Chapter 14
In her bedroom with five lights glaring, Ashley picked up a fresh piece of paper she had taken from the library trash earlier that day at school. Since there was no eating in the library, the trashcans were usually clean, except for discarded papers. Despite this, she felt ashamed of digging through the trash.
But paper was scarce at her house, as were many things. She had waited till near the end of sixth period, excused herself to the bathroom, but snuck into the library instead. There, she took as many papers as she could from the trashcan by the main desk while the librarian was busy shelving books. Frequently, writing was on one side of the papers, but the back sides were almost always blank. It was wasteful when people threw away paper that still had use. Ashley used them mostly for her drawings.
She folded the single sheet, an inch at a time from the bottom, again and again, until it neared the top, which left a quarter of an inch edge sticking out of the folded handle, sharp like a razor.
Just as Jeff had pleaded Mom to do, she had locked all the razors, knives, and sharp objects in a kitchen cabinet as a precaution in case Ashley felt like cutting again.
Mom initially thought the idea was ridiculous and overcautious. He told her he didn’t want to take any chances. He convinced her somehow. She was also supposed to check Ashley every hour. But to Mom, this was way overboard. She told this to Ashley after the therapy session. She wanted Ashley to take responsibility herself to communicate when she was feeling bad. Mom instructed her that to get by in this world, she needed to be assertive. Babying her like Jeff asked was stupid.
Well, she wanted to hurt herself now. But her mother wouldn’t understand or offer support. And she didn’t want to bug Jeff. He had made her memorize his emergency number, but was this a real emergency? She didn’t think so. She wasn’t going to kill herself. It was late at night, and the last thing he wanted was some fourteen-year-old, pathetic girl interrupting his quiet evening.
She didn’t feel that she deserved to inconvenience him. She didn’t even feel deserving of his time when he visited for a scheduled therapy session.
Her inadequacy spoke loudest, now, after she lacked the courage to save Tina. She should have tried harder to rescue the girl. Surely someone else who had the ability to see the shadow would have found the courage to go after Tina, wherever it had taken her. Poor Tina.
Why couldn’t Ashley act? What was she really afraid of?
Her head ached with heaviness.
No one had been around to help when Carlos had come into her bedroom at night. She knew the emptiness of not having someone to look after you, so she should have the courage to stand beside Tina. No one was there for Tina.
She took off the band-aids that covered her old cut. She ran the paper razor across her wrist and winced. A red line began to rise from her skin. It was just below the old cut, but wasn’t as deep, certainly not enough to kill herself. She felt relief with it though. It freed her from the pain of failing Tina.
After a few minutes, she began to feel bad again, so she made another cut, and another.
The paper edge became soft from soaking up blood, so she took out another sheet from her notebook and folded it into a second paper razor.
Slice. Slice. Slice.
The bad feelings, the feelings she couldn’t stand, disappeared for now.
She lay on the bed and closed her eyes.