Rebecca laid her head on the cold, hard desk, subconsciously listening to the teacher drone on. The girl was deep into her thoughts, stuck in the past and anxious about the future.
Her dark, mysterious eyes peered around the class, the backs of students' heads scattered around the noisy room. Becca felt a sudden, burning feeling race through her veins, passionate hatred stinging her nerves. Hatred, not only for the people around her, but for herself, too. She couldn't stand being in the crowded room any longer.
Scraping her chair backwards against the scuffed tile floor, Becca threw her backpack over her shoulder and slipped through the door. Expecting pursuit by her teacher, she made a beeline for the ladies restroom. Locking herself in the big stall, Rebecca glanced at her reflection in the smeared, graffitied mirror.
Holy shit, I hate myself. She thought instantaniously. The words came naturally. That one wisp of thought ran through her head at least once every 2 minutes, all day, everday. Becca couldn't remember the last time she complimented herself - or the last time she had recieved a genuine compliment, in that case.
Rebecca glared at the plain girl staring back at her. Her long curly hair fell limp down her back. Tired, dead eyes bore into her, the color of a murky retention pond. An oversized black hoodie hung on her starved, pale frame. This girl that stared back at her angered Rebecca, and untamed rage shot through her body.
Long fingers with chewed fingernails reached up and lightly touched her face, then dropped down, only to push up her left sleeve. Becca gazed at the girl in the mirror, pretending it wasn't her, studying the red slashes running horizontally across the girl's arm.
"I hate you." This time she said it aloud, spewing the words at the empty girl peering back at her. Becca dug her blade out of her pocket, searching for the relief that keeps her alive. She slid the metal up and down her arm, in the rythmic pattern that kept her sane. Her mind was numb, but her skin danced with liveliness, as blood started dotting the cuts, pooling up, eventually gathering enough weight to drip onto the greasy, ceramic sink.
Rebecca smiled, giddy, feeling high off of the sharp, stinging pain.
Cleaning up her mess, she wondered what was stopping her from ending it all, right now. The thought stopped her in her tracks. What was keeping her from killing herself?
Faces filled her head, the faces of the people she loved. Her best friend, her spiteful father, her unsympathetic sister, the boy that made her laugh. Deep down, she knew that she could never end her life, only because of the devastation it might cause to her loved ones. But the last face that flashed before her eyes took her by surprise - it was her own.
The realization dawned on her that the only person keeping her from herself was herself. And that scared her. Not only did it frighten her, but she blamed her depression on herself. Rebecca had chosen to define herself by her emotions, and she had no one else to hold accountable. The abuse she endured, the traumatic experiences that she'd been through, didn't break her. She broke herself. There was no pointing fingers. The only person she could point a finger at was the girl standing in the mirror. All this time, she had been blaming others for her problems, and she was now grasping how much of a coward she was, how selfish. And that just intensified the hatred she held against herself.
Suddenly, Rebecca's intuition changed course.
I'm not dead.
The three words hit her like bullets, causing a new train of thought to chug to life. She considered the fact that, since she was in control of her life or death, she had chosen to be strong and choose life. Becca had to admit that, although she was vulnerable to the tornado of emotions twisting through her brain, she had the courage to stay alive. To some, that might be insignificant, but to her it meant everything. She wondered that, maybe, if she was strong enough to stay alive, then she might be strong enough to do other things, too. Rebecca had so many issues, and it overwhelmed her to think about fixing it all at once. She decided to start small, to test out the idea of happiness. Rebecca's first step to healing: SMILE.
The bell rang and she left the bathroom, smiling, feeling the rough cuts against her sweater sleeve, but happy, because she was alive.
