The weeks turned to months, and the time drug on exorbitantly slowly. Sometimes I felt like i was stuck in some kind of time warp. Christmas came and went, then Valentine's Day, (which, needless to say, i spent locked in my room crying) and finally spring was approaching. My cutting problem had unfortunately become a habit, and i was starting to worry about it. I knew some of my friends had seen the cuts and what people were saying about me. Not only was a slut, i was an emo freak on top of it. But to be honest i couldn't care less what people said about me at that point. The only thing i was concerned about was the rising temperature, and that i wouldn't be able to get away with long sleeves for that much longer. At school i didn't care who saw, but at home i was gonna have to find a way to hide them from my parents.
I don't know why i ever thought i could keep that from them.
During this time i tended to not pay attention to things. I thought i was doing an okay job at deceiving my parents into thinking that there wasn't anything seriously wrong with me, but they knew. They always know.
One day, unbeknownst to me, my parents decided to go to the principal at school and talk about my "issues". Apparently, the group that i hung out with back then was accurately dubbed "the cutters" by the principal and staff. My parents, bless their hearts, are pitiful. They didn't even know what that meant, or that people even did that to themselves. Therefore when they were told by Mrs. Huston that they suspected by my continuous attire of long sleeves that i was a "cutter" as well, they were baffled. Did she mean cutting school? Cutting paper? What? They didn't want to look stupid though, so they didn't say anything. They left that day still oblivious to what "cutting" meant. For a few days after that meeting they treated me a bit strangely, but i was still confident in my ability to hide what was going on.
Well, my parents might be old fashioned, but they're not stupid. That few days was all it took for them to put two and two together.
"Leslie?! Leslie!!"
I was lying on my bed playing xbox when i heard feverish pounding on my door. My mom was using her panic-attack voice, and i started to worry. I got up and opened my door. My mom looked like she was about to blow a fuse.
"Mom chill, what's wrong?"
"Take off your sweatshirt."
Oh dammit. What was i gonna do? I racked my brain but i couldn't think of anything. I couldn't hide them anymore.
I pulled off my sweatshirt and dropped it on the ground. My mom grabbed my left arm and turned it over. She let out a whimper when she saw the bright red straight cuts, some still wet with blood and some already scabbed over, and started to cry.
I didn't say anything. What could i say? "Sorry I've been mutilating myself mom, are you gonna ground me now?"
She brought me into the kitchen and sat down at the table. I sat down across from and looked down at my fidgeting hands. I couldn't look her in the eye, not when she had such a heartwrenching expression on her face.
"Leslie...Why would you do something like that to yourself? I can't even imagine it."
I was silent and thought for a while before saying anything. I didn't know what to say. But I figured more lying at this point would be the least beneficial.
"It was because of Cody," my heart throbbed at his name. "I guess you know that a while ago he kindof, stopped talking to me." The way it sounded seemed so much more insignificant than it actually was. I didn't know if i should add the rest of the story. "Well i mean, that and some other stuff that followed it. It's complicated."
We continued talking about everything for about three hours. It almost felt good to be able to get it all out there and not have to bottle it all up anymore, but i was afraid of what the final outcome was gonna be.
