Promises Are Broken

I promised you I wouldn't hurt myself again. Not ever.

I did promise. I cried and held your hand, and you remember me promising, don't you? I swore I wouldn't.

I even kept a routine: get up, go to school, go back to your house, spend time with you, come home, do homework, shower, go to bed.

And that was fine. But I had a routine before too. I would sit in the shower with the water tinged pink around my bare feet, shaking as I skim the blade over my wrist again and again.

Then I would sob into my pillow, wet hair soaking the sheets and my arms twinging with pain. I would cry because I knew how ashamed you'd be if you knew, if anyone knew.

I never wanted you to find out. I really didn't. But I had no-one else to help me. My parents and sisters were away for the weekend, but I had opted to stay home. For a few days I wouldn't have to hide, so that's what I did.

It was around midnight on the Saturday when I shut myself in the bathroom, curled on the floor with my arms leaking crimson yet again. And they hurt. Well, they always hurt, but this was different. They had never bled as long as this before and I was starting to feel weak. Dizzy. Sick. I didn't know what to do so I pressed an old towel against them and lay down, waiting for it to stop.

Time seemed to get away from me a little. Perhaps because I blacked out for a while. It was four in the morning when I came round, blinking and feeling much weaker than before. My limbs felt like water, the tips of my fingers tingling madly, like I'd stuck them in snow. It made it difficult to pull my phone from my back pocket but I managed eventually, shakily punching in your number and praying you would wake up.

You did, and you were terrified because of the early hour, and the fact that I could only speak in a croaking whisper. I wasn't sure where my voice had gone but somewhere between slicing my arms up and passing out, it had left me.

"A-Alex," I said, trying to catch my breath, which also seemed to have left me. "I need you to come over."

"What? Why? What's happened?" You sounded groggy with sleep but it was laced with concern, your voice getting higher in pitch as you registered the situation.

I tried to cry, I did. I wanted to. There were tears and sobs sticking in my throat, but I couldn't cry. So I just begged you to come over, and when you did, you cried for me and that was so much worse than I ever imagined.

"Jack... what have you done...?" you whispered, tears leaving your face and mixing with my blood on the floor, our very own personal recipe of grief.

"I didn't mean it," I whimpered, my arms twitching with ache to hold you. "I wasn't trying to die."

"You're going to if I don't get you to a hospital right now," you said, slipping my phone out of my hand. It was sticky with half-dried blood and your eyes filled with fresh tears. I wished you would just let me die then.

I hoped I would die in the ambulance because of how I'd hurt you. But I didn't.

They got me to the hospital, stabilized me and got me a soft bed that smelled of morphine.

That's when you made me promise. You kissed my poor sliced wrists and cried onto my bed sheets.

"Jack, I love you. I can't lose you. Please don't hurt yourself that way ever again," you begged me through your tears.

It's not me I'm hurting, Alex, it's you.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "You weren't meant to find out..."

"Well, I did, and I'm glad, because now you're going to get help. I'll help too. You're going to feel better," Alex said, smiling through his tears.

"We're going to make it better. But you have to promise me."

"I promise, Alex. I swear. I won't do that again, I promise," I said, and then you held me while I cried into my hands for what felt like hours.

I promised you, Alex.

I even kept up my routine for you.

I promised.

I promised you I would never hurt myself that way again.

But promises get broken all the time, right?