The next three days made me feel more dirty rather than clean.

Working five days a week in a stupid corner store, sick and anxious all the time. Nicotine cravings, scratching in my sleep. Dizzy, vomiting, insomniac, afraid: _“clean.”_

__

“Do you want to go see a doctor or something?” My mother fretted over my physical state madly, took the week off work to make sure I never left the house, excep...

I looked down at my arms, horrified.

Long fingernail scratches ran down my forearms, slightly bloody, from where I’d scratched in my sleep. I gaped at the long whips of pinkish red down my arms, for a very long time. Too long.

I got up, put on a baggy, long-sleeved striped shirt, and cut my fingernails short.

When I shuffled into the kitchen, both my parents were sitting at the kitchen table, a...

I nearly screamed as I jumped awake, startled. Drool was falling down my lip, my eyes were sleepy. Demi had hit me on the head to wake me up, after I’d nodded off on her bedroom floor one warm April afternoon.

“Man, you sleep too much,” she told me, lighting a cigarette. She offered me one, I thanked her. Somewhere along the line, I’d started smoking.

“Yeah, I know.” I yawned, then exhaled cloud...

I sat down at the kitchen table the next morning with a bowl of cereal, but nausea ate at my stomach and I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything.

James left early for work, and my mom sat down beside me.

“I’m on the verge of calling your father and telling him that he needs to fucking take you,” she whispered, her face holding the same blank expression as mine.

“Why?” I asked, though I knew ver...

Between Demi, Tracy, Wyatt, Speed, and Gia, I got all the drugs I could ever want. I quickly became self-medicated on a mixture of pharmaceuticals and vodka.

Spring break started on April seventh, and at two-forty-five, me and Demi strode out of school together. We began to walk to Demi’s house, the new spring sun beaming down on us.

“Van’s got a shit ton of hard alcohol for spring break,” she t...

The next Monday, at school, Demi found me during lunch, where I sat alone in the cafeteria, silently loathing everybody like I did every lunch hour.

She sat down across from me and said, “Hey, Layne.”

“Oh, hi, Demi.”

“You don’t got any friends, either, I guess…” She let out a sigh. “That’s fine, we can just be friends.”

“Wait, actually?” My heart popped up in excitement, the thought of a new fr...

Blinking lights and too-white walls made my head ache when my eyes finally opened. A throbbing pain in my hand grounded me and made me wonder where I was.

I pulled my head up to examine wherever I was: a hospital room, all blue and white and gray. I looked down at my left hand, which had a bandaged index finger. _Oh,_ I remembered. _Oh._

__

Fragments of the night before came back to me slowly as...

I woke up one Thursday morning, looked at the calendar. _Oh,_ I thought, _It’s February twentieth. I forgot about my own birthday._ I hadn’t really forgotten it- my mom was asking what cake she should buy me just a day before- but I hadn’t thought about it much. Sixteen, whoa.

“Good morning,” I said to my parents, stumbling out of my room.

“Happy birthday,” they greeted me, phony smiles upon the...

“So, this guy…” James began as I methodically ate spoonfuls of cereal that morning. “He’s… Older than you. He lives far away. A musician, with long hair.”

“Yeah, so?” I twirled my spoon in between my fingers, rolling my eyes.

“Well, Elena…”

“Spit it out.” I glared at him, my taste of milk on my tongue suddenly sour. I pushed the bowl of cereal away from me with a sigh.

“Is he- well, I’m guessi...

The first of February was an unseasonably warm, sunshine-filled day that brought me no joy whatsoever.

It was a Saturday, so I sat around in my room, blinds drawn, with The Paranoids blasting from my CD player- it was without a doubt my favourite CD I owned at that point, and I played it everyday.

James knocked on my bedroom door before opening it. He said, “Elena, why don’t you go outside, for ...