The wounds beneath my sleeves throb with every step. It hurts, but the pain is familiar. Comforting, in its own way. It’s better than feeling nothing. Better than the weight of being me.
My lungs are screaming, chest tight, but I don’t stop. Not until the house is long gone.
I end up near the train tracks. Fields on one side, slick with morning mildew. Metal on the other. I could disappear here, if I wanted.
And for a second, I do want to.
I could skip school. What would they do? Call my dad? Good fucking luck with that.
Then I see it.
Her.
The bench.Mybench—the one I’ve crashed on during too many nights of bruises and broken things—isn’t empty.
She’s there.
Blonde hair falling across her face as she reads, brushing it back every few minutes only for it to slip free again. She smiles at something in the book, soft and private, but there’s a weight in her eyes. A loneliness.
It calls to me.
Like we’re the same kind of broken.
I stop walking. Don’t even realise I’ve frozen. I just watch.
She’s wearing a battered school skirt. Bag at her side. Fingers ink-stained from notetaking or doodles or—God, I don’t know. She moves like she doesn't want to take up space. I know that feeling.
When she stands, slipping the book into her worn black rucksack and heading toward the school gates, I tilt my head.
New girl.
Fresh blood.
Where the hell has she been hiding?
I follow her—quiet, unseen. I watch her check in at reception. Watch her smile nervously at the secretary.
I don’t go to a single lesson that day.
Instead, I haunt the halls, keeping her in my line of sight. I track her movements. Count how many times she tucks her hair behind her ear. Watch how she eats lunch alone.
By the time the bell rings for last period, I already know her schedule. I know which corridor she favours. I know how she avoids eye contact.
That night, I watch her house from across the street.
And the next day, I do it all over again.
And again.
It becomes routine.
It becomesher.
And somewhere along the way, the ache in my chest begins to dull.
I stop cutting.
Not because I’m healed.