I’VE TAKEN to acquiring copious amounts of root beer, simply because it is the drink of the gods. I go out to the store and purchase the boxes that advertise a containment of twelve cans. I get my favorite brand and take forever to drink them because I savor the taste like there will never be another one, even though there always is. I’ll empty out the box on my desk, stop the rolling cans, and line them up with military precision across my desk. And then when my ranks deteriorate, I venture out into the real world, to bring more of the carbonated gold into my possession. Yet somehow, there are always two that remain untouched.
Those two cans of root beer have lived on my desk since I first started buying them, slowly gathering dust in the wake of the other cans being consumed. I imagine they feel a sense of neglect, wanting to serve their purpose and be consumed and converted by whatever lives within my stomach into some weak form of energy that’ll ultimately end up on my thighs or whatever, but I find myself taking a small sense of pride in leaving them, making them feel unloved. It’s like a transfer of psyche. I take the hate I’ve felt and give it to inanimate liquid, which I may or may not consume. I assume that Jordan, my therapist, whom I still see twice a week, would probably be amused by it. Then he’d call it therapeutic. Or something like that. And then he’d make me write all about it in the therapy journal.
When I notice that I am left again with those solitary two, I decide it is time for an adventure to the friendly neighborhood supermarket. My mom takes a break from whatever it is she is doing in her Internet chamber, and we go, discussing dinner options the whole way there. I don’t know why my mom is so happy to fund my root beer consumption, but I won’t complain about it because I’m the one who is benefitting in this situation. After we agree on pasta done up in my favorite way, we split up to get the supplies. For some reason, the supermarket is the one public place where my mom trusts me to get supplies that I need. I think it’s hard to be really alone in a constantly bustling supermarket.
I feel overly conspicuous as I quickly hurry through the aisles, my destination being the soda. Not many people leave the house with long sleeves once Connecticut breezes into July. It’s too damn hot out for long sleeves. But I tend to be cold when it is warm anyways. When I find the aisle I’m seeking, I am unsurprised to see someone else. The shock is the identity of the girl standing on her toes to reach for her sports drink.
As she lowers her heels back to the floor to put her drinks into her carriage, I notice that the liquid is bloodred, like the evil color of her soul. I start to back away slowly while she remains facing away from me, as I have zero desire to talk to her, or even have her notice me.
I’m too slow. She turns, and I swallow the uncomfortable lump in my throat. She sees me, and her expression turns cruel in seconds. Her eyebrows lift, and her mouth curls up in an evil sneer because she is happy to see me. I’m halfway convinced she’s going to unhinge her jaw and swallow me whole. This is a very bad thing.
I look down and take a few steps forward, having finally located the root beer, and reach out to grab it with my right hand while using my left arm to cradle the bottom, so as not to drop it. I am stopped by Brittany. Within seconds, there is hot breath on the left side of my face as Brittany breathes my name into my ear. I visibly cringe, and she smiles as she pulls away.
“Look at you,” she coos. Her voice is dripping with honeyed venom. “Look at Carter, out of the hospital, out of the house, rejoining society.” She curls her lip on the word society. I am paralyzed by her hissing voice as she starts the process of tearing me apart, and she puts her arm around my shoulders in an insincere hug. I want my mom, but she’s picking out tomatoes on the other side of the store. There is no one here to protect me. I feel like the three-year-old on the playground that the big kids always dump sand on when the mother’s back is turned.
“What, you’re too weak for school? Or should I say too cool for school? Where’d you go, Car? We missed you in April and May and June.” She stretches out the last word, savoring it. “I had another party. You would have been invited, but after your stunt at my last one, well, we couldn’t have that again, could we? I got grounded because of you. I lost privileges I didn’t even know I had. Your little midnight walk into the forest got me caught by my parents. They found out that I got a keg. They found my fake ID. You ruined my life, Carter.
“Oh, but enough about me, let’s look at you. It looks like your fingers haven’t grown back yet. Where did your hand go, Carter? Did they throw it out?” My right hand had been resting on top of the box of root beer cans, but at that moment, it slowly began curling into a fist. My other arm starts to drop from the side of the box, but as it returns to my side, Brittany grabs my left arm.
She holds it in front of her, and I close my eyes and look away, still frozen, now fighting tears. She looks at the scars that indicate the end of my arm and then pulls the sleeve up in a fluid motion, past my elbow until it bunches against itself. She runs her fingers over the thickest scars that were meant to end my life.
“What’s this? We got tired? Wanted to sleep forever? Did little Carter get a boo-boo? You’re so weak, Car. What the hell is this? You honestly thought you could do it? Here’s my little theory. I think you wanted the attention. Life stops going your way, you stop writing your nasty little poems, you don’t want out, you just wanted the spotlight back on you.” She moves her hands to the smaller scars that crisscross the rest of my arm.
“Oh, Carter, I think it’s time to let you in on a little secret, no? Here’s the deal. Everybody hates you. We always have. You’re so uppity. You’re self-obsessed, and nobody likes a bitch. All you ever talked about were those poems you wrote, and they weren’t that good. You entered conversations and diverted everything back to you. You used words nobody understood and then laughed when we didn’t understand them. You were cruel to us. You thought you were on a whole separate level, above all the students and the teachers. You were your own fucking god, and oh, did you love it.
“But you see, that’s not very cool. And then you got drunk—you’re so welcome by the way—and then reality knocked on the door. You got knocked down a few pegs. I don’t think you liked that at all because you wanted people to notice you. So you made a few cuts. Then you got addicted. Poo. Oh, poor, poor baby. Nobody would have missed you if you died. And your father would spend eternity pissed off to all hell from wherever he is, probably hell too, where you’d be burning, at you for leaving your mother. But none of us would have missed you, oh no, not at all.
“I hope you’re happy, Carter, because all of us are just sitting there laughing at you. You and your mistakes. They are so amusing. But do all of us a favor in the future, okay? If you try something like that again, don’t fuck it up. You were all everyone was talking about during finals and frankly, it pissed me off. So, I say this with the utmost sincerity, Carter: fuck you and everything you’ve done. You’re disgusting.” With that, she drops my arm. I rush to pull the sleeve back down and look up to see Brittany flouncing back to her cart, ponytail bobbing in a sickeningly perfect arc. She checks the time on her phone and hurries off.
I grab the root beer and run to my mom, trying to not cry. I don’t cry. It’s not what I do. I keep telling myself this as I hold back the angry tears while we finish our shopping and leave. I chant it over and over to myself, a mantra of determination. The tears build anyway, ignoring my stubborn attempts to keep subdued. I keep silent the whole ride home, and when we get back, I change into a tank top, exposing all of the puckered skin on my arms, the left more scarred than the right, and then curl up on the bed and give up, letting the tears go. I cry for forty-three straight minutes while cuddling with Sarah and stroking the scars that run up and down my arm and onto my pathetic stump of an arm, thinking about the day when I lost it.
My mom hears, and I tell her that something bothered me at the store. She turns pale for a moment when she sees my arms. It’s quite a sight for those who aren’t used to seeing the full extent of them, but she gets into bed and hugs me while I cry into her shoulder. It’s one of the few times this has happened, but it’s still nice to feel safe in my mom’s embrace. I wipe my tears and sit numbly on the living room couch for the rest of the night because my mom won’t let me stay in my room alone. It’s for the best, and it’s because she cares and doesn’t want me hurting myself, but the idea of cutting again flits across my mind more than once. Thankfully, my mother makes me help her with dinner, and then we watch a movie together, and I fall into an exhausted slumber fairly early.