Never Let Go

Bailey and Matt had arrived at his house just a few minutes after leaving Jimmy’s. All five of the guys had picked houses within ten minutes of each other, making it easier to drive to and from one another’s during practice time. They were currently sitting inside on the couch, exhausted from the flood of emotions caused from being at the other house. Metallica was turned on lowly so the whole place wasn’t just silent.

“Do you want to unpack at all yet?” Matt asked, breaking the quietness that was enveloping them both.

“In a few minutes,” Bailey replied and looked over at him. “I just need to relax a bit.” In reality, she didn’t want to unpack not because she was tired, but because she didn’t want the feeling to sink in that the place she was in at that moment would be her new home.

“Understood. If there’s anything at all you want to do with your room, just let me know and we can go get the stuff to do it.”

“Okay, thanks Uncle Matt.”

It went unnoticed to Bailey the look that Matt gave her. It was one mixed with sadness, loss, and understanding. He had wanted for so long to be a father. Now the only circumstance that comes along for said thing to happen was one of his best friends dying. Matt knew that Bailey would never accept him as ‘dad’, but he’d do his best to take care of her. It’s what Jimmy would have wanted. Seeing Bailey unhappy, or knowing her life was standing still because of him would break Jimmy’s heart. His whole life, that girl was the only thing he ever had that he was proud to show off. Bailey was the one thing that he worked hardest for just to make sure she was happy and healthy.

Bailey and Matt both leaned back on the couch at the same time. They didn’t talk, just sat there in the aching silence. Matt moved first, getting up to get a beer and then coming back. She noticed he’d been drinking more than he ever used to, but she guessed that it was just his way of dealing with the pain. And the truth was, she was about to break into a habit that she did when she was barely old enough to understand what she was doing. Self harm.

When Jimmy found out what his daughter was doing at only eleven years old, he had no idea what to do. He didn’t understand where she learned it from, or who. He didn’t know why she was so unhappy that she felt she needed to do it. The memory of when he saw it first hand nearly killed her to think about.

Bailey had just gotten home from school. Her dad wasn’t home yet. The empty house made her nervous; she’d always been scared of a lot of things. Taking a quick peek around the house, Bailey hoped she’d find Jimmy somewhere that she just couldn’t hear him. Even if he were asleep in his room it’d be better than being alone.

Sighing, Bailey dropped her bag next to her bed then sat down cross-legged on the floor right near it. Tucked securely in the front pocket of her bag was what would keep her occupied until her dad got home. She was eleven, but doing it made her feel so much better. Four months earlier her hand had slipped on a knife, and she loved it. Bailey pulled over the purple backpack and pulled her razor from the smallest pocket. She had stolen it from a utility knife that she found at her uncle Brian’s apartment. He would kill her if he found out, but it was her own little secret to keep.

The only places that the sharp metal ever touched were her legs; no body ever saw those. It was her safe spot. She learned that when she did it on her wrist once and Jimmy wanted to take her to the hospital because he thought she got hurt in the kitchen.

Bailey wasn’t a stupid eleven year old. She’d heard one of the high school kids on her bus talking about ‘cutting’ and she said that she did it a lot. At first, Bailey didn’t understand what the girl was talking about, but then she learned when she saw all the nasty marks running up the girl’s forearms. Seeing it confused Bailey. She didn’t understand why anyone would hurt themselves like that; boo-boos hurt. When she cut her hand, she realized it was to make the mental pain go away. Physical pain was so much easier than the pain deep in her heart.

Lately, Bailey’s dad had been so busy with playing drums. He and his friends had a band called Avenged Sevenfold and they were trying to make a new record. Her daddy had been gone for so long, leaving her home alone a lot. She missed him so much, but never told him just how much because she knew how happy he was. Daughters had a connection with their fathers; she could tell how unhappy he had been since her mom had left, even though she never knew her.

Normally when she got the urge to cut, Bailey tried to keep it under control. But lately it seemed like she just didn’t know how. Her legs hurt so bad some days that she just wanted to cry to her daddy and have him kiss every single boo-boo better. It would make him sad to know though. She continued cutting though.

The razor still had a small glint of blood on it from the previous time. Bailey wiped it on the leg of her capris and pulled the leg up past her knee. There were so many marks there, almost like the girl from the bus. It almost made her feel proud…almost. She couldn’t help herself though as she pressed the edge of the cool, sharp metal to her milky skin. The initial sting was the worst, but the piercing feeling of her skin breaking open, erased all the thoughts of her missing her dad, or wanting to meet her mom, or hating both her parents for leaving her alone, or the abandonment she felt.

She made three small marks right next to one long one. The blood was welling up in all of them and she had to grab a tissue to soak some of it up. When Bailey sat back down, she couldn’t help but make two more small lines. She didn’t hear the door open, didn’t hear her dad’s gasp, or hear him rushing across the room to her.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing, Bailey?!” his voice was nothing but a squeak.

“I…I…” Bailey thought of a reason but she was speechless.

Bailey couldn’t stand to look up into the crystal blue eyes of her father. She heard him sniffling as he went over to grab more tissues, and her dad never cried. Jimmy pressed tissues gently to her cuts and held his hand there. She was speechless and afraid.

“How could you do this to yourself?” Jimmy all but whispered as he realized just how many old cuts and older scars there were.

Bailey thought for a reason that she could tell him, “I don’t know…” she finally decided on.

“Why then?”

“I feel lonely, and angry some times,” she confessed. “It helps me feel better.”

“Let’s get you into the bathroom to get cleaned up better. But we’re going to talk more.”

Jimmy helped up his young daughter and walked next to her into the bathroom. She changed quickly into a pair of shorts to make it easier to clean, which she never did. Even Band-Aids were rare for her. Her dad made her sit up on the counter as he grabbed a bottle of peroxide and a couple big bandages. Bailey watched his as he did so and saw just how hurt he looked; she’d never felt so horrible in her life.

“How do you feel so lonely, or so angry that you could cut yourself?” He asked in a shaky voice as he gently ran a cotton ball covered with the peroxide over the entire top of Bailey’s thighs.

“You’re always gone…I don’t have a mom, and I don’t have friends,” Bailey replied, looking down.

She felt ashamed admitting everything to Jimmy. She felt ashamed, but at the same time she felt guilty. She felt guilty for not being the perfect daughter to the best father in the world. Ever since the first memory she could remember, everything Jimmy ever did was for her in some way or another. And here she was, showing the ultimate act of being ungrateful that she could think of.

“That’s no reason to cut though,” he said, almost sounding as if he were about to cry as he started to place a bandage over the newest wounds.

“I’m really sorry, Daddy…”

Jimmy pulled his daughter tightly to him. He nuzzled his face into her hair and she felt a small drip of moistness on her scalp. Bailey wrapped her arms around her father’s middle and hugged him just as tightly as he cried silently.

“Please never do it again, Baby Girl,” he begged. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

“I promise,” Bailey mumbled against him.

Bailey kept that promise to him, but it was getting so hard as each moment passed. It would be so easy now to get a blade—or anything sharp—and start all over again. She still had all of the ugly scars littering her skin from the first time, and she had no one to blame but herself. There was no one to keep that promise to any longer though. He was gone. In Bailey’s mind, her whole world was over. There was nothing to do but live through it as nobody, keeping her mental pain at a minimum.