Unsheathed Blade

Blade

Sometimes a single word spoken by a friend can make the biggest difference in our lives.
The things we take for granted in our friendships seem as if they disappear when they say this
word and when they finally allow you to feel again. But this story is that of an unsheathed blades
secret wish.
The girl sighed as she looked down, sitting on the cold floor, at her bare leg and the silver
blade in her hand. The blade rose up in her hand as she slid it across the flesh breaking the skin
as a small trickle of blood started. Nine more times she did this as the blood flowed like the tears
did as they fell from her eyes to the floor. The blade no longer a lone silver but a slight tint of red
hit the floor as she continued to cry knowing no one would care about what she had done. The
girl that her friends and family saw as strong and happy put down her mask and was the real her
for this short time. She was the frightened girl that had cried herself to sleep, waited for someone
to tell her they loved her and wished that one day she would feel warmth instead of the to well
known cold.
After a few minutes the girl stopped the blood and made her way to her room careful for
her mother not to see her as she quickly pulled on a pair of jeans. When she got them buttoned
and zipped she started to hear the clack of her mother's heels on the tile floor. “Sweety are you
ready yet?” her mother asked in a raised voice seeing as the door was shut as she finished putting
her earrings in. “Just about mom” the girl blurted back as she changed her shirt, grabbed her
favorite grey hoodie quickly putting it on, slipping on her flip-flops and grabbing her satchel.
The girl followed her mom as they walked into the garage getting into the car and driving
to school.They reached the school and the girl got out looking back at her mother with a forced
smile as she ‘happily’ said “i love you mom” quickly getting an “i love you too” back from her
mother. She turned her back to the car and sighed as she started walking away hoping no one
would notice the slight limp she walked with due to the pain on her leg. When she got inside she
looked around for her friends who she spotted rather quickly, them being rowdy and loud, as she
sighed again and forced her smile once again walking over to the noise of her friends.
When she got to her friends she got a lot of “good morning” and “what's up?” from them
happily as they talked amongst themselves and to her. She giggled a bit till one of her friends
noticed that she wasn't acting quite right so he stopped laughing and looked at her in concern.
Finally he had enough of the falseness of her happiness so he asked her “what’s the matter?”
only so loud that she could hear so she stopped talking and laughing with the others and looked
at him in shock. “What makes you think that something's wrong?” she mumbled his direction
though he could hear it clearly he quickly replied “I saw you limp over and you’ve been holding
onto your thigh like it hurts so tell me what’s wrong”. By this time the girl knew that her friend
would find out soon enough so she told him “I cut myself this morning to make sure that i could
still feel why does it matter?” and to her it didn’t matter but to her friend his eyes grew in shock
and then he did something she didn’t expect he got mad.
“Never do that again” he almost yelled his sentence at the girl, she had never seen him
this mad before and had never thought that he would actually care. She was just another person
what did it matter what happened to her right? Well that’s what she thought before her friend got
mad at her, eventually as they continued to discuss the topic one of her other friends overheard,
though she didn’t get mad she stood up and walked over to the girl and hugged her “promise me
you will never do that again” the second friend whispered as she hugged the girl. Finally the girl
and her two friends walked away from the rest of the noisy group to somewhere a bit more quiet
and with less chance of being overheard as she was quickly embraced by her two friends in a hug
that seemed to make the cold fade away and warmth to envelope her.
she didn’t want to leave this amazing feeling as her two friends backed away from the
embrace and then they spoke in turn.
“Don’t ever think that you’re alone”
“No matter what we are here for you and we will stay here for you”
“We love you and we don't want anything to happen to you”
They continued this for a bit more as the girl started to cry taking out the blade which she had
placed in the pocket of her jeans “here”. She held out the now brown and silver blade to her
friends who quickly grabbed it and threw it away “now it can’t hurt you”.
The girl smiled happy for the first time in a long time as she sighed once more sitting on
the cool tile of the school hallway. “Thank you” were the only words she could manage to get
out before she started to cry. She whipped her tears from her face with the sleeve of her favorite
grey jacket as she choked on the words she was trying to say. “We understand” was spoken by
her two friends almost in unison as they sat on either side of her saying stupid jokes and making
her laugh this time not forcefully but naturally as a smile spread across her face and she forgot
her pain. As if her heart was melting and she finally could forget about the cold while she
thought and felt the warmth surrounding her. She was finally happy after so long and that
happiness caused her smile to be true and sincere.
Later some of her other friends got word of what she had done and were in a sense
supportive. Some told her to stop while other hugged her and said that they cared but it was
really those two friends who first mentioned something that morning that made her change her
way of thinking. She was finally free from the pain that she held in her heart and her leg and felt
her heart swell with love. And now after a long time she allowed the unsheathed blade its final
wish. The which to be sheathed again.