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Sometimes he regretted it, sometimes he didn't.
Many hours were given away to the days where he would spent a few minutes cooped up in his room, with the door closed and his shirt lying on a pile on the bed. He'd draw open the blade of a boxcutter starting to rust, and look down at the skin of upper arms. Discolored lines and half-healed cuts would lay where he looked, crisscrossing on skin that used to be smooth and unblemished.
The tip of the blade would press down then in between previous cuts, or maybe on places already healed by time. Maybe he'd hesitate for a second, maybe he wouldn't. But the outcome was always the same. He'd slice the boxcutter across his arm, and a flash of sharp pain would overtake him for just a bit. After that, he'd dab at the crimson blood with a napkin until it stopped bleeding, slap a band-aid on the cuts, and pull his shirt back on. Rinse and repeat.
Mel wouldn't bother cutting anywhere on his forearms. He didn't have a desire to, at first. It was harder to hide, especially if he had to roll up his sleeves. The upper arms were an easy spot, because long sleeves, even rolled up, would hide them. And in the summertime, his short sleeves would cover his cuts too, as long as he didn't stray too far down.
It was in late winter when he felt a degree of curiosity and decided to sate it.
Music blasting from his phone, shirt on his desk, he stared at his boxcutter and the soft expanse of his forearms, at the baby smoothness of it. He wondered about it. Would it hurt more there? Less? How much blood would bead at the cuts? The question of 'would anyone notice?' slipped from his mind.
Impulsively, he sliced down.
It was fairly easy to hide the few cuts on his forearms. As long as a band-aid was slapped over it, no one seemed to care. Just one band-aid wasn't enough for people to get curious, and that was good.
Mel found himself in his room again, staring at the cuts and the skin ahead of it. Something akin to melancholy was already eating away at him. The blade of the boxcutter was drawn out again, and he dragged it across his arm vertically, creating a long cut spanning from near his elbow to near his wrist. Sharp pains bloomed.
Turning his arm around, he looked at the blue veins underneath his palm, and the skin underneath that. Impulsively again, he began to cut.
He wasn't sure he felt satisfied. He didn't know why.
Staring at the ceiling, he snaked his arm out of the blankets and rolled up his sleeves, where a few childish band-aids were slapped onto his wounds half-heartedly. Was he even trying at this point? The band-aids barely covered the lines of red. He wouldn't really be surprised if some of them get itchy and maybe infected.
Ah, worries for future him.
A few weeks later, he found that the cuts, although healed could still be faintly seen.
Mel had his sleeves rolled up as he washed his hands in the art room. Maybe no one would notice, and no one would point it out. Just maybe.
And yet, his friend was hovering over his shoulder, chatting to him. She was content to ramble while he barely replied. For a moment, he was sure that she wouldn't notice, or at least not point it out.
But, "Mel, what's with the scratches on your arm?"
His blood ran cold for a second, heart seizing up. Hie exterior showed none of the panic though, his expression still schooled into indifference, and his soap-covered hands still rubbing at each other.
"I—" he started. His mind began to work overtime, looking for an excuse, "I went to a friend's house and their cat scratched me. Apparently it was because she was hungry."
He tried to laugh it off. But he wasn't sure she believed it.
In the emptiness of his room, Mel looked at his healed wounds, and could only feel regret and dread.