Chapter 4 : We are all scarred

 “Yeah yeah, I known no one forces me to cut myself. I’m the one who drags it across my skin i…”

“The choice isn’t to cut or not to cut Rebecca,” Esmee said cutting off her angry rant as she walked over the bed and squatted down in front of her. “The choice is to fight. You need to cut, I understand that feeling. I understand that it is deep set inside of you and feels out of control. No one thinks you can simply chose to stop but we do think, and we hope, that you will chose to fight.

There was a pause and then a lap in Rebecca’s judgment as she lowered the blade for a split second to a place where I was over 90% sure I could get her restrained and the blade off of her before hurting anyone and my heart did a strange little jump as I prepared myself for the action. Esmee had seen it to but unlike me she was not preparing herself to physically fight; in fact her eyes old me strongly to back off. She was confident in her ability to make the situation end without physically stopping it and I was confident in her too, she was amazing, but I wasn’t as happy with the threat of broken skin like she was. She understood, not just because studies and paper told her what it was like. She knew in her heart. She had felt it. 

“You don’t know what it feels like. To feel this urge. This need. It’s chocking. You make out like you understand but you have never cut yourself to know what happens inside of you.” A line of blood appeared across the surface of Rebecca’s skin as she lightly drew the blade over it. It was nothing more than a graze but I could feel my face pull into an unnatural shape as I watched and I could detect a sharper intake of breath from Esmee though no one else would have including Rebecca. It was only because I was so entwined with her that I could detect it. I would know if her heart stopped beating before she would. I also know that such acts where harder for her to witness then other people. It made her feel a little different.

“Rebecca, I know what it feels like to need to cut and I know the feeling of relief that it bring to you but you have already cut yourself so you have had that relief already. Your urge to cut more is just addition and blind hope that it may ease the pain. It won’t.”

“You know nothing about this!” Rebecca sobbed her whole body fighting against Esmee’s very right argument. It claimed that it would help. It forced her on with false beliefs. There was just a tiny part inside her head that recognized the truth and that stopped her from reacting. but it was a stupidly hard battle.

“I know a lot more then I think.” Esmee’s voice was firm and persistent before she produced proof by pulling her thumb out of the homemade holes in her long sleeve t-shirt and moving them up just past her elbow. Even perfection had scars.