I stopped behind my couch, only realizing then what I was doing.

Looking down, I saw the sleeve of my shirt pushed up and my fingers were wrapped around my left wrist. Slowly, meticulously, I lifted up my fingers, one by one. There were faint pink indents from the bracelet pressing into my skin. For the last five years, I only took the bracelet off at night and when I showered. Those indents would probably be permanent.

Just like the jagged scar the bracelet hid.

I removed my hand completely. The two inch stretch of a deeper pink slashed down the very center of my wrist, over the vein. It had been a deep cut made with broken glass from the picture frame I’d thrown after the first picture had circulated the high school.

When I’d made that cut, it had been the lowest point of my life and I hadn’t been joking around. There would’ve been a matching violent cut on my right wrist if it hadn’t been for the maid hearing the glass break.

The picture had been of me and my best friend; the very same best friend who had been one of the first to turn their back and whisper words like ‘whore’ and ‘liar.’

I had wanted to end it then. Just check out, because at that point in my life, nothing could’ve been worse than what had happened to me, what my parents had agreed to, and the subsequent fallout. In a matter of months, my life had utterly separated into two ragged chunks: before and after. And I hadn’t been able to see a possible after when the entire school got behind Blaine.

Now? The after seemed endless, but shame burned like a low fire in my belly as I stared at the scar. Suicide was never the answer and if anything, checking out was letting all of them win. I’d learned the lesson all by myself since therapy had never been an option. My parents would’ve rather cut off their legs than suffer through the embarrassment of having a daughter that had tried to commit suicide and needed therapy. More money had exchanged hands to keep my afternoon hospital run quiet.

Apparently my parents were okay with having a daughter labeled a lying whore.

But I hated seeing the physical embodiment of my weakness, would be beyond humiliated if anyone ever saw it.

Sudden deep laughter from the hallway drew my attention—Cam’s laughter. My head swiveled toward the kitchen. On the stove, the clock read near one in the morning.

I tugged my sleeve down.

“Can’t you skip it Friday night?” a feminine voice asked, slightly muffled through the wall.

There was a pause and then I heard Cam say, “You know I can’t, sweetheart. Maybe next time.”

Sweetheart? Oh! I heard their footsteps round the railing outside the apartment, hitting the stairwell.

Rushing around the couch, I made my way over to the window. Since my apartment was at the end and overlooking the parking lot, all I had to do was wait. And then there they were, a shirtless Cam and a girl.