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She’s old enough to know better, she tells herself as she draws the edge of the blade over pale flesh. Tiny pinpoints of red well up in its wake, and she begins a new line, perfectly spaced in the series just below the crest of one pointed hipbone. Old enough to know better means nothing and she should be well aware of it by now. Old enough to be on her own. Old enough to live without well intentioned (or not so much) adults trying to tell her what she should be doing. There’s the independent living coordinator, checking in once a month to make sure she’s still breathing, but she’s good at hiding the bottles, covering the scars, and keeping her few possessions tidy enough that she looks a model case. A model for deceit, but a model nonetheless. Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing at all.
Her cell chirps, the ridiculous digital noise that means James is checking in on her. Tasha doesn’t think he buys what she’s selling these days. He didn’t when they were kids, either. She can still hear the click of the flimsy bedroom door lock giving way to an unfurled coat hanger when he heard her crying through the wall in their foster home. She’d tucked herself underneath the bed before he got it open, and he lay on the floor with one hand inches from hers while he talked her through the panic attack that trapped her under that bed for the better part of an hour.
The tone sounds again as she finishes another fine line with the blade. He’s persistent. She’ll give him that. She reaches for the phone and scans the messages. Steve’s cooked some sort of meal and they want to know if she’s hungry.
Thanks, but I’m good.
Most days, she’d agree to come over. Pretend in their game of happy family and sit at their table for a meal. Today isn’t most days. Today, her mind won’t stop spinning and she’s jumping at shadows. It happens sometimes, and she suspects it always will. She finishes the lines on her hip, ten, perfectly spaced, shallow, stinging just enough to remind her she’s capable of feeling. It doesn’t make sense, never has, but it’s been her security blanket since she was a terrified kid waiting for father of the week to leave her mother’s bed and come to hers.
Want me to swing by in the morning for a run?
James is definitely not buying it. If she refuses this offer, he’s going to know something’s wrong. She agrees, and they set a time for him to be there shortly after dawn. The hyperactive danger signal in her brain is still going full tilt, and there’s a bottle of bourbon under the bathroom sink calling her name. She takes it out, drinks from it deeply, and carries it along as she moves to the tiny little living room of her latest temporary home.
Most of the bourbon later, even if it’s not exactly silenced the panic is at least slurring heavily. Probably she should go to bed and sleep it off. But that invites the nightmares, and she’ll be right back where she started. She finishes the last few shots and drops the bottle in the recycling bin. Responsible and normal adults have recycling bins. Its presence in the kitchen means she’s doing just fine. Even if it is mostly filled with diet soda cans and long necked glass bottles.
In lieu of sleep, Tasha settles for marathoning Netflix on the couch. She’s somewhere in the middle of yet another episode of who even cares what when her eyes drift closed.
She wakes to the damn chirping noise. The room is gently spinning, and her mouth tastes like something particularly foul died in it quite some time ago. Fumbling for the phone puts her stomach somewhere in the general region of her sternum, but she swallows hard and ignores it.
You coming out?
Ha, wouldn’t that be fucking funny. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not doing that. Wait. No, it’s not like there’s actually a closet labelled “I survived a very shit childhood and I really don’t like being vulnerable so let’s just not okay?” Her head is fucking pounding. Or maybe the door. Yeah, definitely the door. She’s slept through her alarm, four messages, and one missed call from James. This is going to end very well indeed. She decides to go let him in, and the gently spinning room decides to knock her on her ass. The phone is still in her hand and she hits his number in hopes that calling him will make him stop beating on the door.
“Tasha? Jesus, child, where are you?”
“Let yourself in,” she tells him. “I think I fucked up.”
The door opens a moment later and she’s once again glad she told him the code. He’s on his knees beside her before she can fully process why she’s glad of it, though.
“Talk to me,” he orders, hooking his hands under her armpits and hoisting her upright and back onto the couch.
“Bad day. Night. Just bad,” she admits, and he nods.
“I see that,” he says.
She means to say something, but she hiccups instead and presses her fist to her lips. James pulls her to her feet and hauls her to the bathroom before she adds hurling on the carpet to the list of stupid shit she’s done in the last 24 hours.
She’s gripping the rim of the toilet when she hears James swear. She lifts her head just enough to see what he’s removing from the counter. She left her blade on it. A little butterfly blade, sharp as fuck and not a little bit incriminating. She can’t spare much effort to consider it, though, because her throat is on fire with the acid that is intent on escaping. It hurts. She’s so nauseous and all she’s managing is gasping for air around the flames. She brings one hand to her lips, but before she can get her fingers to the back of her throat James has her wrist in his hands and is yanking it away.
“Stop that shit,” he tells her. “Your nails are too long, you’ll tear yourself to bits, child.”
She shakes her head, whining before losing another scalding belch. He doesn’t understand. It’s easier if she’s in charge. It hurts less. It hurts faster. It doesn’t matter. Her body finally does what it needs to, coiling up and knocking the breath from her as she chokes up what feels like an endless supply of bourbon and bile. James is patting her back, one hand still coiled around her wrist and she can’t keep her balance. She falls against the forearm that’s still hugging the toilet, tears streaming as she retches again.
Somewhere in there, James shifts, moving behind her and bringing both arms around her body, keeping her steady and cupping her forehead in his massive palm. Everything hurts, and she can’t stop heaving long after she’s dry. There’s not enough air in the room, and she can’t get it into her lungs even if there was. He’s saying something, but the roar of her pulse in her ears drowns him out. There are bright white bursts of light at the edges of her closed eyelids, and it doesn’t matter anymore.
She comes around to James wiping her face down with something cold. Wet. Her overtaxed brain can’t quite supply her with the word for what exactly she’s being washed with. She blinks, hazy vision tilting and mostly focusing on the side of the sink. She’s half propped against the edge of the tub and half against James. Close enough to the toilet to reach it, far enough away not to drown in it. This, her brain can manage. Not the name for the, yeah, washcloth. Wonder where he found one? She keeps them under the, oh that’s not good. They’re under the sink. With the bottle of antiseptic, stacks of just in case gauze, and a couple more bottles of bourbon.
“I’d welcome you back, but I don’t think I trust you to stay yet,” he tells her when she manages to lift her head to look at him.
“Fuck,” she grumbles.
“More like fucked up. Jesus, Tasha. You’re still drunk as shit, child. I think you’re actually sweating alcohol.”
She wants to offer something smartass, but she lurches forward over the toilet instead, spitting up nothing but making a solid effort nonetheless. James is holding her up, and she’s gotten so used to the arm that isn’t an arm it’s begun to feel comforting, to press herself against it and let him hold her close. He’s telling her to breathe, counting her down and putting one hand just below her collarbones, reminding her to slow down. He doesn’t tell her it will be okay. James is the only person she knows who has never lied to her.
“Shhhh, Tasha, shhhh,” he murmurs, and she tries, she does, but he’s right. She is still drunk and she can’t stop the tears now. She wraps her fingers around the fabric of his shirt and gives up trying.
“Can’t do this,” she whines, and she hopes he understands because that’s all the words she’s going to be able to string together while she clings to him and falls to pieces. There on the bathroom floor, she bawls herself to sleep while her brother holds her and whispers that he’s not going anywhere.