I control how I feel.  I don’t let some guy turn my insides to mush.  I refuse to be one of those giddy, bouncing, gushy girls over some kiss.  With a stranger nonetheless.  So I spent the week trying to forget.

I picked up extra hours at work to help cover my car repair, which ended up being a problem with fuel injectors or something like that.  I don’t understand the first thing about cars so when Wyatt explained it to me, it went right over my head.  My knowledge covers how to check the oil and fill the gas tank.  Anything other than that, I call Wyatt.  My car so much as sneezes, and I have Wyatt take a look.

When I wasn’t at work or at the mechanic’s shop checking in with Wyatt, I was sleeping.  And if I wasn’t sleeping, I was cleaning.  I sorted through my clothes and made a pile for the garbage and a pile for Goodwill.  I scrubbed the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, swept and mopped the floors…twice.  My place is small, and I don’t make much of a mess, so why I needed to do it twice, I don’t know.  The crazy in me just keeps peeking out more and more lately.

After I finished I went through my kindle, made a list of all the books in my library I haven’t read yet, and got started on one of those since I don’t have any money this week for the new release I’ve been patiently waiting to go live for months.

Now it’s Wednesday.  The first day of school.  The first day of my senior year.  It’s not as exciting as I imagined it would be.  I know when this semester is over, I’ll still be stuck in this town, doing the same old thing until I can save enough money to ditch this place.  And the crappy memories associated with it.  My world isn’t bright and vibrant.  I live in a realm filled with shades of gray.

The only color left is the deep river of crimson rolling across my skin.  Gliding over the edge of my forearm like a waterfall.  Silently dripping to the cream tiles of my bathroom floor.  Plop.  Plop.  Plop.

This isn’t about dying.  Or trying to die.  The dull throb of the blade against my skin is the opposite.

It’s about living.

Feeling alive.

In control.

I’m the master of this sharp edge of metal, controlling how deep it plunges into my fragile skin, how quick it slices, the damage it creates.  My skin prickles with electrical currents as I skate the blade across my arm again; a warm heat spreading from the fresh wound to the crown of my head, sizzling down to my toes.  Anguish expelled in liquid form, more potent than any pill.  My mind begins to quiet.

My body rests against the bathtub, the cool porcelain causing goose bumps to ripple across my skin.  I shiver.  Not sure if it’s the cold or the overwhelming relief coating my insides.  Whichever, it feels good.

My body finally relaxed, I lift myself to the basin where a wet washcloth waits.  Draping it across my forearm, I apply pressure to the fissures in my flesh.  My eyes lock on the two hollow sockets reflected before me.  Hazel, soft, but empty.  Dead.  Shuttered by the walls I’ve erected around myself.  My skin is porcelain white.  Not quite ghostly and pale, but in that creamy flawless color.  Long locks of chestnut brown hair drape down to my breasts in curly sections.  Natural curls that give the girls in my school hair envy.  It’s about the only thing about myself that makes me feel beautiful.  The rest of me is a toss-up between ordinary and distracting.  Concert tees and tight jeans.  Secondhand shop Converse or black boots.  Stud through my nose and bands on my wrists.  Rebel meets poverty.

I toss the wet washcloth into the sink and slip on two black sweat bands—one for each wrist.  The soft fabric feels like slipping into my skin.  I’m naked without the twin bands.  I’m not hiding the marks because I’m ashamed.  They give me strength.  It’s like a woman slipping on her favorite pair of power heels before a company presentation.  Or one who wears sexy lingerie underneath her plain clothes.  It’s my secret weapon.  Wearing them makes me feel powerful.

Em and I sit side by side on the floor in front of our lockers, comparing schedules with our heads together like we have on every first day of every new semester since seventh grade.  Emerson Fitzgerald is the definition of beauty with no brains, with bright sapphire blue eyes and blonde hair to boot.  But she’s feisty and loyal, and I couldn’t ask for a better best friend.

“Tell me again what class you have third period?”

“Ummm…” she slides her finger down the paper as she scans it.

“Just give it to me,” I say, snatching the paper out of Em’s hands impatiently.  She pouts the little pretty girl pout of hers that has the entire football team eating out the palms of her tiny manicured hands.  We tried to pick all the same classes for our senior year, but upon my perusal of her schedule, I can see that didn’t work out in our favor.

“Damn.  You have choir third period.  Why the hell are you taking choir?”

“Seriously?  I didn’t sign up for it!” She exclaims, throwing her hands up in a dramatic fashion.  “I can’t even sing.”

I snort, remembering more than one occasion of listening to her belt out the lyrics along with the radio.  “I know.  You’ll be kicked out by next week.”  She smacks me playfully on the shoulder, tearing her schedule back out of my hands.

“Did we end up with any classes together?”

“Looks like we have first and second—nice that’s French and study hall.”

“Ugh, I thought we weren’t taking French again,” Em whines.

“I need it for my college applications,” I reply.  “It’s only one more year.  I’ll help you study.”  I glance down at the paper in my lap again.  “We have lunch together, too.”

“Thank God.  I don’t think I’d survive if we didn’t have lunch together.  Who else would I sneak out with?”

I roll my eyes knowing she’s just being her normal dramatic self.  “I’m sure you’d find somebody.  I’m not your only friend out of this entire school.  Oh, I bet Grant would take you for lunch.”  And the rest of the football team, I finish in my head.

“I thought you have a thing for Grant.  Why would you want him to take me out?” she asks, her perfect little nose crinkling adorably.

“You can’t count the time I dated him for a month in the ninth grade, Em.  I don’t have a thing for Grant.  He’s a nice guy, you should give him a chance.”  Emerson is one of those girls who lives and breathes by ‘girl-code’.  In her opinion, you never date a friend’s ex, no matter how long it’s been since they were together.

“Would it bother you?  I mean, I don’t want to like, take your ex or anything if you still have feelings for him.”

“Emerson Lynn, trust me.  I do not have feelings for him.  Besides, you know how I am.  I don’t get tied down.”  The grin splitting her face is absolutely telling of her feelings for him.  If I hadn’t already known, that would have been a dead giveaway.

“Are you sure?  It seems so wrong to date my best friend’s ex.”

“You like him, and he likes you.  He and I barely dated.  I don’t even classify him as an ex, it was that meaningless.  Yes I’m sure.  Go get ‘em, girl.”

“Okay,” she drags out the ‘ay’ sound as she flashes me her pearly whites.  That was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.  She must really like him.

We sit silently as we study the rest of our classes.  These are the last classes I’ll take here for my senior year.  At the end of the semester, I’ll be taking post-secondary classes at the nearby community college.  My junior year I skipped the elective classes, instead opting for the remainder of the required classes I’d need to graduate.  Come December, I’ll have completed all the requirements for my high school diploma.  The post-secondary allows me a head start in college at no cost to me, because it’s paid for by the state.  I’ll use all the financial help I can get if it gets me away from this place faster.  While my peers are taking this year to prep themselves for the real world, I’m already there.