It was just a few days before Carli's 19th birthday and she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. She just finished the worst day of her life. It started when she got fired from her job, she worked at Walmart, not the best paying job, but it paid the bills. Speaking of the bills, they were due today and she barely had enough to cover them in her bank account. The worst part of her day, was the phone call she got at the end of the day.
"Hello?" she answered. Not many people called her. Only Kally, one night stands, and her party friends. They were the ones who told her what parties were happening when at which college. Kally was in college but Carli was taking a gap year to get money to pay for college.
"Hi Carli" Her mother laughed joyfully. Strange. Her mother never laughed and was never joyful. Something must be up.
"Mom? You haven't called in months. Do you need money? Cause I don't have any. Go find someone else to leech off." She knew she was being rude, but didn't care.
"I don't need money, darling. Cant a mother just call her daughter with out needing anything?"
"No. Not you."
"Alright... I called because I have something to tell you."
Carli sighed "What?"
"I'm getting married!" Her mother shouted while laughing.
"WHAT!" She hadn't heard of her mom's new boy toy yet. Her mom went from boy to boy They hit her, she loved them. Carli knew her mother was for some reason addicted to the abuse.
"I'm getting married!"
"When with who and how long have you been dating."
"February 29th, with Zachary Moore. We have been dating for one month, and it was the happiest month of my life."
"Your an idiot."
"Why?" her mom sounded innocent and confused.
"First of all February 29th wont happen for two years. Second of all your marring a guy you've dated for a month."
Her Mother laughed "Oops, I meant January 29th. I guess I'm a little off my rocker. It was the happiest month of my life." Her mother giggled.
"Mom? Are you drunk?" It was the best explanation.
"Only a little..." her mother giggled again.
"Mom! You said you stopped drinking." Carli sighed, she knew her mom would relapse.
"I'm celebrating! Its a great excuse to have a few cups of champagne!" She gave another tipsy giggle.
"Mom, I'm hanging up." With that she pressed end call and threw it on her bed.
She sat down at the desk in the corner of her room and laid her head in her hands. Today was summing up to be one of the worst days she's had since she moved out.
Time to drown her sorrows in sex, drugs and alcohol. Carli got up and search her closet until she found it, the sluttiest dress she owned. She saved it for a bad day. The dress was tight, black and tiny. It barely covered anything. She found the matching 8 inch high heels. She did some hooker make up and hair. She looked like a complete slut and it was exactly what she wanted.
She left the apartment and called a cab, smoking a cigarette while she waited. She decided to have the best night of her life after the worst day of her adult life. She counted her adulthood as anything after moving out, of course.
She got in the cab when it came and gave the driver the address of the liquor store. She went in and bought a bottle of straight vodka. She didn't get IDed because she was hot and the cashier was distracted. She got back in the cab and gave the driver Kally's address. Kally hated parties but if she knew Carli was going to get plastered, she'd come as a babysitter.
Carli paid the driver and walked up too the house. She wore a long black trench coat, it was December and she didn't want to freeze to death. She grabbed the key from the knot in the maple tree and used it to unlock the front door. She went upstairs and into her best friend's bedroom. Kally wasn't there. She forgot, Kally stayed after to converse with her professors on Fridays. She laid on Kally's bed and opened her Vodka bottle. She drank and drank and drank. She didn't know how much time had passed and didn't care. The bottle was soon empty.
Carli grabbed Kally's favorite teddy bear, Fifi, and hugged it tight. She leaned down and kissed the top of the pink bear's head, then nuzzled her face in the bear. Before she knew, tears began to fall down her face. The fell faster and faster. But she stayed silent. No noises, not even a sniffle.
She wasn't sure why she was crying, but it felt good. The tears were comforting and calming. She revealed in them.
The tears triggered a memory in her
****FLASHBACK****
Daddy was sitting on top of her in the dark. He was mumbling about how beautiful she was. He stroked her cheek in what would seem to be a gentle manner. His following actions were anything but gentle.
It hurt. It hurt so bad. She felt like she was being torn in half. When she began to make noises of pain, he decided to interpret them as sounds of pleasure. Her pain didn't seem to bother him.
Her tears did. She was a tough five year old, it took al lot to make her cry but as her father raped her for the first time, tears sprung to her eyes. The tears slowly streamed down her cheeks for a few seconds until her father noticed. He swung his hand and slapped her hard, "Good girls don't cry! If you cry, I'll stop being gentle." He threatened. This was gentle? It didn't feel like such.
She wanted to be a good girl. She wanted to be a good girl for her daddy more tha anything. But it just hurt, so bad. She didn't want to cry but she couldn't help the tears. It just hurt so bad. She kept crying and her father kept getting rougher and rougher causing her to cry harder and harder.
That was the night she learned to despise crying.
****FLASHBACKOVER****
That memory began to set off other memories of being punished for crying. Memories of being told that having emotions is wrong. When she saw a cat get hit by a car while crossing the street and cried, she was yelled at for causing a scene. If she lived in a normal family, she would have been comforted after a traumatic experience. When she was upset that boys in her class were bullying her, she was chastised for caring so much. In a normal family, she would be told they were wrong, and the school would be contacted. Sometimes on the nights Dad was too busy to hurt her, she would imagine what her life would be like if she lived in Kally's life, instead of her own.
She imagined living in a big house, full of other siblings, and a big fluffy dog that loved being pet. Carli adored Kally's parents. They always made Carli feel so loved. They gave her candy, hugs and kisses. They treated her as their own.
Carli knew she was fucked up. She knew she had more than her fair share of issues. She was a slut. She had sex with a new guy almost every night. She never had a boyfriend for more than a week, since sophomore year. She lost her virginity to a 20 something year old when she was fifteen. Sex was not of any value to Carli. It was pleasure. No strings attached. She never had crushes, she never fell in love. She had learned from experience and watching mother that if you love something, you end up hurt. Kally was the only person she ever trusted and even she didn't know about the abuse, not even the physical. She never told Kally about the times she had to wait in line at the food bank or the times she sat shivering in the dark because their power had been turned off and they didn't have heat. Kally didn't know how messed up Carli truly was.
Carli drunk and smoked herself into oblivion more times than she could count. When she was drunk or high she could usually forget about all her problems. She could do what ever she wanted with out an excuse. They made her numb. You cant feel pain if you cant feel anything at all. Tonight was one of the nights where the alcohol made her hyper sensitive. Instead of feeling nothing like she wanted, she felt everything. The pain, that she had learned to ignore over the years, intensified to a point where she couldn't ignore it. It wasn't a physical pain exactly but it felt like it. It was intense and sharp. It was in her gut and was excruciating.
She was ashamed of herself. She had a perfectly fine life. She used to have a job and she had a fine apartment. She had a best friend who cared about her. She had no reason to be unhappy. Yet here she was, lying on her best friend's bed, more than half naked. She was drunk off her ass and being a self pitying idiot. She didn't deserve to even have the opportunity to do this.
Carli hadn't felt anything real since she was 8. When her dad left, so did her emotions. It wasn't that she particularly upset with her father leaving. She didn't particularly care about her father leaving. but her father leaving ended the worst 8 years of her life. But it also ended her mothers normality, Her mother used normal but after her dad left her mom fell into depression. She missed work at least once a week. She lost jobs because of her frequent absences and soon poverty was a fact of life for Carli. It caused her to grow up fast and face the reality that her life would suck and that she would never be happy. So instead of being sad all her life, she decided not to feel anything at all.
But tonight she felt 11 years of suppressed emotions coming at her at once. She was not sad exactly. She was destroyed. She was drunk and sobbing. She kicked off her high heels and scrambled down the hall to the room she called home for over a year. When she moved out over her mom's house, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, Kally's parents, gladly let Carli move in for free and practically adopted her as their own.
When Carli got to her old room, which was exactly as she left it when she moved out, she began to search. She couldn't remember where she left it. She looked between the mattresses and searched the dresser drawer. Then it hit her. She ran to the corner of her room and got down her knees. She felt around for the loose floor board. When she found it she pried it off. She took out the small black box. It looked like a box that a necklace would be held in. That's because it was. It was the box that once held the purple amethyst necklace she got from Kally on her 16th birthday.
Kally saw her admiring it in the store, even though Carli denied it. Kally knew enough about Carli to know that Carli would never be able to afford it so she bought it for her. The necklace never left Carli's throat. Carli reached up and clutched the gift from the only person she ever loved that didn't betray or disappoint her. It was her prized possession.
Carli opened the box the once held her lifeline but currently held her destruction. Inside the box was a shiny silver razor, remnants of dried blood along the edge. She smiled through the tears at her old friend. She slowly pulled the blade out before putting the box back and closing the floor.
Carli walked to the bathroom, she didn't want to risk getting blood on anything expensive in her room. She closed the bathroom door and took off her dress. Looking in the mirror, she saw the scars going up, down and across her torso and hips. This was the easiest place to hide. She didn't wear bikinis because she didn't know who to swim and she though mid driff showing shirts were tacky. When she had sex with people they were either to drunk or high to notice or just didn't care. Usually both.
She looked in the mirror at her naked body and thought about how disgusting she was. That was the first thing she carved into her skin with her pretty little blade. Disgusting. The blood was thinned by alcohol so it fell fast. She smiled grimly at her handy work. The physical pain helped distract her from her emotional pain. Next she carved another adjective to describe her. Slut. She was a slut. Every one knew that and several referred to her as such. Not always in a mean way. Most of the time it was a joke. It was such a known fact that no one defended her.
Alcoholic. Druggy. Ugly. Useless. Mean. Bitch. Hated. Unloved. Liar. She carved word after word, getting deeper with every cut, getting angrier with every cut. Soon instead of words, she just cut haphazardly at herself. Her hands and blade were both covered in blood. Blood dripped down her body and some hit the floor. Her old rule was to always stop before blood hit the floor but that rule didn't apply now. She places the razor on the sink with a shaking hand. The room was beginning to spin and her vision was beginning to blur.
She smiled. She was in so much physical pain that her emotional pain just disappeared. She was finally in peace even with the terrible pain.
A knock on the door distracted her from her peace, "Hey, who's in there?' a voice she couldn't decipher asked.
Carli mumbled something even she didn't understand. Her knees wobbled and she grabbed the sink to keep from falling.
The knock became a pound, "Hey! Are you okay? Why is there blood on the ground?" The voice shouted. Carli was too weak to respond. "That's it I'm coming in!" Just as the door opened, Carli lost conscientiousness.

When Carli woke, she didn't know where she was. All she knew was hurt everywhere and the light was way too bright. She moaned. This was the worst hangover she had in a while. She waited for her eyes to get used to the harsh light then looked down. She was in men's clothes. Weird, most one night stands don't bother to dress her. That's when the night came rushing back to her. She groaned and tears sprung to her eyes.
"Morning Sleeping Beauty." A male voice said beside her. She turned, sitting in a chair next to the bed was Kally's brother Andrew. Carli had had a crush on his since she met him when she was 6 and he was 10.
"Andrew! Good morning." She tried and failed to act nonchalant. She wanted to know what he did when he found her and who he told.
"You're an idiot." was his response.
"I know."
"You could have killed yourself."
"I know."
He sighed "Why did you do it then?"
"The pain distracted me." I looked at my lap.
"From what?"
"The other pain."
He sighed, understanding "I bandaged you up and stopped the bleeding for the most part. Then I put you in some of my clothes because the dress on the floor wouldnt be descent on a doll. I didnt tell anyone, incase your worried."
"Thank you. Kally doesnt know."
"What did you mean by other pain?"
"I'm in emotional pain all the time. Ive been numbed to emotions since I was 8 years old. Last night when I got drunk the numbness went away and the pain rushed in. Cutting helps when the pain gets too much. I've been doing it for years. Its never been that bad."
"Why 8 years old?"
"My dad left."
"Yes, but I know that you werent sad he left. You were releived. Why?" He moved from the chair to the bed next to her.
"I cant tell you. No one, not even Kally, knows." She said beginning to shake slightly.
He wrapped his arm around her lightly "She doesn't know about you cutting those terrible words into your skin. You need to tell someone or you'll explode. That someone might as well be me."
"No. I promised, I wouldn't tell."
"Break the promise, everyone does."
"I cant. I'm a good girl. I have to be a good girl or he'll punish me." She was shaking hard now. Her eyes blank.
Andrew wrapped both his arms tightly around her, "He wont punish you. I wont let him. I promise."
"No, no, no! No one can stop him! He'll hurt me!" she began cry, "No! I cant cry! He hates it when I cry. Hes rough and hurts me when I cry. No!" She was shaking violently and curled around herself.
He shook her back and forth roughly, "Carli! Carli! Snap out of it dammit!" he kept shaking her.
Her eyes opened and she stopped shaking, "Andrew?"
He hugged her, "You're safe here. Now what did he do to you?"
She whispered, "You'll hate me."
"No I wont, I swear."
"Ok... My dad hit me and my mom a lot. Over the smallest things. Everything." I sighed
"But that's not all... There's more" Andrew said.
"There is. Soon after I turned five, my dad came in during the night..."
"Damn." Andrew whispered, knowing where this was going.
"He told me he was going to make me feel good but I had to be a good girl and stay quiet the whole time. I wasn't aloud to tell mom since it was our special Carli and Daddy time and mommy would be upset if she knew. It didn't feel good.. It hurt, really bad. He thought the noises I made were noises of pleasure but when I cried, he got pissed. He smacked me and said if I didn't stop crying, he would stop being gentle. I didn't think that could be classified of gentle. But when I kept crying he showed me what real pain was. I never told mommy. After a few months, I stopped crying. The special Carli and Daddy time didn't stop till he left."
"Its not your fault."
"I should have told someone."
"You were a scared little girl and that's okay."
"Whatever you say." Carli didn't believe him.
"This conversation is not over but Kally will be up in five minutes. We need to figure out the story of how our 'one night stand'" He put air quotes around one night stand, "I now you don't want to her the truth so one night stand explains it. How ever I don't want you to write me off like one of your one night stands. I want you to visit me once a week so I can check for new cuts and so you can rant about whats upsetting you at that moment. I'm your new consular. Incase you didn't know, I major in psychology."
"I know."
"So what's our story?"
"We both got drunk at a party together, ended up making out. Sense we were drunk we didn't recognize each other. We took a cab to your house and had sex. It was fun so we decided to keep doing it. Now we're non exclusive fuck buddies. Okay?"
"Okay. Non exclusive mean I can still fuck who ever I want? Even though I pretend to be fucking you. Right?"
"Right."
"Good, now get naked. I have to change your bandages.