• "What is this?" Wendy said, gripping Janice's wrist, tracing the red marks and the scars that hadn't gone away. She had always covered them up by wearing long sleeves, and if someone saw them, she'd blame it on her cat, claiming that she'd angered it.
    there as no more lying anymore. At least, not for her best friend.
    "Look, you know that things haven't been easy for me. You know the horrible things that i've gone through." Janice explained, hoping her friend wouldn't exile her or tell the school counselor. How many times teachers had sent her in simply for disturbing artistry and poetry, she couldn't count. She despised that lady.
    "Janice, I know it can't be easy. I understand how much you hate going to visit your sister, knowing that she's not all there. I feel bad that your mom ran out on you guys. I know that stuff. But, why didn't you talk to me about it? God, Janice, you shouldn't resort to cutting."Wendy lay back onto Janice's bed, grabbing her hair in fistfuls, not quie believing what she was seeing on her closest confidant's arms. "How long has this been happening?"
    " It's been going on for two years," Wendy sighed, tears rising slightly in her voice as she thought of what she as about to say. "Two, years ago, a couple of months after Ellie was incarcerated in the insane asylum, she said something that really hurt me. She said 'Why do you keep coming to see me?Do you enjoy watching me die inside? Do you like seeing us penned up like animals? All i want to do is die! Don't come back.' and i didn't want to, if thats how she felt, but dad said we had to. So, started cutting so it doesn't hurt so much to see her, knowing that she can never go back Little Miss Popular-Perfectionist-Epically Beautiful Ellie. That she's always going to be an unkempt, fetal- position rocking, screaming person that she is now. having to look in her eyes and know she's somewhere else in her mind."
    "Jan, maybe she will end up back as her regular self. Remember, that girl in our grade, Samantha Kage? She went to a crazy hospital, and now look at her! She's perfectly normal now."
    "Wendy, my sister's different than that! Samantha only went to the hospitals psychiatric ward, and thats because she tried to kill herself! Ellie's in an insane asylum, and she believes that she's in hell! IT"S NOT THE SAME!" Janice screamed, punching the wall, then storming to her bathroom.
    " Jan, where are you going?" Wendy asked, slightly afraid she was going to do what she thought she was going to do.
    " i can't take this," Janice said, and Wendy saw her open her medicine cabinet and pull her razor from the top shelf. It was what she'd feared.
    Wendy stormed into the bathroom and clenched her fist around Janice's pink Lady Schick razor just before it hit skin.
    "Let....go," Janice said between clenched teeth, her hazel eyes hostile, her grip tightening.
    "No, Janice,"Wendy said, pulling the blade from between her friend's fingers, then breaking it to pieces against the wall.
    Janice's gaze remained strong and vicious for a few seconds afterward, then softened up in a surrender, a single tear rolled down her face, then a few more drops, fnally turning into jagged sobs, dropping to the floor. Wendy also dropped to the tile floor. It was cold, but she was going to stop her friend from hurting herself anymore, no matter what it took.
    "Wendy, you're not going to tell anyone what happened here tonight. What I do or anything, right?" Her eye's stared up at Wendy apologetically, hoping she would be forgiven for her slip- up in front of her tonight. Wendy didn't notice her eyes, though. Her eyes kept darting between The head of the razor, the blades worn from cuting flash and rusting from blood, and Janice's forearms, practically all scar tissue with the exception of about twenty fresh track marks that were sliced deep and long, sure to leave a scar. Wendy could imagine how many times she'd sat on her toilet breaking her once soft skin open out of her own misery, all the different directions she'd pulled the blade in to create this callused, scarred skin she had.
    Finally, she sighed and said, " Janice, I have to."