RYL Forums - Untitled Short Story Thingie

* Before anyone reads this - please keep in mind that basically this entire piece is about SI, so if you're easily triggered, please keep yourself safe and don't read it! Also, mildly creepy, just keep that in mind...though I'm a wuss about scary stories, so maybe not that bad! =P

Also, constructive criticism and comments of any sort are much appreciated. This is definitely a rough draft.*

You won’t meet me after the first time. The first time, yes, it matters. But the second time, that’s when our paths will cross. Or, rather, meld.

After the second time, I will become your companion, your pet, your confidante, your sister, your God.

The third time you’ll almost feel me standing behind you, watching with an unreadable expression as you set out your tools – a razor, a stolen pair of manicure scissors, stained tweezers, safety pins, it doesn’t matter to me. Your hands won’t shake as much as last time; your movements will be getting more practiced, the slightest hints of confidence and comfort showing beneath your crisp exoskeleton of desperation. Even if you looked, if you could see, you would not be able to tell if I was proud of you or terrified.

I’ll be with you more and more, flitting just out of sight in hallways and around corners, waiting for that familiar tug in the back of my mind that tells me I’m needed. No one should be alone for this, and you won’t be. When you lock yourself into the bathroom and scrabble for the needle you use to break open scabs when you can’t find anything else, I’ll be there, perched on top of the stall door, reaching down a hand to steady you when your leg gives out and you suddenly lean hard against the tile wall. At night when you lie awake, unable to hear anything over the buzz of the streetlamp but your lover’s soft breathing by your ear, I’ll come to keep you company. I’ll gently pull the blankets aside and crouch through the shadows behind you as you kneel over your hidden stash of hydrogen peroxide and hospital-grade gauze. I’ll twist around the shower curtain and grin down at you like the Cheshire cat, making sure you remember to clean up every spatter of blood so that for yet another night this can stay just between the two of us. Eventually, you’ll lose that relationship to the secret we share, and others too. But I’ll never abandon you. I’ll be there to curl at the bottom of your bed, loyal as a dog, while you cry after learning that your mother is taking the family to DisneyWorld – hot weather means short sleeves, bathing suits, purple and red and white lines of scar tissue bared to the unforgiving elements and all-seeing eyes. Once your sobs slow and you drift to sleep, I’ll come whisper to you; teaching you to buy jewelry and skin-colored makeup, to lie.

I’ll be there for two important firsts.

The first time your hand slips or you lose track, and there’s too much blood and you feel your heart racing, I promise, I’ll look first. While you’re squeezing your eyes shut and trying to control your panicked breath I’ll crawl out from underneath your carpet and gaze with impassive eyes at the way the wound gapes farther than any previous, the dark beads of blood welling up and the stringy muscle barely visible underneath. Bowing my head, I’ll step back when curiosity finally gets the better of you and you begin to examine it yourself. You won’t be able to stop staring after that, though seeing it makes you feel raw in the purest sense. I’ll almost have to remind you to press the darkly stained towel to it before the droplets run off onto the floor.

The first time you get an infection, I’ll look last. It doesn’t matter what you do – isopropyl, bandages, wholesome-smelling soap and hot water – some day, it will happen, and I will be there. You’ll unroll the slightly damp gauze and be greeted by a foul miasma and a startlingly unfamiliar swath of skin in shades of white and red and greenish-yellow, and you will jerk your head away in revulsion. And until you can bear to look again, I’ll survey the damage. Later that night I’ll stretch out beneath your bed and listen to you whispering tiny prayers to no one in particular: please, please, I’ll never do it again, just make it heal, make it better, please, make it better. You’ll know on some level that I’ve heard, but of the two of us, only I will recognize the lie. You’ll do it again; you’ll always do it again. And you’ll come to understand this the next time you touch the metal to your skin, becoming used to the feeling of my eyes on you from behind the curtains, inside the medicine cabinet, through the hairline cracks in the ceiling.

And then, one day, it will happen. You’ll be holding yourself over the sink, shaking so hard you vibrate the crimson drops collecting on the porcelain, watching with pride and faint terror as you open yourself up in tiny slices with the weapon of your choice. And suddenly, you will become aware, without realizing that it had ever been otherwise, that the face grinning out of the mirror at you is now your own.