Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Thirty One - All Or Nothing

The increase of intentional injuries on my body did nothing to prevent random scratches and scrapes from showing up on my abused skin. Of course, it was irrational to think that deliberate damage would eradicate accident, but I was never logical anymore, and was still irritated by the scab on the bone of my ankle.

I was clueless as to where it’d come from, having discovered the minor scrape when it started to bleed after I accidently kicked it against the corner of a door. It didn’t make sense for a solid layer of flesh to have come off of me from hitting a flat piece of wood, though, so the answer to the question of the scab’s origin still evaded me.

I’d forgotten about it after the initial realization that I’d acquired yet another undesirable blemish, figuring that I’d just add the resulting pink circle to my list of scars. A grazed ankle was absolutely nothing compared to the lines on my hips.

But as I stumbled out of a soccer mom minivan, leg stuck between the seats and feet tripping as I fell onto the asphalt, the scuffed heel of my Converse banged against my ankle. My nose scrunched up with the pain and subsequent throbbing, and shook it off, righting myself and grinning at the three boys who were shaking their heads at me and chuckling.

It was reality’s way to have me cornered in my room with my insistent boyfriend and exposed cuts one day then returning to my school of cheery smiles and insincere eyes the next. It made me wonder if the teenagers laughing at my clumsiness would be so quick to dismiss me if they knew of the events that took place on my bleached sheets. It was a repetitive thought that flitted through my head, how differently people would act towards me if they were aware of everything that I’d done and thought.

As it was, my peers knew exactly as much as I wanted them to – with the usual exception of Alex, of course – and were as happily ignorant as ever, unknowing that I only smiled at my own idiocy because slumping into myself and revealing my insecurity would make me look even more pathetic. I wasn’t one to solve problems that could be ignored or open up my actual self to judgment, so I laughed humorlessly along with the boy’s that I’d just been joking with while crammed together in the back of that car, ignoring the pulse in my ankle and following mindlessly as we walked to our destination.  We’d been shoved into that minivan in order to reach the destination of our current fieldtrip, the art museum.

Alex’s searching eyes spotted me as soon as we reached the front of the building, a genuine smile pulling at my lips with the realization that he’d been looking for me as Alex watched us approach. With a quickened step, I strode over and jumped up onto the cement block displaying the museum’s name, my class lazing around since our teacher had yet to arrive.

Alex frowned while I crossed my legs, shoes kicking against the concrete as he bypassed a greeting and asked, “What happened to your ankle?”

Contemplating how many times one of us had explained an injury to the other, I glanced down, knowing that the small scab wouldn’t be worth noting to him. It was far more alarming than I’d expected, though, my uncoordinated blundering having apparently managed to break the covering and cause it to start bleeding once again. Twin streaks of red went down the side of my foot, already having gone through the white sock and pooled in a spreading puddle on the edge of my Converse.

Immediately thinking over how difficult it would be to wash the seeping blood out of my gray sneaker, I acknowledged the should-be panic-producing sight with a casual ‘huh’. Propping my foot up on my knee to inspect it closer, I furrowed my eyebrows, scowling at the blood that’d surely be annoying to remove and my current lack of anything to clean it up off with, replying to Alex, “I don’t know. The scab’s been there for awhile and I just accidently hit it, but I don’t know where it came from in the first place.”