Scars

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“lose your clothes and show your scars / it’s who you are”

—Exit Wounds; The Script

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The blood wouldn’t stop pouring.

Her body was trembling in the darkness as she stared at the drops of a sickening red liquid streaming from the deep slits on her arm. The cuts began to throb erratically and she didn’t know how much more pain she could withstand.

The pain.

The sting.

It was as if her arms were in flames, the deep cuts burning her relentlessly from the inside.

It was a kind of pain she had never endured before in her life.

She stared at the razor that was clattered on the ground with drops of blood trickling down from the blades. She felt it mocking her, laughing at her as she struggled to deal with the pain shutting her eyes tight, and wincing uncontrollably while the tears mercilessly rained down her cheeks.

Her dark brown hair was clamped in her hands as she sat on the cold marble floor with her back against the locked door. Her entire body continued to quiver in so much fear, so much shock that it grew numb. Blood pounded loudly in her ears and her vision began to blur. She couldn’t even comprehend what was happening to her, but she was well aware of what had already taken place.

It was the first time Megan Hastie had cut herself.

She didn’t even know why she had done it. Actions took place, one emotion led to the next and the next thing she knew, there was a razor clutched in her hands, slicing through her skin like it was nothing.

But at this point, they were no longer just cuts.

They had become scars.

Scars that carried pain.

Scars that she could never run away from no matter how hard she tried to forget, no matter how hard she tried to be happy.

They were now nothing but reminders of her terrible emotions.

Permanent reminders.

And every time she would look at those scars, the memories behind it would flood back into her mind. And those memories weren’t visions that were worth reminiscing.

The unbearable sting was beginning to consume her, and it had just seemed like she was going to die the next second.

And she wouldn’t have minded that.

If she were to die, she could finally escape from this cruel world. She no longer had to deal with her horrible family situation with her mother who had died from cancer, a mentally wounded father whom she was now supposed to take care of as he was suffering from a serious mental breakdown, and an older brother who came home drunk every night.

How could she take care of her family when she wasn’t even strong enough to handle herself?

By killing herself, she wouldn’t have to grieve over her mother, worry about her father who’s in no position to do anything, and if her brother is to potentially end up in juvie.

Oh, and then there was Dean. Her “best friend”.

Another person she didn’t have to waste her time thinking about.

She didn’t even know why there was this eerie silence between them - ever since her mother had passed away, just when she had needed him the most, he wasn’t even there to help her back up her feet. Instead, he did his best to avoid her. He would never return any of her calls or texts. When she saw him at school, he would simply look the other way as if he hadn’t seen her. They went from best friends to strangers, and she hadn’t even done anything wrong to him.

And what made the heartache worse was that she was hopelessly in love with him.

And now that he was gone too, she had nobody else in her life anymore.

The pressure. The fear. The silence.

She just couldn’t handle it anymore.

And all she wanted to do now was get away. Just escape from everything in this damn world.

And the more she thought about such a thing, the more tempting it was becoming.

Yes, the thought of suicide had become real to Megan.



But for starters, she didn’t even know how to do such a thing.

Her eyes darted towards the medicine cabinet, where she could see the stacked containers of pills that were simply mocking her, which caused her breath to grow into hyperventilation. Without a second thought, she reached towards the cabinet and grabbed a container filled with painkillers. Tablets were normally used to kill pain like headaches, or stomach-aches. Pains that could simply just heal themselves.



Instead, she’s using it to kill a pain that may never get healed.



A mental ache that was damaging her brain more and more each second.



It had seemed as if her hands were overpowering her brain as she grabbed a handful of pills from the container. Her hand was shaking traumatically and her knuckles grew into a sickening white. She clutched the pills in her hand so tight, they were beginning to crumble into powder. The trembling hand made it’s way towards her open mouth, with tears rolling down her cheeks, ready to take her own life away in a matter of seconds with just a couple of pills shoved down her throat.

She brought it closer to the tip of her mouth, about to release, about to let all those pills fall into her throat.

But it took Megan to realize a while to realize that she couldn’t do it.

She just couldn’t.

She didn’t even have the guts to kill herself like that, even with the blood still flowing out of her arm.

Was this really what she wanted to do?

Kill herself?

Give up on her life when she had so much opportunity left?

She started pondering the thought of what would happen if she were to actually take her own life away right at this very second. Who would even care? Who would cry over her absence? Who would just laugh at the stupidity of her actions?

Not a single person came in mind.

This family was already falling apart as it is. Megan couldn’t even begin to imagine what her dad would do to himself if she commit suicide. He would’ve killed himself as well. The overwhelming depression and heartache would’ve killed him. He wouldn’t have been able to handle that much sadness, that much tragedy. He can’t even get through Mom’s death. How was he supposed to get over her death?

And that leaves her older brother all alone.

She knew her brother well enough to know that if she killed herself, he would’ve completely lost it. She could picture him, the only person alive in our family, drinking and running into more trouble than he has been doing now. The entire Hastie family would be nothing but a memory.

All of this would happen with just a handful of pills being shoved down her throat.

Just one choice. Just a few seconds.

She couldn’t commit suicide. Not when she had so much to live for. Not when she had so many people depending on her to stay strong, even though she was nowhere near strong. She wanted to end it all, she wanted to leave this world, leave reality, and just go into a permanent nap where she wouldn’t have to worry or think about anything. She could’ve just been free.

But that would just be horribly selfish.

And instead, it’s as if she’s locked up in this cage, with no way of getting out, no way of being free.

This was her life now. Living in sorrow, living in pain, and having to just deal with it.

Is this really what life was about?

She stared at the pills in her hands that waiting to be devoured, that were waiting to kill whatever pain she had inside of her. She was so close to swallowing down these pills, so close to taking her own life in just a matter of seconds.

Instead, she flung the pills to the ground and it scattered all over the bathroom floor.

With choked sobs escaping from her mouth, Megan picked up the razor and started to tear her skin apart even more, in the hopes that maybe it would take away some pain.

But instead it added more pain.

A new kind of pain she had never experienced.

A pain she quickly learned to despise.

But she let that pain grow anyway.