Cut

by Layla Harding

  Dammit, it was so unfair. Why couldn’t a single person in my life see what was really going on? Why didn’t they care? I perched on the edge of my rocking chair, ready to bolt the minute he started in. Sick or not, I was so tempted to tell him to save it before he even got started. The rage was building rapidly from my stomach, rising into my chest and throat. I was either going to scream or throw up.

  “The book is next to your chair. You don’t have your Diet Coke. Do you need something to drink before we start?” What the hell? Did he have no idea I was supposed to be in school? Was he completely confused?

  “Um, no. I’m fine.”

  “Okay. I think we should be able to finish before lunch. There isn’t much left.” He settled back in his chair. So I read. It was close to noon when I read, “O God—please give him back! I shall keep asking You.”

  I looked up to find Ken wide awake, wiping the back of his hand across his cheek. It made me feel less self-conscious about having to do the same.

  “Are you hungry?” Ken asked. I nodded. “Great. Let’s go make some sandwiches. Is turkey okay?” I nodded again, still braced for the lecture that apparently wasn’t coming. “Well, come on then. They’re not going to make themselves.”

  I was used to the turkey sandwiches at my house—if you could call them that. They were usually constructed with dry turkey on close to stale bread. If I was really lucky I could scrounge some not-quite expired mayo from the back of the fridge. Grocery shopping wasn’t high on Mom’s priority list, unless the liquor cabinet was looking low. I sometimes wondered what it was like to have meals prepared by someone who loved you rather than the staff at the nearest take-out place.

  Ken’s turkey sandwiches, on the other hand, were a work of art. It was a huge stack of bread, turkey, avocado, tomato, mayo and cheese. There was no way I was going to eat all of it.

  “Milk or water?” Before I could answer, Ken said, “Milk. I bet you don’t get enough calcium. Grab a bag of chips out of the pantry.”

  We ate for several minutes in complete silence. Finally I said, “Ken, I’m supposed to be in school right now.” For the love of God, why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut around him?

  “I know.” He picked around the edges of his sandwich, eating ingredients instead of taking real bites.

  “It’s not like there is much going on right now. I mean, there’s only a couple of weeks left. Not even that really. My teachers probably haven’t even noticed I’m not there.”

  “Okay.”

  “I just didn’t want you to think I was going to get in trouble or miss any work. It’s pretty much over. I’ve already gotten accepted to a couple of schools. Finals are next week, but I only have to take two.” In most of the honors classes, if you carried a solid A and had 95% attendance, you weren’t required to take the final. I only had to take one in Calculus and my stupid health class. I had put that particular requirement off until the last possible semester. It was a horrid class filled with freshmen, but at least the final would be easy.

  “Really? I wasn’t aware you had gotten acceptance letters yet. Have you decided where you are going?” It was if he was asking about the weather—completely casual and non-committal. Was he luring me into a false sense of security before he pounced? When was he going to lay into me about my irresponsibility?

  “Well, I got into UMKC and MU in Columbia, but I don’t think I want to go to either one of those. Even though they gave me pretty decent scholarships. I also got into OU, in Oklahoma? The scholarships aren’t as good, but they count Missouri residents as in-state tuition. I’ll have to use the loans I got approved for, which I don’t really want to, but you know… And I’ll probably have to get a job while I’m there. But it’ll be okay. It’s farther away from home, and the campus looks great. I guess they have a pretty good football team, so that’s fun. And…” I realized I was babbling at this point, and Ken was staring at me, his lunch forgotten on his plate. “Uh, yeah, so anyway.”

  “Do your parents know you are going to school out-of-state?” I wasn’t sure my parents were even aware I was graduating soon. I mean, Mom had ridden me pretty hard at the start of the year about getting my shit together, picking a school and all that stuff, but like most things, it was a short-lived obsession. It required way too much energy on her part. She hadn’t mentioned it in several weeks. And Dad, well, Dad only cared about one thing when it came to me, and where I was going to college wasn’t it. The only thing that mattered to me was that I was far out of his reach when fall rolled around.

  “No, not yet. But they’re not gonna care. They just want to make sure I get a good education.” There, that was a good response. That’s what a normal kid would say, right? As if Ken had any misconceptions about my screwed up little family. Right, because a normal kid would often run off to a near stranger’s house on a regular basis.

  “Uh huh. So they won’t be helping with the cost?”

  “Probably not. I like to do things for myself.” I shuddered to think what tuition from my parents would actually cost me.

  “I see. What are you going to do this summer once school is out? You only have two weeks left, correct?”

  “Not sure yet. I might need to get a job, get some money saved up.”

  “Hmm. Alright then. Could I trouble you to clean up the lunch mess, Persephone? I’m a little tired. You can stay here the rest of the afternoon if you would like. Help yourself to anything to eat or drink.” He had only eaten a third of his sandwich.

  “Yeah, sure, not a problem.” I heard Ken’s bedroom door shut and pushed myself back from the table. As I rinsed dishes and put away all the sandwich stuff, I tried to figure out what Ken’s angle was. Why hadn’t he gotten on to me? Why wasn’t he asking me more questions? Wasn’t he curious why I was at his house so much? I switched back and forth from being relieved he minded his own business to being hurt he didn’t care enough to ask.

  After clean-up, I was at a loss what to do next. I couldn’t go home. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t feel like reading, although my options were almost limitless with Ken’s bookshelves. I wandered through the living room, picking up photos but not really looking at them, running my fingers over the spines of books and finally, with nothing else to do, I stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the wall.

  As I often did when I found myself restless or bored, my fingers began trailing along the scars on my arms. I began with the ones at my wrist, pushing my watch out of the way to feel them. Next the crooks of my elbows. Finally, I found the thick one along my right shoulder.

  I remembered that one. I remembered it well. It had been deeper than most. It wouldn’t stop bleeding, and I was terrified it would need stitches. I had gone through almost an entire box of gauze pads trying to make it stop.

  All I had really wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes. The lack of sleep combined with the loss of blood had exhausted me. But I also knew I couldn’t leave those bloody bandages and rags in my room. Nor could I throw them away at the house. The fallout of this cut was enough to actually raise suspicion. I dragged myself out to my car, drove to the gas station, and threw them in the dumpster.

  On the way home my eyes refused to stay open, and I swerved into the other lane, almost colliding with a large work truck. The driver laid on his horn, jerking me awake in time to get out of his way. Only after I got home did I realize what a golden opportunity I had missed. My MINI would have been no match for his several tons of steel. Natural instinct to avoid danger had gotten in the way again.

  After the scar on my shoulder, I felt for the one on my left hip. It was so thick I could feel it through my dress. It wrapped all the way around from my butt to inner thigh. If it wasn’t so morbid, I would have almost been impressed by that one. It took real dedication to cut like that.

  There had been no mapping, no rituals, no anything that night. In a moment of desperation, pain beyond any human threshold rolling through my body, I had snatched a razor and simply sliced. T
here was so much disgust and shame welling up inside I didn’t think I would ever be able to bleed it all out. I didn’t even register the pain for a good sixty seconds.

  When my leg started throbbing, and I saw how much blood was pouring out I knew I should be panicked. This could finally be it. For all the attacks on my wrists, it could be this cut—not even across a major artery—that would end it. How ironic. The temporary fix could have become the permanent cure.

  In the end, my body betrayed me. I did nothing to stop the blood. I lay down on my bed and let it bleed. It clotted on its own, after soaking my sheets. I threw them away on the way to school the next morning. There was nothing I could do about the stain on my mattress. Good thing about being a girl—built-in excuse for bloodstains.

  And then there were the fresh cuts across my stomach. When I touched them through my dress, the fabric scratched painfully against them. They were shallow enough I wasn’t really worried about them opening back up, but deep enough they would probably always be with me.

  Some of the scars had faded over the years. Some seemed like they would never heal. Some I could tie to a specific event or time. Some were there to remind me of who and what I was. There were days I didn’t know if I could define myself without those marks on my body. They were mine and only mine. If I didn’t add to the collection, would I stop being me? Was there a chance I could be someone else? Someone better?

  Suddenly, I was exhausted. I didn’t want to think or feel anymore. I wanted to sleep. I curled up in what I now considered my recliner (even though Ken still sat there when we read) and pulled the old fleece blanket over me, all the way up to my nose. I went to sleep thinking of vanilla and sandalwood, cold steel and hurt.

  11.

  “Persephone. Wake up, Persephone.” When I felt a hand on my shoulder gently shaking me awake my first instinct was to curl into a ball. Or punch. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping if I pretended to be asleep he would go away. It very rarely worked.

  “Persephone, it’s time to get up.” Then I remembered I wasn’t at home, and it wasn’t my father trying to rouse me. It was safe to wake up. I rolled my head around to look at Ken standing over me. I had no idea what time it was. Should I be at home? Was I late? I was supposedly grounded.

  “Oh shit! What time is it?” I struggled to get out of the chair.

  “Calm down. It’s barely after two.”

  “Oh good. Um, I kind of got grounded yesterday. I’m supposed to go straight home after school.”

  “Grounded? For what?” Because of you. Because my mom lets my dad play her like a chess game. Because I refuse to tell the truth to anyone but you. Because my family is completely screwed up. Any of those answers would be truthful but none really acceptable.

  “Mom thinks I’ve been sneaking around. She told me I couldn’t do anything after school or on the weekends for a few weeks. Don’t worry. She’ll forget about it in a couple of days.”

  Ken sighed and sat in the rocking chair. “Perhaps it’s time we talked. I think there are some things we both need to know about each other.”

  If he had caught me at any other time, if I hadn’t just woken up, if I hadn’t been emotionally exhausted from the night before, maybe I could have come up with something better. Maybe I could have kept the wall up with a perfect lie. Or maybe not.

  “Mom drinks a lot. She is usually in bed by nine. And Dad travels for his job. Nobody keeps track of me all that much.”

  Ken took a moment to absorb what I’d said while he got up and walked over to the bookcase. He kept his back to me when he said, “I had a sister. She was four years younger than me.”

  Ken turned around, holding the photo of him and the girl. He handed it to me. “This is her when she was fourteen. I was getting ready to leave for boot camp. Her name was Rachel.”

  “She was beautiful.”

  “Yes, she was. This was the last time I saw her. While I was in Vietnam, Rachel was killed in a car accident.”

  “Oh, Ken, I’m so sorry.”

  He held up his hand. “Let me get through this. Before I shipped out, there was this guy coming around. Nick. A couple of years younger than me, couple of years older than Rachel. Our parents were hard workers, and my dad was a hard drinker. My mother did what she could, but she wasn’t a very strong woman. I did my best to take care of Rachel, but I needed to get out. My father wasn’t a good man, and he and I were coming to a head. One of us was going to get hurt and bad. He didn’t much bother with Rachel, but there was something about me that got under his skin. When I was old enough, I signed up for the Marines.

  “So back to Nick. He was a hood. If he hadn’t flunked out of school by then, he was well on his way. The first time he showed up to the house smelling like whiskey I let him know he wasn’t welcome around my sister. The second time I laid him out. I thought that was the end of it. After I left, I suppose he thought the way was clear. Rachel was lonely and sad. She started going around with him. He ran a stop sign one night and killed them both. I was somewhere I couldn’t be reached. I didn’t find out about it until months later. I missed her funeral.”

  “Ken, I didn’t know. I mean, I thought when I saw the picture... That first night when I came over, I thought maybe she was...”

  “The reason I told you all this, Persephone, is to let you know, I owe something to Rachel. I abandoned her when she needed me because I was selfish and wanted to get away. I will not do that again. So I have given this situation a lot of thought, and I think we need to come to a new arrangement.”

  My heart and stomach crawled into my throat, fighting for space. I couldn’t breathe. New arrangement? What did that mean? An “arrangement” like I had with my father? I knew it! Goddammit, I knew it was coming! How did I let myself actually believe that this time was different? They always wanted something in return. There was always a catch. Fuck it. Bring it on. You can have whatever you want, and I can have what I want. The strength to finally finish the job. I hate you.

  “Um, okay.” I tried to keep my voice calm and even.

  “I think you should move in here.” I stared at him. He couldn’t have possibly said what I thought he did. What price tag was attached? What did he really want? I waited. “This is what I’ve come up with. I would like to hire you between now and when you leave for college. I would like you to be my in-home caregiver. Let me tell you what I expect, and then you can let me know what you think.”

  And here it was—what he expected. “Uh…okay. I mean, I don’t know what to say.”

  “I will expect you here every night by five. You will have from two in the afternoon on Saturdays until two on Sundays off. I will need you to do some cooking, some cleaning, reading obviously, grocery shopping, that kind of thing. I will provide room and board and pay you two hundred and fifty dollars a week. You have about fourteen weeks left before you leave for school. That will give you around $3,500. That should cover your books and some of your living expenses for the first year. Would you like the job?”

  There was no manipulation or intimidation. Ken was looking me in the eye, his face serious and sincere. Was this my chance? Was there really another way out? I swallowed my natural instinct to respond ‘Hell yeah!’ and instead said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you think your parents would allow it?” There wasn’t a chance in hell.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I would like you to start moving your stuff in this weekend. There is a spare bedroom you can have. It has a bed, dresser, and,” his voice caught before he continued, “some other stuff we can move out. You’ll probably want new sheets and that kind of thing. You can decorate it however you would like.”

  And then it hit me. What about my piano? I couldn’t possibly leave my music behind. And it would be impossible to move it over here. My parents would never agree to pay a professional moving company. Even if I did figure out a way to bring it, when would I play it? What if Ken hated music? His life was quiet.

  Did he realize it wouldn�
��t be quiet anymore? I would have to shower at his house. Eat there. Do homework. My clothes would have to be washed. My phone would be ringing and pinging with texts. What if I had a nightmare? I hadn’t yet in all the nights I had stayed there, but what if I did?

  Then the ultimate question sliced through my brain—what about my most important habit? My first and strongest love. Would the razors come with me, too? Would I still need them? Could I hide it from Ken?

  “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” With all of this still bubbling in my head like a poisonous brew in a cauldron, I followed Ken down the small hallway, past the corner bedroom I found him in what seemed like a lifetime ago, to a door I assumed led to my new bedroom.

  Ken opened it and waved for me to go in. I stopped at the threshold, breath, heartbeat, brain function, everything slamming to a halt. Against the wall was an old Baldwin upright with a matching bench.

  “It was my sister’s. She played beautifully.” I barely heard him as I crossed the room and lifted the lid. There wasn’t a single speck of dust on it. From the outside it seemed incredibly well-cared for. I pressed a key. The note was true. The sheet music for ‘Amazing Grace’ was lying open.

  Without asking I sat down and began to play. The melody filled the room, sweet and clear. I didn’t realize I was crying until the final note faded.

  Ken placed his hand on my shoulder. “Welcome home, Persephone.”

  12.

  Mom and Dad were both home when I got there. Dad must have taken off early. He was tapping away on his phone, most likely sexting the little chippie from his office, and Mom was staring at a glass that was little more than melting ice. I could only hope this was at least the second drink of the day. They both looked up when I walked in.

  “Hey, guys.”

  “Hi, honey. How was school?” Mom’s eyes were too bright, her words too careful. Yep, she had started early. I caught her at the perfect moment of low resistance before she tipped over into oblivion.