The light comes in through the bare window. I had forgotten to close the curtains the night before. The morning sun shines into my eyes and when I open them, I feel the pain of my pupils trying to hide away. I lift my head half sleepily, squinting my eyes in an effort to get them open. It is early. The outside is as silent as inside. My head still swims, heavy with the alcohol and the weed from the night before, and my throat is dry. I lick my cracked lips in an effort to moisten them, but my mouth feels disgusting, a mixture of too much smoking and too much drinking.
I rub my eyes to try to get them to open and then stifle a yawn. Donna is asleep next to me with my arm trapped under her neck. I try to slide it out so that I don’t wake her. Neither of us has any clothes on, and I pull the blanket back up to her shoulders to give her some dignity.
Scott is at the other side of the room. Memories of a giggling struggle to get the mattress from my bed and into the lounge seep in my mind. He is with the blonde girl - Emma I think her name is - though I don’t really remember, not do I care. Just the same, their clothes rest with mine and Donna’s. Disgust begins to entwine itself around me, making my skin clammy with it. Shame floods my cheeks as I remember what the four of us did together before falling to sleep. I really am what my father says. He knew all that time ago that I was nothing more than a dirty sex-driven child. I am sorry that I made him bad. I see my badness is getting into Scott too. I infect everyone.
Donna opens her eyes as I move. “Morning,” she whispers to me in a voice still thick with sleep. I smile back.
“Morning,” I reply. She reaches her hand up behind my head to pull my face to hers and kiss me good morning. I don’t know why she doesn’t know or see what is inside me. She should leave as fast as she can, before I infect her too.
I brush her hair back from her face as she pulls me down, and before her mouth can connect with mine, I place a kiss on her forehead instead. “I just need to get up,” I say. I try to keep the urgency away, but I can feel the burn on my skin as my imaginary blade already makes its wounds. My flesh is itching to feel it. To pay back for what I had done and get what I deserve.
She lifts her head so that I can get my arm back, and then I climb over her. When I am off the sofa, she tugs the blanket just under her chin, but in a way that covers her scar. Her face really is beautiful. She has eyes that are innocent like Will’s; even more reason why I know that she should stay far away from me. Her innocence makes her blind to how disgusting I really am.
I pull my underwear and jeans back on. I don’t care to dress fully. I just want to get out of the room. The confinement of it presses down on my chest and I feel that I can’t breathe. I grab my cigarettes and lighter and sneak out of the room so as not to disturb Scott and Emma, and now Donna, who has closed her eyes and gone back to sleep.
In my room are Neil and the other girl. Her name - I have no idea. I couldn’t even guess. They are sleeping on just the base of my bed, with cushions and blankets. It can’t be very comfortable. On my way to the bathroom, I pop my head around Will’s door. He is sleeping; his little face pressed up against the bars with his arm dangling out.
Sitting on the side of my bathtub, I light my cigarette. In my other hand, I turn over the inviting blade of a razor that I pulled apart. The blade is small, but adequately sharp. I rest it against my skin, not pressing down, not slicing, not doing anything. The cigarette rests between my lips. The smoke, with nowhere really to go, whirls around and snakes its way to my nose and eyes. I think I am still slighting drunk as I sit there. My head has that woozy, heavy kind of feel.
Sometimes there is peace in just watching the corner of the blade pierce my skin. It’s like the hand raised and ready to strike at any moment I choose. I suck on my cigarette and simultaneously slide the blade across my arm, leaving behind a pink line that quickly produces blood. I know that Frank is going to go to my dad. I know he is going to tell him that it was me who smashed his window. And he is right, of course, but he has no proof. No one saw us. If they had, the police would have knocked on our door. But all they did as we stood at the doorway was ask if we had seen anything. “No. We just heard the smash,” I happily and easily lied to them. Frank hadn’t said anything. He stared at us, though. I am sure the words were there, but what could he say?
