Savin' Me

I walked back to the Curtis House with Johnny in tow. Before either of us could say a word, Soda smirked at me.

"What?" I questioned, my eyebrows drawing together as I smiled slightly. There was no way that he could have known already about Johnny and me, right? Were we giving off some sort of vibe?

"Oh, nothing," he replied airily before winking. I shot him a weirded-out look, but he didn't give anything else away.

Instead of interrogating him any further, I just went right into the kitchen to get some water. Johnny followed me and laughed a little. "You think Soda's finally gone off the deep end?"

"Oh, yeah," I responded, nodding. "Definitely."

Johnny and I stayed in the kitchen for a little while, talking, before he said that he was going to sleep in the lot, since it was warm. I showed him out and smiled as he walked down to the sidewalk.

"So..." Soda trailed off, winking again.

"So...why are you the creepiest person alive?" I wondered, cocking an eyebrow at him. As I fell back into the couch, I kept my eyes on him as he pulled a chair from the kitchen and sat in it backwards.

"I heard something, and I want to know if it's true."

For some reason, I instinctively knew that it wasn't going to be good. My first thought was that he might have heard that I liked him...but I wasn't sure where he would have heard that lie.

"What?" I finally asked, realizing that he wasn't continuing by himself.

"I heard that you wrote a paper about me for school?"

I let out a relieved laugh. "Aren't you one of the most conceited people on the planet?"

"Well, did you or didn't you?" His eyes were so curious that I just had to tell him the truth, whether he liked it or not.

"Not you specifically, though you were a major part of the paper." I reached into my pocket and slipped out the wrinkled, over-folded paper. Then, shooting it one last look, I leaned over and passed it to Soda.

His eyes skimmed the page, a smile playing on the edges of his lips. When he finished, his mouth was in a full-blown grin. "So this was what you were writing for school the other day that you didn't let me read as you wrote?"

"Right," I replied, blushing slightly.

"Well, it was awesome. I'm glad that I could have helped you in any way." His eyes were intense in mine, and it struck me that he did like me. I wasn't crazy when I thought that earlier in the day. He was telling me everything that I needed to know with that single look. It burned through me and my heart fluttered a little.

Oh, shit.

"I gotta pee," I announced, standing up and running toward the bathroom. I could hear Soda muttering to himself for a second before I shut the door, closing him off from me entirely.

I had been so sure that I liked Johnny, just Johnny, until that moment, with Soda's eyes locked with mine. Before, I had never felt anything like that with Soda. Was I just caught up in a moment? Was I looking for more drama? Like I needed any more of that.

Splashing some water in my face, I glared in the mirror. I immediately flashed back to that time, so long ago, when I looked at myself at my father's house, wrapped in the towel. How horrified I always was because I looked like my mother. How disgusted I was at how thin I was.

The memory was so striking that I drew in a breath and stepped away from the mirror, my eyes wide. But no matter how many times I blinked, I couldn't get the image out of my mind. The mirror was still in front of me, and even though I looked different now, healthier, it kept showing me the girl I had been months ago.

It showed me the girl that never ate. The girl that cut. The girl who was beaten.

I looked away sharply, closing my eyes as the tears started to pool. This was too much. I couldn't have feelings for two boys. I couldn't deal with how I looked anymore. I couldn't be around people who actually loved me.

Who loved me anyway? No one. They just felt badly for me. Johnny and Soda, they just felt sorry for me, didn't want to reject a loser like me. No one likes a cutter. No one loves an abused kid.

Wiping the tears away quickly, I took a deep breath, trying to talk my way out of my downward spiral. This wasn't happening, not again. It hadn't happened in so long, and now it was back with a vengeance.

I knew what I had to do, of course. I was supposed to walk out to Soda, sitting in the living room, and cry into his shoulder about how I felt horrible and tell him the truth about everything that was going on.

But I couldn't get myself to do that. It took strength. I didn't have strength. I didn't want strength. All I wanted was my razor, and stupid Soda had to have it.

For a couple more seconds, I kept my eye on the girl in the mirror who I thought I had left behind. I didn't know that she was still haunting me. She had gone away, but she came back right when I was the slightest bit confused, plaguing me.

"Go away," I whispered, starting to feel like I was going crazy. But she just smiled back at me, her features taunting.

"You don't have this power over me," I told her, but I knew a lie when I told one. "I'm different now."

Don't kid yourself, she said without her mouth moving. Once a cutter, always a cutter.

The words echoed in my head over and over until I was chanting them quietly. "Once a cutter, always a cutter. Once a cutter, always a cutter."

Frantically, I searched all over the bathroom for something sharp, something to do damage. For those few moments, I forgot about my promises to Johnny and Soda about my cutting. I forgot that I promised not to hurt myself anymore. Not that they really cared. They just didn't want someone crazy associating with them.

No one likes a crazy cutter. No one.

I gave up, resting my head against the mirror and letting out a sob. Dad's looking for you, the girl pestering me whispered inside my head.

My head snapped back as I stared at the mirror. The girl was staring at me blankly, haunting.

"GO AWAY!" I screamed, smashing the mirror with my fist. The sharp sides of the glass stuck into my knuckles, and crimson blood started to rush everywhere as I repeatedly beat the glass.

"ZOE?" Soda screamed, banging on the door. It didn't matter. He couldn't get in, I locked the door.

After a minute, I was breathing heavily, the mirror completely destroyed. Pieces of glass were scattered everywhere, as well as sticking out of my hand.

Leaning down, I picked up a bigger shard of glass and pressed it to the inside of my arm. Life had gone from good to bad in a single day.

I had gone back to where I began. Square one, here I come.