I kept them. I went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror to where I could see the tattoos.
I put that knife to my skin and cut where the tattooed lines were. It didn’t hurt, per say, but it stung a lot. I traced all of the lines for each of the three stars, with a little bit of blood trickling down my arm when I was done.
I couldn’t believe that I was back at this point. I hadn’t cut since I went on my first date with James.
It was going so good, now I’m back at square one.
I didn’t wipe the blood off, I let the little stream of it trickle down my arm, letting the hints of pain sting.
Somehow, it felt good.
I watched the blood drip onto the ugly ass orange patterned tile of the bathroom floor. Then I smiled like a psycho.
I picked up the knife from where I put it on the counter top. I quickly sliced a few marks on the inside of my forearm. There was an instant sting, an instant tingling pain, the instant feeling of satisfaction.
I sliced a few more times on the other arm, with the same wave of pain and relief washing over me.
If I’m doing something bad, then why does it feel so good?
I watched the blood rush out of my open skin and it dripped on the floor.
I was in a trance, watching my own blood exit my body, with nobody there to notice.
Nobody there to care.
Nobody there to ask if I was okay.
Not that anybody cared anyway.
It felt so twisted to stand there and not do anything while my own blood dripped onto the floor.
Slowly, drip after drip.
The blood, so scarlet it was maroon.
After what felt like hours, I snapped out of my trance and I cleaned my cuts while they were scabbing up.
Then I cleaned off my small puddle of blood from the ugly tile.
I went into the living room and picked up my phone.
Of course there were a million notifications.
Too many from James, some from Danielle and Alana.
There were a lot from Este, which is expected, she’s my best friend.
There was one that stuck out: a text from Augustine.
I opened my phone and went to my messages. Her text said ‘I’m sorry’.
I was starstruck. Of all people, I didn’t expect her to apologize for ruining my life.
I left her on read, then went straight to my contacts to block James’s needy ass. I felt so much unsettling joy in blocking him.
I went to check my Instagram to archive posts of me and him together.
A single DM interrupted my mission. It caught me so off guard.
It was a message from rebekah07.
It said “Hi, Betty.”
I pulled up her account, and sure enough, it was who I thought it was.
Another person who had betrayed me. I hadn’t talked to her in 10 years.
I video called her, and her overly similar face filled my screen.
“What’s up, sis?” I said.
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