Friday. (Chapter 3 Part 1)

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a cigarette from the pack hidden there. I had just gotten off of the public bus and was walking towards my apartment building. I hated the damn school bus. It was always filled with ho bags and self righteous pretty-boy turds. I lit up and began to smoke.

The smoke flooding my mouth felt good in a strange, harmful way. I nodded my head to a foreign rhythm; a sorrowful guitarist's song coming from somewhere nearby. I had gotten used to that. Sorrow, I mean. Growing up in the neighborhood I came from, all I really knew was a deep sort of sorrow. A despair that kept a void in my soul incapable of ever being filled.

I dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk then smashed it down into the concrete with my foot. As I was walking towards the entrance to my building, my neighbor from across the hall was walking out. Ms. Masterson. She smiled brightly at me as she held the door open.

"Thanks, Ms. M." I mumbled. "No problem, dear." She responded, the smile still evident in her voice.

The elevator ride was short and I soon found myself jogging to our apartment. I inserted my key into the door and forcefully shoved it open. I shuffled inside my room and stood in front of the full length mirror that was attached to the back of my door. I tugged at my short hair. It was messy, dirty looking and starting to feel slightly greasy. I sighed. We had been having problems with our plumbing for more than two weeks. The landlord promised he would have it fixed by Monday. Last Monday.

My hands rested on my cheeks. My skin looked unnaturally white, sickly even. The dark circles beneath my eyes were brought out even more by the paleness of my face. I just looked completely horrible. I didn't even look real. I appeared to be some zombie or worse out of a child's nightmare.

I sighed again and moved away from the mirror. I wasn't even able to look at myself anymore. It made me sick to my stomach. I decided against going on The Vamp Room that night. I couldn't bear being around someone who seemed to be so content, so at peace with their life.

I knelt down beside my bed then reached underneath and pulled out a gray, beaten up old shoebox. I took off the lid then moved old birthday cards and gum wrappers with stupid jokes on them out of the way hurriedly. I was desperate to get down to the one thing I truly needed at that moment that rested at the very bottom of the box.

The tip of my finger scraped the object gently and a soft gasp escaped my lips. I smiled to myself then grabbed it gingerly with my thumb and index finger. The small amount of light seeping into the room from between the curtains glittered against it. The razor. I breathed deeply then closed the shoebox and pushed it gently back beneath the bed.

I sat on top of my pillows and leaned back against the headboard. I closed my eyes and whispered, "But the ugly marks are worth the momentary gain…" quoting a lyric from the song Bad Habit by my favorite band, The Dresden Dolls. I let the razor rest against the delicate skin of my wrist and began to do something that was all too familiar to me at the time.