He nodded slowly, looking like he was debating the sanity of the thing I’d just admitted to. He returned his lighter to his pocket, and when he did, his right sleeve slid back a little. The leather cuff he wore on his wrist moved with it. Just long enough to expose a scar. “Why?”
I swallowed hard. Was this the reason he seemed so curious about me—why he was bold enough to ask me outright if I’d tried to kill myself? Maybe this was something we had in common. Maybe not. I nodded to his wrist, feigning confidence and a certainty that I did not feel. “Probably for the same reason you have that scar on your wrist.”
“You ran through a sliding glass door too?” He tilted his head, his eyes widening some at my words. I felt like a complete idiot. Why had I assumed he’d cut his wrist on purpose? Was my brain hardwired to see the urge to die in people all around me? Not everybody was as screwed up as I was.
But after a second, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Kidding. That’s just what I tell people when they ask about my scars. It’s amazing what an excellent liar someone can become just for want of being left the hell alone, isn’t it?”
He removed the leather cuff, turned his right wrist over, and pulled up his sleeve so I could get a better look. The scar was fairly straight, and thicker than I’d thought it would be. It ran from where his hand met his wrist up his arm about four inches. He’d meant business, that was for certain.
Without thinking, without asking, I reached out and ran my fingertips along the raised pink line, feeling its smoothness against my skin. He felt warm to the touch. “You did it the right way.”
“Down the road, not across the street.” I’d heard the phrase dozens of times—referring to the proper way to cut your wrists so it was less likely that the doctors could save you—so I had no idea why his casual utterance of it bothered me. “Of course, the other one’s not so pretty.”
He put the cuff back on his right wrist and slid his left sleeve up, exposing a second, jagged scar.
Even though nobody else was around, I kept my voice low. This wasn’t a conversation for anyone but those who had been there, to that dark place. “Why didn’t you finish?”
“Couldn’t hold the blade steady enough to do the second one. I was losing blood fast, kept getting dizzy—which is why that scar’s all fucked up.” The scar on that arm looked more like a lightning bolt and wasn’t as long as the other. As he pulled his sleeve back down, he said, “You a cutter?”
I knew I had no business feeling offended, but I did. As if there were something nobler about hacking away at your own flesh than drowning yourself. “No. Not . . . not normally. I mean, I did it once, but . . .”
I never thought of myself as a cutter. But three pink lines marked my left arm. I hadn’t been trying to reach my veins, to slash my wrists, to die in such a bloody way. It wasn’t suicide then. Not yet. That was months before my actual serious attempt to die.
Derek nodded to the three lines on my left arm. “Harder than it seems, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I just . . . wanted to feel something, that’s all. I guess. I don’t know.”
He took a drag on his smoke and had the courtesy to turn his head away from me to exhale before meeting my eyes. “But you didn’t feel anything. Not enough, anyway. And so you decided to end it.”
“Something like that.” The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood uncomfortably on end. “You speak pretty openly about the subject. What are you, some kind of peer counselor? Is this the part where you tell me I have a lot to live for? That you and I are survivors? That life is hard, but it gets better if you let it?”
“If I really believed life could get better, do you think I would have slashed open my veins with a pocketknife?” His words were matter-of-fact. No bullshit. Derek spoke in a way that he knew I would understand. In a way that only a person who’s been consumed by the darkness of depression can possibly understand.
“Depression’s a bitch, isn’t it?” I said.
“Almost as much as life.”
For some reason, his response made me laugh a little. What a ridiculous conversation. I couldn’t talk to Duckie, my parents, or Dr. Daniels about any of this. But here I was, sharing intimate details about my darkest thoughts with a boy I didn’t even know. And I wasn’t sure I wanted the conversation to end. It was nice to feel understood. “Why a pocketknife and not a razor?”
He shrugged, tapping ash from the end of his cigarette. “Availability, mostly. I had the pocketknife on me, and I wasn’t in a waiting kind of mind-set. I wanted it over, and I wanted it over right then. At first, I didn’t think the blade would be sharp enough, but it’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re determined, isn’t it? It only takes a pound of pressure to slice into human skin.”
“So I’ve heard.” Images flashed through my mind. My left wrist. The blade. How hard I’d sliced into my own flesh with barely anything to show for it. Maybe I was just weak. Physically. Emotionally. I shifted my feet, wondering how much longer Duckie would be gone. Not that I wanted him to return anytime soon. I was actually enjoying Derek’s company. “So what stopped you?”
“UPS guy saw me through the window after I passed out, broke in, and called nine-one-one.” He said it with such casual flair, as if attempted suicide was something that people discussed every morning over doughnuts and coffee. I was honestly grateful for his tone. Most people spoke about it while shaking their heads and looking mournful. Derek didn’t seem to give a shit about pretense. “Y’know, just a tip, but it’s pretty impossible to drown yourself on purpose.”
What was this? First the thank-you note, and now this bizarre conversation? When I spoke again, I felt my guard going back up. “Not when you down a bottle of sleeping pills first.”
“Huh. That’ll do it, I guess.” He paused to take a final drag on his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and crushing it with his boot. The sight of his jawline was almost mesmerizing. He didn’t offer me a smoke. Maybe he sensed that I just wasn’t the type of person who smoked. Maybe he didn’t think about whether or not I smoked at all. As he blew out the smoke, he said, “So what went wrong?”
I sighed, suddenly wishing the subject would change. “Some old man was out walking his dog that night. He saw me jump into Black River and pulled me out.”
“Fuckin’ heroes, man.” He shook his head. “How long were you inpatient?”
“Too damn long. Six weeks.”
“And now everyone treats you differently.” There was no question in his tone. Just understanding. He must have done inpatient time too. You don’t cut your wrists that deeply and get sent home after a few stitches or staples.
“Yeah.” I wanted to say more, to talk about how much it hurt to be treated like the town freak. But I didn’t trust him yet. I didn’t trust anybody anymore. Especially myself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Duckie exit the front of the school. Derek followed my eyes to my approaching best friend and took a step closer to me. Maybe he felt the same way that I did about other people not understanding. “They have to treat you differently, you know. You are different. You’ve been to a place they can’t even wrap their heads around.”