The Tears Don't Taste Salty Anymore

"I want to talk to you," my dad says, sitting down the couch. "Can I talk with you?"

"Yeah ..." I say slowly and get up to sit beside him.

Silence.

And then--"I want to talk about something serious."

I hate it when we talk about something serious because I always end up in tears.

"Okay," I say, and dad launches into some speech about how the bandage on my wrist feels like play-acting since there appears to be nothing wrong with my wrist.

He thinks I'm wearing the gauze and the medical tape because he thinks I want to look like a cutter.

Yes, I am theatrical, but I'm not a complete whore for attention.

He tells me that he doesn't want me wearing bandages around my wrists anymore, and I tell him that I scratch myself and when the bandage is on, I can't do that.

"I wear it for a reason," I say stiffly, and we sit there in silence until he brings up some other conversation topic, and I say: "Can I go to bed now?"

"Of course," he says, but catches my arm when I walk by. "Are you okay?"

"I want to go to bed," I mutter and he lets me go to my room, where I turn up my Three Days Grace, panic because I can't find my knife, and give myself twenty lashes with the nail file.

I knew tonight would end in tears.