Medium

I press a wad of toilet paper to the straight red lines, shuddering as I wonder how unhygienic this is, I’ll have to clean them when I get home. A shower, some breathable plaster and a dab of Bactroban ought to assure that I won’t have to fess up due to something as uncontrollable as infection. Or face the thought of allowing an infection to spread. It’s miraculous I’ve never had an infection before, all things considered...I guess there are advantages to growing up in a medical household after all, I’ve always known how to treat my own minor injuries. I guess no parent who spends their working hours stitching up people who’ve had run ins with electric tools, other people, cars and so much worse, really has the patience to patch up a child with a skinned knee.

Eventually I emerge from the cubicle, washing my hands I glance up at the girl in the mirror, cheeks flushed and hair escaping her hasty ponytail she looks slightly excited. For a second she almost looks pretty, but then I glance back properly, staring her full in the face, and it’s just me- and I’m still ugly. I scrub at my fingernails to assure that they are completely clear of blood, it reminds me of last year when we studied Macbeth at school and Lady Macbeth was going insane trying to wash the blood from her hands, crying to herself oh will they ever be clean. Although she had murdered an innocent in cold blood I find myself identifying...will I ever truly be free of the blood stains on my hands and blade? I shake my head, watching my reflection blur slightly as I try to physically force these thoughts from my mind and push open the heavy swing door, forcing my way back out into a world I don’t even really want to be in.

I stoop to retrieve my pencil case, I didn’t even realise I’d dropped it on the way in here- a little too disassociated from my dash down here I suppose. As I walk along the now deserted pathways I am acutely aware of everything from the unsympathetic sun burning down on top of my hair and the slight breath of wind caressing my hypersensitive skin, to the rough material of my school skirt brushing against fresh cuts and the slight weight of a blade in my pocket.  I head for the student car park, at least in exams I don’t have to sit in classes pretending to care about what’s going on, trying to act like I’m not about to run for a bathroom to harm myself, or dissolve into tears thinking about Ally. This is better, as long as I turn up for my exams; no one cares where I am. Hell, I don’t even have to be accountable to my mother. As I reach my car it’s already resolving in my mind where I’m headed, I’ve thought about Ally and that’s it, no coming back from that. I might as well head to a place where I can recognise my grief. A place where if sorrow overwhelms you, no one thinks it’s weird. Where you can sit down to cry for an hour, and talk to someone who’s no longer sharing this world with you- and have it be wholly normal.

Twenty minutes later I pull in at the cemetery, as I tread down the path past the crumbling headstones and faded crosses, I try to imagine the people beneath the ground. You’d think it might be unsettling, thinking of all those bodies beneath me. But it actually feels less lonely. For a fleeting second I wish I could join them, the guilt catches me almost immediately, it’s practically sacrilege to think that here, Ally loved life more than anyone I’ve ever known, she believed it to be a gift and yet it was snatched away from her far too soon. While I, wishing for death almost every day, would live to a ripe old age if this universe has anything to do with it. Whoever’s watching over us sure has a taste for irony, vengeful bastard. What did I ever do? What did Ally ever do wrong..? I believe love- or more specifically loss- turns us all into believers, believers in something anyway, before her death I would have proudly counted myself as an atheist. And now here I sit, conversing with a girl who, if I was right before, is nothing but a breakdown of organic compounds. Despite the beliefs I’ve held for years about the rational nature of this world, I lie on the grass and talk to her more than I’ve spoken to anyone all week.