This Little Game We Like To Play

“Let’s see your scars.” James says.

I shook my head no.

“Come on, Angel. We showed you our scars.” Jake says. I didn’t ask to see them.

“It’s not like we haven’t seen scars in weird places before.” James speaks again. I might as well show them. Maybe it would shut them up. I slide my sweat pants down and then tug the left side of my boxers down and expose my hip that had four years of scars and the stitches from my most recent cuts.

“Holy fucking shit.” Jake breathes.

“That is the most mutilation I have ever seen.” James says. I find that hard to believe. James has been here for two years. He keeps finding new ways to inflict harm on himself.

I shrug and pull my boxers and sweat pants back to the place the belong.

“What made you do it, man?” Jake still looks stunned.

“A girl?” James asks because I stopped talking outside of group therapy and my private sessions. I nod my head yes.

“How long did that take to get that way.” James asks and I hold up four fingers as my answer. “Four years?” I nod yes and lay on my bed. “A girl did this to you for four years?” I nod yes again.

“Shit, what did she do to you?” Jake asks.

“Nothing.” I felt the need to actually speak. “I love her. She hates me. I made fun of her. She turned anorexic and bulimic and it’s entirely my fault. I tried to help her. I failed, I got her parents involved. They sent her here. I heard she wasn’t doing good and that she was miserable and again it was my fault. I was careless and didn’t lock the door and that’s why I’m here.” I spill my heart out to my roommates.

“That’s fucked up.” James says getting into his own bed. Jake is silent as he gets in his bed.

I wake up. I shower. I eat breakfast. I hope that Quinn is across the street, a floor above me in the cafeteria eating as much food as humanly possible. I go to the window. They allow me in the hallway to look out the window at Quinn’s building as long as I have no new injuries.

“Angel” I hear Caroline’s voice but don’t take my gaze of the window on Quinn’s floor. “It’s time to go to group, hun.” I stand from the chair they put by the widow for me and follow Caroline back into the main area. I sit in the hard plastic chair to Christopher’s reason for why he first cut himself. I was next.

“Angel, tell us about the time your first experience with self mutilation. Everyone in the group knew about Quinn, they knew she was the reason for most scars on my hip. I looked at Bill, the group councilor.

“I oinked at her when she was eating ice cream. I liked any attention she gave me. She told me she hated me. She said it all the time but I never took her seriously. I was so sure she meant it that night, it hurt me a lot. So I remembered watching something on TV about cutters. I remember one guy saying that it made his emotional pain disappear and I wanted my pain to disappear. So I took a razor from my mom’s suitcase. I smashed it a hammer. I pulled it a part and I cut where I was sure no one would see.”

After group I go back to my window. I stare across the street longing to see Quinn staring out the window back at me. She never is.

“Hun, maybe you should go do something else for a while?” I knew it was Nikki. She always tries to get me away from the window everyday. Nikki is a nurse who I talk to all the time.

“Nope.” I answer firmly. She wasn’t going to make me move. No one can make me move.