Decided to Break It

Stupid, stupid, stupid! I thought to myself as I literally banged my head against the bathroom wall. Before I knew it, I’d taken the shaver I’d bought earlier apart and sixteen deep cuts later, I could finally breathe. The blood ran down my leg and in the silence of the bathroom, blood splattered and made a little plop as it hit the tile. “Incident.” I said through my teeth. He was talking about my anger problems. Yeah, before I started cutting, anyone who did or said anything wrong to me, I punched in the face. Repeatedly. I ended up in Juvie once but oh well, right? Whatever, I had to take anger management classes and that’s all over. Shit, Echo.

I got up quickly and rushed out of the bathroom and saw her talking to a light skinned man. He was about 6’3 and wore all black, just like her. He put his hands on her shoulders and she shrugged them off uncomfortably. “You wanna act like a little bitch? Fine. But you know all of this is because of you.” The man said to her. She put her head down and started messing with the rubber band again but he smacked her hands away. “What you gonna go crazy again? Why? Huh?” He scoffed. “Just like your stupid mother.” She started kicking at the ground while hitting the side of her leg lightly but kept her head down the whole time. He leaned in and said something to her, which made her gag and him laugh and she hit herself harder. “Echo!” I said down the hall. They both looked at me. “Um… we gotta go study.” I couldn’t think of anything better. She tried to leave but he grabbed her back so suddenly she gasped. I wish I knew what he whispered to her because her face went completely blank before he shoved her towards me. “Home by 11, fat girl.” He said as she hurried her way to me. As soon as she did, I hugged her and she tugged on the back of my t-shirt. I stared at the guy in all black until he broke and walked down the hall and out of sight. “Can we go?” She whispered into my chest. Putting my hand through her hair, I whispered “yeah. It’s okay now.”

We hurried out of the studio and as soon as we got to the stairs, Echo bent over the railing and started throwing up liquid- a huge trigger for me. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there. “I’m sorry.” She said in between cries. After a couple minutes, we started walking down the street in complete silence. She walked ahead of me and when we were near a McDonalds, she stopped and stared at the sign. I stood next to her and watched her as she watched the sign. “Do you wanna go in? I’ve got some cash if you don’t.” She shook her head slowly and started whispering something. “What?” I asked but she didn’t get louder. I bent down to listen and could only make out a few words: can’t break, longer, eat shit be shit… I cut her off by covering her eyes with my hand which made her snap out of her trance. She giggled and pulled my hand down. She didn’t let it go. We walked hand-in-hand down the road until we got back on the other side of the city. We didn’t talk until then when she broke the silence but I needed to ask a ton of questions.

“I’m sorry I’m weird.” I pulled her closer to me and kissed her head. “Nope, not weird. Definitely not weird.” “That was my dad by the way. He just knows how to get to me.” “You don’t have to explain anything to me.” We stopped in front of my house and I sat on the porch. She paced in front of me. “Sometimes, I just… ugh!” I scratched my arm as she kept talking. At one point, she was talking so fast, she started speaking Italian which made me laugh and made her stop pacing. She laughed and sat next to me. She put her head on my shoulder and we watched the sky turn from a hazy pink to a deep blue. “Hey Echo… Um, what was that back at McDonalds?” She took her head off of my shoulder and kept her head down. “What happened back there?” She asked, kicking the ground with her shoe and pulling at her rubber band. Once I explained, she hopped up. “I gotta go. It was nice meeting you, I guess, I don’t know. Bye.” She hurried off and when I called after her, she took off running.

“Joshua!” My mom said loudly as I walked into the house. She smiled and hugged me. “This is the first night in forever that you don’t have practice so we can finally have dinner as a family!” That made me cringe a bit but I couldn’t let her see. “I was just at McDonalds with a friend from school.” I sort of lied- I didn’t care. She hurried to the kitchen anyway and I followed her. “I don’t care. You can still have a little dinner. Mainly because…” She was cut off by the telephone and while on it, I tried to sneak out. I failed. “Yes. But you said… Come on, Miles .” My dad. “Okay. Okay fine. Tell your partner ‘hi’ for me.” She hung up the phone, obviously frustrated. I hated when my mom was upset. She was my favorite person in the world and knowing that my dad was the reason, pissed me off even more. “Forget about family dinner.” She said under her breath as she went to cover the chicken, potatoes, vegetables, and Sara’s favorite cheesecake sitting on the countertops. Sara walked in confused too but when I mouthed “dad” to her, she understood automatically. “It’s okay, mom. We’ll eat without him.” My mom slammed the plastic wrap down. “No! We’re not eating this without your father!” Something else was bothering her but making it about the food made it easier. My family’s like that, you know? Just hold it in, don’t talk about it, hopefully then it’ll go away. I immediately touched my pocket where I put the razor earlier and exhaled. Sara held my hand and when I looked at her she looked away. “Well, I’ll help you put it away.” She tried to make it better but I knew it wouldn’t work. “Go away, Sara. You too Josh.” Mom said quietly. I didn’t know what to do. I hated feeling useless more than anything.

Dad came home around midnight. I stood on the basement stairs to listen to my parents argue. I don’t know why I did it because it always made me feel like shit. “You’re never home anymore.” “What do you think I’m doing?! I’m just working!” “What about your family?” “If I don’t work, I won’t have a job and we’ll lose everything.” “You’re going to lose your family.” I could feel the tension through the door but I couldn’t hear the rest because my phone started ringing on my bed. I wanted to ignore it but I recognized the ringtone, I figured I shouldn’t. Amanda. I rushed down the stairs and grabbed the phone. “Hello?!” I excitedly screamed into the phone. All I heard was giggling and what sounded like kissing on the other end. I kept screaming ‘hello’ repeatedly-so loud that my parents ended up in my room. When I finally came to- I realized that I hung up the phone, was balled in the corner of my bed, still screaming. She was with Matt. She butt-dialed me by accident.