Savin' Me

"You look terrible," Lily whispered, as if she was afraid that I was going to hit her, at school the next morning.

She was right, I knew. My hair was a mess, my eyes were rimmed in red, my face was puffy, and I was wearing baggy sweat clothes. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball, disappearing in the excess yards of fabric, and disappear. Logic told me that doing such a thing wasn't possible, but I still hoped.

"Thanks. Just the thing to tell me," I sighed. Closing my locker and leaning against it, I surveyed the people of the hallway. They would catch glimpses of me before turning to their friends and whispering, confirming the various rumors that had been going around.

"Hey, Lils," I started slowly, pushing away from the rows of lockers. "I have an idea."

Her eyebrows pulled together, waiting expectantly for me to elaborate.

Instead, I just grabbed her hand and hurried down the hallway.

***

"Are you sure this is smart?" Lily asked, pulling out of the parking lot in her car, looking back and forth to make sure that the coast was clear. "We're going to get caught."

"Who cares? And since when are you the uptight one?" Closing my eyes, I leaned back in the chair, feeling the heat spill across my face. "I just needed to get away. Plus, I haven't really missed that many days of school this year."

"True," she murmured, pulling to a stop at the lights. Then, she let out a small laugh. "Imagine telling your therapist about this tomorrow."

"Oh, she'll say that it was good for me to get away. I told you that she was a cutter, too, right?"

Lily was quiet for a second. "Zoe, you never did tell me why you cut. What was so bad that you had to do that to yourself?"

Subconsciously, I rolled up the sleeve of my unneeded sweatshirt and ran the tips of my fingers along the scars gently, letting out a slow breath. "You have no idea what my home life was like."

"So help me understand."

I looked over at her, wondering where my best friend had gone. The one that was boy-crazy and a little scatterbrained. The one that hated cutters, thought they were weak. The one that had no idea what it was like to have a bad life.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded. "Let me start from the beginning."

We drove around for two and a half hours, me talking about all the horrors of my past, Lily gawking, gasping, and wincing in all the right places.

By the end, she was crying, her breathing coming in sobs. "Why the hell did you never tell me, Zoe? You know my parents would have taken you in, getting you away from him."

"Because I thought I could handle it," I responded, choking back a shuddered breath. "I didn't know that my father genuinely hated me. It wasn't like he used to say he loved me, and he just stopped."

"But you knew that getting knocked around and insulted wasn't right. Why would you put up with that?"

Staring out the window, I had a simple answer. "He was my father."

She opened her mouth, probably to lecture me some more, but I cut her off. "That's not the whole story. That was just with my dad. I never told you about Johnny and the Curtis brothers."

Lily was attentive, a slight grin starting to show on her face, as I told of how I met Johnny, of everything that had happened after I ran away.

After I finished, she didn't say anything. So we just sat in silence as she drove along, the road curving as it passed under the car.

"Well," she finally expressed, clearing her throat. "You know that you need to tell someone about how your past is haunting you like that, right? That's not normal. Most people get nightmares, brief flashes. Not a former you talking to...you."

"I know. I'm going to tell Dr. Emerson tomorrow. If I get locked up in a loony bin, then fine."

"And...you know what you have to do with those two boys, right?"

Shaking my head, I awaited myself for her advice. She was the boy expert, after all. She would know how to fix everything.

"You gotta break up with Johnny, pain or not. He's going to be happy that you came out and told him instead of leading him on for God knows how long. And as for Soda...if he doesn't want you, then you're just going to have to find someone else."

Easier said than done, but she was right. "Okay," I agreed. "You're right."

We pulled into a small diner, and Lily looked over to smile at me. "Now let's get something to eat. My stomach's been rumbling non-stop."

"Sorry," I laughed. "I've just been dumping all my problems on you. You don't deserve that."

"Shut up," she told me, linking her arm with mine. "What are friends for, after all?"