A friend in need is a friend indeed
A cold burst of wind blows across a dry, slightly tight and leathery face. Sweat seeps through the pours in my skin as the legs and abdomen of my body burn like the fierce fires of hell. Warm sensations erupt in every muscle. The wind whips brown bangs into icy gray eyes. Those eyes have seen so many terrible things and that multicolored complexion has so many memories to it. The wind dies. I squeeze my eyes shut. The image of a beautiful, thick red liquid trickling down the skin of my forearm fills my thoughts. “Not again.” I hear a voice whisper. I realize it is my voice. “Not again.” I say aloud.
My legs continue that mechanical motion. The wind starts whipping against tight, dry skin again. What a wonderful sting. My loosely put right hand lets go of the handle bar and squeezes the air. Squeeze, let go. Squeeze, let go. I replace my hand and repeat the movement with my left. I close my eyes again, and keep them closed for a moment. I start to remember grotesque things. Cutting. Blood. Violence. Bruises. Tears. Drugs. Alcohol. Parties. Drunken sex. Attempted suicide. All of these flash from one thing to another. It’s driving me crazy. All of these are appalling memories from my past. I squeeze my eyes to shut them further. “No.” My voice whines. Warm tears dribble down my cold, dry face and droplets drip to the ground.
The world is spinning in my head. I feel dizzy. I start to sway. Back and forth. Side to side. My head feels heavy. My heart aches from these memories. “No, Daddy.” was said calmly. “No, Daddy!” My voice has jumped up in pitch and dynamics. “Please don’t hit me Da--Ah!” A shrill cry escapes my lips. I fall hard into the itchy grass that is next to the side walk. The large piece of metal is pinning me down. The back wheel is on the ground, while the front wheel is in the air and spinning rapidly. I just lay there. My head feels like it was hit with a bowling ball, and the rest of my body aches. The tears come more easily now. I’m not trying to hold them back.
I crawl out form under the metal and pick it up. I begin to walk. Grey sidewalks and moss green grass begin to fall behind me as my steps continue. I stare at the ground in front of me and I don’t look back. My feet drag. To where, I am not sure. I am on autopilot. I look up from the ground and I look around. The sun is shining and I hear laughter. They are laughing at me. I know they are. I hear hundreds of people laughing. I see them pointing and staring. All of their giddy faces are on me. I know that they think that I look disgusting. I stop walking. I look at where I am and I notice that my feet have taken me to my place of shelter. A shabby, four story apartment building lay in front of me. I chain my piece of s**t metal to a rack that is set aside for residents.
The outside of the building is faded red brick. The inside has ugly green carpet and peeling mixture of light and dark grey wallpaper. I walk inside through heavy grey doors and make my way to the back of the building. The elevator is broken down, much like the rest of the building. I walk through another heavy grey door and see the emergency stairs. I begin to climb those stairs. I stop climbing after two flights and end up on the third floor. I exit the stair case through yet another heavy grey door. I enter a long hallway with brown doors along both sides of the walls. I stop in front of the second door on the left. I dig deep down into my pocket for my house key. I find the cold metal and pull it out of my pocket. I stick it in the key hole of the door and turn it. I push on the door and walk in. The tears have stopped.
Once in the apartment, I turn to the right and follow a small hallway to the end room. I walk through the open door and close it behind me. I walk to the bed and sit on it, then fall back. I lay there for a moment. When the moment it up, I sit back up and lean towards my right and open the drawer in the bed side table. Inside the drawer there are books. On top of the books is a wooden, painted black, heart shaped box. I pull the lid off of the box and look inside at the shiny silver blade. I look at it and my mind flashes to a better time. A time where I was happy. Laughing with my mother. She wasn’t a drunk during those times. The memory comes and goes so fast that I can’t hold on to it.
I pull the blade out. I hold it in my right hand, between my thumb and index finger. It shines in the light that is coming through the window as I move it to my arm. I push down and slide it down my arm. Beautiful body fluids begin to flow through the cut in my skin. I repeat the action many more times going down and across my forearm. It looks and feels just like how I imagined it. Warm tingles erupt through out my arm. I start to cry. I promised myself that I wouldn’t gouge my arm again, but I did it anyway. Blood continues to flow through the gashes.
I hear foot steps outside of my rooms door. The door handle rattles, and the door is pushed open. My roommate and friend, Mark, stands in the door way and stares at me before saying, “Why? Why did you have to do it again?” My tears intensify. “I’m not dealing with this anymore.” He says, and then he shuts the door. I hear his foot steps trail off towards the kitchen. I lay there on my bed and let myself bleed. I hear the front door open and close. Mark is gone.
After lying for a few minutes, the tears stop. I walk out to the kitchen where I find my other roommate, Nancy. She is sitting at the kitchen table. I wasn’t expecting her home. I must have been too out of it to hear either of them walk in. She sees the gashes on my arm and looks up from them to my face. “Oh, no.” She says with a concerned tone to her voice. “Kris, what happened?” She is my good friend, so I decide to tell her everything.
Nancy tells me to continue, but to walk with her, so I do. We walk to the bathroom. She digs under the counter for something. She pulls out a wash cloth, and then she soaks it in warm water and pulls my left arm to her. She sticks the wash cloth on my arm and tells me, “It’s to stop the bleeding.” We go to her room and sit on the bed. “Okay, now explain.” She says. So I do. I tell her about my past substance abuse, violence, cutting, attempted suicide, and all of the problems that I had with my family. I spill everything that has bothered me in the past and present.
“Okay,” Nancy says. “Will you go to the hospital with me? I think we need to get you some help because I am no doctor or therapist. I can’t help you in the way that you need it.” I agree to go with her. She takes me to her beat up old car. “I won’t drive you with no seatbelts, Kris.” She says. I put my seatbelt on. “Now close your eyes and just enjoy the ride.” She continues talking about other things to try to calm me. We arrive at the hospitals emergency room.
Nancy parks the car and we walk to the psychiatric emergency waiting area. She assists me with filling out paperwork and continues to keep me calm. She waits with me for four hours in that deep purple emergency room. She says with me during the questioning. She holds me as I cry. Never once does she abandon me through out the whole night. Nancy is someone that I can call a true friend, because she sticks with me in my time of need. I guess it is like one of Benjamin Franklin’s famous quotes. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
