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At midnight, he was in my doorway. “So you’re still here. Mom told me she grounded you.” I stared at him. “That’s a shame.” He sat down on the edge of my bed, cupping my face in his hand.

“I told her she was being too hard on you. Teenagers will be teenagers. You need a little bit of freedom. She just wouldn’t listen. I tried to get you out of it, honey.” When I was younger, I fell for this good cop/bad cop thing. I really thought my mother was the shrew and Dad was trying to be a good parent. If I would just let him touch me here, kiss me there then he made sure I got what I wanted. He made Mom be nicer to me, stop yelling at me all the time. Sure enough, the day after a late night visit to my room, the punishment was lifted or the new shirt I wanted would appear. Funny thing, I never enjoyed it much once I got it.

There was one time when I was ten. Everyone I knew was getting a new gaming system for Christmas. I wanted one so badly. I begged and whined every chance I got. Mom flat out put her foot down. There was no way I was turning into some zombie sitting in front of the TV all day. She said if I asked one more time I was grounded. I was ten. Of course I asked one more time. Multiple more times, in fact. I got yelled at. I got grounded. I got told I probably wouldn’t get any Christmas presents at all. This was two weeks before Christmas and the night before Dad got home from a trip.

When he came home his first order of business, after getting the rundown from Mom, was to come to my room. I was savvy enough to know how this went. He got what he wanted, and I would get what I wanted. I didn’t even have to wait until Christmas. The system was waiting for me the next day when I got off the bus. I played with it three times and then told Mom to sell it. She never said a word.

It wasn’t until I got older I realized these situations were his creations—playing Mom and me off each other like chess pieces. Knowing it didn’t help. I was too numb to do anything about it.

“I know I’ve been gone a lot lately. It’s rough on Mom when she has to take care of you by herself. She doesn’t love you like I do. You’re so special to me.” He leaned down to kiss my nose. “You know that, right? You know how much I love you?”

The silence was filled with touching and kissing and tears. I tried not to react. I tried to stay still and silent, but when his fingers brushed against the fresh cuts on my stomach I cried out. “Shhh, your mom is sleeping. You know how cranky she gets when you wake her up.” He didn’t even notice the smear of blood on his hand.

I had to wear a dress to school the next day. There was no way a waistband was going over those cuts. Mom told me I looked nice as I was walking out the door. I silently told her to go to hell—at least I would have company.

About three blocks from the house I knew there was no way I was going to make it through the day around all those people and inane teachers. It felt like there was a slick layer of scum all over my body, and my head hurt. I had all of the symptoms of a hangover without any of the fun of drinking the night before.

I couldn’t go back home. If Mom bought that I was sick, she might spend the whole day hovering over me. If she didn’t believe me, I would only increase the odds my grounding would stick for more than twenty-four hours. Neither option appealed to me.

Maggie would already be settled into first hour, cell phone safely tucked away and silent in her purse. No way to get her to skip with me. Frankly, I didn’t feel like being around her anyway. Or anyone else for that matter. Turning my car around, I hoped Ken wouldn’t completely flip when I appeared at his front door.

I was tempted to use my key but didn’t want to scare him showing up in the morning, unexpected. I knocked several times, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. After several minutes, he answered, looking out of sorts again. He was still in his robe and unshaven. I had never seen him like this and was suddenly, painfully reminded why my presence had first been requested by James in the first place. Ken was sick. Ken was dying. Like the first time we met, I fought the urge to run.

“Persephone! What are you doing here?” His face went from confusion to concern to I think embarrassment I caught him looking like hell.

“I’m sorry, Ken. I shouldn’t have come. I couldn’t handle school today, and I couldn’t stay at home. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
And you’re sick, and I don’t know if I want to face that today, too. I’m scared. I need to be safe.

“No, no. Come in. Go into the living room. I’ll be there in a minute.”

He shuffled down the hallway, and I heard the shower start. I wandered around the living room, looking at the photos again, skimming the books crammed into the shelves. One thing I had to give him, he certainly had an eclectic taste in reading material. There was everything from true crime, political biographies and philosophy to Stephen King and Amy Tan.

It wasn’t long before Ken was back, clean shaven and presentable. “Have a seat, Persephone.”

I could see it all over his face. We were about to have “the talk”. I hated “the talk”. I had been hearing versions of it since I was eleven. It would start with something about me being a bright girl with a good future if I would just “apply myself” and “stop being so unhappy all the time.” I had a good life with “no reason to be so angry
all the time
.”

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. There 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.