Breaking Free (12 page)

With the excitement dying down, everyone else returned to their tents.  JC followed me into mine, but we left the door open, waiting for Chris to return.  I knew there was no way she’d let him stay in there.

“You’ve got a nice set up,” he said, studying my few remaining bottles and tubes of absolute necessities.  He looked over to the right side of the tent where my clothes were arranged by style and color.

“You might be a little OCD.”

“That’s the least of my worries.”

He smiled and lay down on the floor next to me.  I unzipped my sleeping bag, turned it completely inside out, and shook it for good measure.  Onc
e I was satisfied there were no snakes or other creepy crawly things in it, I wiggled inside and zipped it up to my neck.

I turned on my side to fi
nd JC staring at me.  He looked much more relaxed than he had minutes ago.

“You’ve calmed down,” I s
aid.

He nodded
.  “I’m feeling better.”

“JC, where are you?” Chris
asked, back from talking to Jason.

“Mal’s tent.”

She ducked inside and sat on the end of my sleeping bag.  “You can’t sleep in here.”

“I’m not going back there.”

“You can stay with Neeky or Jason.  Take your pick.”

“Fine,” he said with a grunt
, sitting up.  “I’ll bunk with Neeky.  What kind of snake was it?”

“Copperhead.”

“Would I have died if it bit me?”

“
Probably not.  It would’ve hurt like hell and we would’ve had to airlift you out of here, though.  It would have completely ruined the trip.”

“How’d it get in there,” I asked, pulling my sleeping bag tighter around my neck.

“Jason said there was a hole in the corner of the tent.  Did you ever notice that?”

“
No.  There were no holes when I pitched it yesterday.  I checked.”

“Maybe it was from the animal we heard earlier.  The raccoon.  Could that have chewed a hole through it?”
I asked.

“
Did you have any food in there?”

“No.”

“Then it seems unlikely.”  She patted his leg and added, “Don’t worry.  Your sleeping bag is totally safe now.”

“I’m not using a sleeping bag for the rest of the trip.”

She laughed.  “Suit yourself, but you need to move to Neeky’s tent.”

Chapter 17
:  August 25

“I wouldn’t have been
able to sleep out there again!” Marta says.  “I hate snakes.  I would’ve left right then.”

We had moved into the living room while I told
Marta what happened.  She’s now on the love seat with her knitting needles.  I grab mine from her bag and start where I left off yesterday.

“
JC was still pretty freaked out until we put two and two together.”

Marta raises her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

“We figured Bling had to be responsible.  He disappeared, we heard the sound in the woods, and then the snake appeared.”

“Did you tell Chris?”

“No.  We didn’t know how he did it so we felt silly going to her.  Plus JC said he’d take care of things.”

“How’d that make you feel?”

I pause, holding a needle in midair.  “Nervous, I guess.  I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

“
Did he?”

“
Not right then.  Things were pretty calm for a few days.”  I begin knitting again and notice that I’m doing better than yesterday.  It doesn’t take nearly as much concentration.

“
But that changed?”

I look out the window to
the pool in the backyard.  The twenty-something, hot pool guy is cleaning it.  I’m surprised Sheila’s not home since she usually likes to be around when he’s here.  She must really be avoiding me.  Turning my attention back to Marta, I say, “I melted down.”

“
What happened?”

“It was my birthday.”

“That’s usually a happy time.”

I
shake my head and tell her about that morning.

Chapter 18
:  August 1 (Day 14)

The real problem was
Chris deciding we needed another silent hiking day to self-reflect.  I wasn’t good at self-reflection on a good day, let alone my birthday when all I could think about was the plans Jenna and I had made.

We were going to visit Disneyland and then
have dinner at a nice restaurant with some friends.  The Disneyland thing was kind of a joke because she was looking through my baby book and there was a picture of me when I was four, sitting on my dad’s shoulders in front of the castle and wearing mouse ears and a birthday hat.  And a huge smile.  She decided we needed to recreate that picture, minus my dad.

During the entire hike, I kep
t thinking about how much fun we would’ve had.  The longer I thought about it, the worse my mood became and I felt myself slipping back into that dark place.  I really wished it wasn’t a silent hike so JC could tell me Prince Jalen stories as a distraction.  Without those, all I could think about was how I wanted to be with Jenna, not in the woods.

After four hours of my own thoughts, I needed to cut.  It was overwhelming.
  My stomach hurt, my chest hurt.  It was as if a sumo wrestler was sitting on top of me.  The harder I tried to breathe the more it hurt.  My eyes scanned everywhere for something sharp.  A tree branch, a rock, part of someone’s pack.  It wasn’t until we stopped for lunch that I found my tool.

I threw my pack on the ground in
frustration or maybe despair.   JC caught my eyes.  “You okay?” he mouthed.

I shook my head no.

He sat next to me and offered me a piece of his orange.

I ignored him and yanked open my pack, digging
around for anything that had a point, but I knew it would be useless.  Everything was taken from me.  Just as I was about to tighten the drawstring, my eyes landed on something.  It was my compact.  I opened it up and studied the mirror.  It was the only mirror I had, but at that moment, cutting myself was more important than making sure I Iooked good.

I
placed it in my pocket, waiting for an opportunity to crack it into pieces. That time came when we were cleaning up after lunch.  Everyone was so preoccupied that no one noticed when I dropped it on the ground and stepped on it with my heel, giving it a good twist until I heard a crunching sound.  When I opened it, I had plenty of shards to choose from.  I selected one and kept it hidden in my hand until we were back on the trail.

I
carefully sliced my palm, a nice straight cut along the diagonal to maximize the size.  The wave of relief was instantaneous.  I almost sighed out loud as the weight lifted from my chest.  I could breathe again.  I clamped my fist closed and hoped it would stop the bleeding soon so I wouldn’t drip too much.

A few drops spilled onto my shorts and the ground, but it wasn’t much. 
I figured no one would notice.

“Ahh
… to hell with grunt work,” Mia said.  “Chris, Mal’s cutting!”

The entire line st
opped and turned to look at me.

“Thanks a lot, Mia,” I growled.

“Sorry, but I’d like to think you’d do the same if you saw me puking out my guts.”

“I hope I can return the favor.”

Chris cleaned the cut and applied antibiotic ointment.  Then she confiscated the compact and all the mirror shards and made me stay beside her for the rest of the two-hour hike.  She never said a word the entire time.

After we set up our campsite, Chris approached me and finally spoke.  “I’d like to try something different for your therapy session today. 
Would you mind if you and JC have a joint session?”

I looked over to JC who was putting the rain tarp on his tent.  He offered me a small, sad smile.

I shrugged so she called him over and we all went into her tent.

“I’d like you to tell me about the first time you cut,” she said to me.
  She had asked similar questions before, but I always stonewalled her.  I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Why?”

“I want to know how it made you feel.”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“How come?”

JC
grabbed my hand and squeezed.

“It’
s personal,” I answered.  That was the most honest I had ever been with her.

She licked her lips and looked beyond me for a moment, as
though considering what to do.

When her eyes drifted down to meet mine again, she said,
“What if I share something personal first?”

I didn’t
answer her.  I wasn’t sure how that would make it any easier.  She wasn’t a friend.  She wasn’t someone I wanted to talk to.  It was her job to talk to me.

Without another word,
she knelt up in the tent and lifted the edge of her shorts, revealing her upper thigh.  The entire area was crisscrossed with thin white marks that looked a lot like the scars on my arm, although she didn’t have the varying shades of red from more recent cuts.

My mouth dropped open.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Do you want to hear about my first time?”

I nod
ded, still too stunned to speak.  I had never met anyone else who did what I did.

“I was fourteen,” she said, sitting back down.  “
My parents had just gotten a divorce and my mom wasn’t around much.  She’s a doctor, a psychiatrist, and was finishing up her residency then.  I felt responsible for what had happened.  I thought that if I had been a better daughter, they would still be together.  The guilt ate away at me little by little until I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore.”  She shifted, then crossed her legs as I stared at her with bated breath.  “One day, I was in my mom’s office doing homework while she studied for her boards.  She was listening to an audiobook that described cutting.  I was fascinated.  The way it described the physical release seemed too good to be true.  I couldn’t believe something that easy would make me feel better.

“That night
I did it.  I used a utility knife from our garage.  It was amazing.  For that brief moment, all the tension, anxiety, stress I put on myself disappeared.  It went up in a cloud of smoke and my head was finally clear after months of endless internal battles.  I could finally think about something else again.  There was physical pain to concentrate on.”

“
You could breathe again,” I whispered.

“
Is that how it feels to you?”

I nod
ded slowly and JC squeezed my hand again.  I looked into his face and was surprised by what I saw.  His eyes were warm and welcoming.  He wasn’t appalled or scared.  He didn’t even look like he pitied me.  He was actually interested.  “Tell us about it,” he said.

I took
a deep breath and started telling JC and Chris about how it all began.

Chapter 19
:  May 3 – July 10

I spent four days
in the hospital after the car accident.  The first night at home was awful.  I was up all night, staring out the window at Jenna’s house down the street.  Her bedroom was dark, but her parents’ room was lit the entire time.  I imagined they weren’t getting much sleep either.  At three in the morning, I almost put on my shoes and walked to their house.  I hadn’t told anyone that I was responsible for the accident.  That Jenna didn’t want to go to the beach, but I forced her to.

I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn’t.  The shame I felt was devastating.  It was a
crushing weight in my stomach that I couldn’t get rid of.  It spread to my chest and into my throat and around my head.  I tried taking slow, deep breaths, but it only made the tightness worse.  I tried putting my head between my knees, but it didn’t help.  I knew then and there that it would stay with me forever.  I would always have this vise around me, threatening to squeeze the life out of me.

When the sun finally rose above the horizon, Sheila knocked on my bedroom door.  I didn’t bother answ
ering, but she entered anyway.

“Why aren’t you showered?  We need to leave in thirty minutes.  Hurry up, Kelsie.  They want close friends and family there early to receive the guests.”

Guests.  Like it was a party.  Not the funeral it was.  I didn’t even want to go.  I couldn’t see her like that.  Lying still and pale in a wooden coffin.  Or even worse, being lowered into the ground.  She’d be stuck in that damn coffin six feet underground permanently.  I was just supposed to go on like everything was normal.  Go boating at the lake while Jenna stared at the backs of her eyelids forever.  Cheer at the homecoming game while Jenna wore the same cheap-ass makeup and dress for eternity.  Get married while Jenna was rotting underground because I had to go to the beach to spite Sheila.

Of all the bad decisions I’ve
made in my life, I regretted this one the most.  I’d give my life to take back that one decision.  Jenna should be the one with a future.  Not me.  Jenna was the ambitious one.  The smart one.  She was going to Stanford, wanted to become a scientist.  She was going to make the world a better place.  There was no chance of me doing that.

“Kelsie, I swear if you don’t get in that shower in the next minute, we’re leaving without you!” Sheil
a yelled from the living room.

I never did shower.  I pulled a black knit dress over my head, stepped into a pair of black pumps and threw my hair into a ponytail.  I smothered my face with foundation and concealer, but they didn’t hide the bl
ack circles or red-rimmed eyes.

When we got
to the funeral home, her parents rushed to my side and engulfed me in hugs.  I opened my mouth, trying to tell them it was my fault, but they cut me off.

“We’re so glad you’re okay,” her mom said
between the tears.  “Losing Jenna is just … just …” A couple more tears rolled down her cheek.  “I’m sorry.  I’m not handling this very well.”  She pulled her hand in front of her mouth.  “We’re really happy two lives weren’t lost that night.”

That made it even worse.  I couldn’t tell her it was my fault after that.  I moved to a chair in the back corner of the room and sat there for the rest of the funeral.  I never even looked at Jenna.  I have no idea what dress her parents picked out or
if they left the bright purple nail polish she was wearing.  It didn’t matter.  I didn’t want to remember her like that.  I wanted to remember her singing our favorite song or twirling around while we tried on prom dresses.  That didn’t matter either, though.  Whenever I closed my eyes, the image I saw was Jenna’s head surrounded by a pool of blood.

The entire day was a hazy fog for me.  Sheila and my dad transported me from place to place, but I never talked to anyone.
  As soon as we got somewhere new, I found a chair in a corner and sat there.  Some friends from school approached me a few times, but when I didn’t acknowledge them, they always left.

At one point, my dad brought me
a plate of food.  “You have to eat, kiddo.”

I nodded and took the plate from him,
but had no intention of eating.

“I’m sorry,” he sa
id.  “I know this isn’t easy and I know you don’t want to hear this, but it will get better over time.  Just hang in there.”

He sat down next to me and forked mashed potatoes and beef tenderloin into his mouth.

“We’re not leaving until you eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Here, let me help,” he said, reaching over to my plate with his knife like he was going to cut my prime rib.

“You don’t need to cut my food for me like I’m a
damn baby!” I yelled, flinging his hand away from me.  In the process, the knife nicked the back of my hand.  There was a brief moment of nothing, but when a ribbon of blood appeared, something I never expected happened.  For the first time in five days, the constricting force around me lessened a bit.  I took a deep breath.  It wasn’t as bad as usual.  It was like the awful pain inside of me was seeping out through that tiny cut.

“Oh, shit.  I’m sorry, Kelsie.  Come with me so we can wash that out,” my dad said.  I followed him, completely mesmerized by the cut.  How could a little nick control something I had no control over?
  It wasn’t until he wiped it clean and applied a Band-Aid that the physical pain of the cut took hold, but I didn’t even care. That was a minimal price to pay in order to lessen the internal pain.

By the
time we got home, the relentless vise had returned with a vengeance.  As soon as we walked through the door, I raced to the kitchen, grabbed a little paring knife, and rushed to my bathroom.  I sat on the edge of the tub with the knife poised above my arm that was still in a sling.  My hand shook, but I was able to rest the blade against my skin.  I didn’t think twice before leaning on the blade and slicing the smooth surface of my inner arm, much deeper than my dad had done earlier.

The result was unreal.  T
he most incredible feeling came over me.  Weightlessness.  Like the vise that engulfed me had evaporated.  There was no more tightness.  I could breathe freely.  My head didn’t hurt.  My stomach didn’t hurt.  After a few moments, the only thing that hurt was the cut on my arm.  I sat there and closed my eyes, reveling in the physical pain that was a hundred times easier to handle than what I had been dealing with.

“Kelsie, you in there?” Sheila asked, knocking on the door.

I bolted up.  “Yes.  What do you want?”

“Give me your dress.  I’ll take it to the dry cleaner tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, just give me a few minutes.  I’m going to take a shower.”

“I need it now.  I’ve got things to do.”

“Okay …”  I scrambled around the bathroom, opening and closing drawers, looking for Band-Aids, but they were nowhere to be found.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.  Just a sec.” I rinsed the blood off my arm, wrapped a hand towel around it, and then struggled to get out of the dress with the sling and towel on my arm. I stood behind the door and opened it only far enough to pass the dress out.

“What took so long?”

“The sling got in the way.”

“Is that blood on the floor?”

“What?” I asked, looking behind me.  There was a long red smear between the tub and sink.  “Oh, yeah.  I started my period.”

“Kelsie
Renee Sullivan, what is going on?”  Sheila pushed against the door with all her weight, slamming me into the wall.  When she saw the white towel, now soaked through with blood, she gasped.

“You’re hurt. What happened?”  She grabbed my arm and unwrapped the towel, revealing a perfectly straight cut.  Her eyes traveled from my wrist to the floor to the di
scarded knife lying in the tub.

“You did this to yourself?”

I shook my head.

“I cannot believe you,
Kelsie.  I never would have expected you to do something like this.  Wait until I tell your father.  He will be so disappointed in you.”

“No!  I didn’t mean to.”  I started throwing out meaningless words as she glared at me.  “
It was the first time.  I didn’t even like it.  I won’t do it again.  I promise.”

She pursed her lips and planted her hands on her hips, staring me down.  “I hope that’s the truth.  People die, Kelsie.  It’s always sad and tragic and terrible.  Take your time to grieve, but do not resort to pointless self-mutilation.  That solves nothing, but says a lot about your character.  I’d like to think, and I know your dad would like to think, you’re stronger than this.”

I nodded.  “It was stupid.  I won’t do it again.”

And I didn’t do it again for a whole four days.  But the draw was too great and I was too weak.

Every time I left the house, I’d see Jenna’s face in the people I passed and the guilt would build up.  If I turned on the radio, I’d hear her voice.  It’s like the whole world wanted me to know what a terrible person I was.  Eventually the pain was too much and I had to give in.

I took more pr
ecautions after that first time, though.   I only cut my wrist where I could hide the marks with wide bracelets or my stomach where shirts would hide them.  I never used a kitchen knife again.  Instead, I bought a box of razor blades and kept them hidden in an apparently sealed box of tampons that I sliced open from the back.  The box was kept under the sink behind other bigger items like extra bottles of body wash and shampoo.   I also restocked on Band-Aids.  I also never did it when Sheila was home.  Luckily, by that time, it was summer so I had all day at home while she ran around town, meeting with her friends and various committees.   After seven weeks, I thought I had a fool-proof plan.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  It was a Tuesday morning.  Sheila had left at ten to have her weekly brunch with a friend.  As soon as I heard the garage door close, I rushed to the bathroom and dug out a new blade.  I leaned against the sink with my arm
resting on the countertop.  My hand no longer trembled out of fear, but out of anticipation.  I knew I was addicted to the rush it provided, to the release it provided from the emotional mess I had become, but I didn’t care.  It wasn’t drugs.  It was just a few cuts on my arm.

The sound of the garage door opening startled me.  “Shit, shit, shit,” I mumbled, fumbling with the used blade and dripping blood on the white
marble counter.  I pulled a Band-Aid out of the drawer and slapped it over the cut.  Then, I wrapped the blade in toilet paper and tossed it in the trash.  I used another piece of toilet paper to wipe the counter clean and then flushed it down the toilet. After sliding a bracelet over my wrist, I took one last look around the room and was satisfied that I had left no clues.

I exited into my bedroom to find Sh
eila entering from the hallway.

“You’re back soon,” I said.

“Let me see your arm.”

“Why?”

“Let me see it.”

“No.”

“You’re still doing it, aren’t you?”

“Mind your own business.”

She shook her head and reached for my hand.  I pulled it from her grip and then ran out of the room, down the hallway, and into the kitchen where I grabbed my keys.

She stood
in the kitchen, smiling at me.

When I opened the door to the garage, I
was shocked.  My car was gone.

“Where’s my
damn car?!”

“The maid told me that she dropped a trash bag and almost cut her foot on a razor blade.  When she picked it up, she noticed ten more in there, all covered with blood.”

“You’re a bitch!”

“You’re the weakest person I’ve ever met.  Do you have any idea what people will think once word gets out?!  Kelsie has gone off the deep end.  Sign her up for the looney bin! Your father doesn’t need this kind of th
ing tarnishing his reputation!”

The argument only went downhill from there.  I ended up locking myself in my bedroom for two days until my dad had a locksmith come over and break in.  By that point, Sheila had already made plans to ship me off to
Wilderness Therapy the next week.