It’s been a strange sort of week so far. From the outside, you could look at it and think that it’s been pretty tedious and dull and ordinary for me. I get up in the morning, I choose what I’m going to wear, I go to school, I come home again. But it hasn’t felt ordinary. I feel like I’ve been existing in a fog.

Take school for example. It sounds pretty nerdish to say it, I know, but most of the time I don’t mind school. Sometimes I quite enjoy it. I’m quite academic really, and I guess that most of it comes easy to me. But this week I haven’t been interested. When I’m there, all I’m thinking about is Sylvia. And I’m always just looking out for her. I swear to God, all I do is think about her and I’m moping around at break times trying to see if I can find her. And I know how stupid and dangerous that is, because I’m pretty certain that she doesn’t spend all her time thinking about me, and it’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t make any effort to seek me out. Don’t get me wrong, she always seems happy enough when I do find her, and she’s happy to pass the time with me. She’s not distant or anything like that. In fact, she’s quite affectionate really. Thing is, there’s been a couple of days this week when she hasn’t showed up for school at all and although I know I’m being stupid, I’m tearing myself up wondering where she is and what she’s doing when she isn’t there. That is stupid isn’t it? Yeah, I know it is.

I’m also looking out for Eddie all the time. Although actually, Eddie caught me unawares just this morning, by the lockers. And he was okay with me, as it happens. I mean, he wasn’t like the Eddie who had been my best friend or anything, but he didn’t try to beat me into the ground or anything and there was no mention of me being a perv or anything. In fact, he even spoke to me.

‘I hear you’ve been seeing Sylvia Reynolds. Is that right?’

I’m stunned to hear him speak to me at all.

‘Er, yeah. I have. I’ve just seen her a couple of times. Nothing serious.’

Have I told you before how casually and effectively I’m able to lie? Eddie just nods like he’s the sage of romance or something.

‘I saw her out on the town last night. She’s cute. I guess we can say for definite now that you’re not queer.’

And Eddie just slams his locker shut and turns and walks away.

So Sylvia was out on the town last night. And she’s not come to school today. Well you can imagine the thoughts racing through my mind. What was she doing, where was she going? Who was she with? Yeah, that’s the question alright. That’s the one it all boils down to. Who was she with?

Of course I just want to run after Eddie and ask him this very question, but I don’t. I don’t want Eddie to know just how struck I am on Sylvia. I don’t want anyone to know. And worse, I’m scared of what the answer might be. Because all I can see are visions of Sylvia out on the town with someone else, laughing that laugh of hers and having a great time and it’s killing me. Do you get that? It’s killing me, it’s choking me up inside.

So I’m sitting on my bed and I’m chewing this over again and again and again; round and round it goes, the same cycle of thoughts, and I don’t feel any better for it.

And every time I see Madeleine I feel the burden of the secret that she’s shared with me. We’ve barely spoken to each other all week and it’s Thursday night now. It’s nearly Saturday. And we know what’s going to happen on Saturday.

So there it is; I’m carrying Madeleine’s secret like I’m carrying her unborn child, because that’s how heavy and scary it feels to me. And Mom thinks that I’m a feeble victim and wants me to change schools. And I’m stressing about Sylvia to the point where all I can see is the city at night and people and bars, and there she is with some guy. He looks cool and older than me, so I guess that I’m basing his image on Madeleine’s bastard boyfriend David. Everyone is having a good time and Sylvia is laughing at his jokes and putting her hand up to her mouth like she does, and sometimes they’re sharing intimate talk and she just touches his arm so that it makes me sick inside to see it. And they’re dancing. And then they’re slow-dancing and they’re holding each other. And then her lips are pressing against his so that I can actually feel them against goddam mine.

So you’re wondering how the scissors came to be in my hand? Well I can’t tell you. They’re from a cabinet in the bathroom and I can’t even remember going to the bathroom. All I know is that I’m sitting at the foot of my bed like I sat at the foot of Sylvia’s bed. I’ve been out and bought a goddam Chet Baker CD and that’s so depressing it might as well be Leonard Cohen or Nick Cave, and the only light is the flicker from the goddam TV which is playing with the sound turned down.

I can see the scissors alright though. I’ve been tracing stripes up and down my forearm with one of the points. For some while now, I guess, because I can see the pink tracks where I’ve been pressing it into the skin. Now I’m just staring at one of the points where it’s digging in to my flesh. I can’t feel anything. I just see it. I’m detached from what I’m looking at, like it’s someone else’s arm. Sylvia’s arm, maybe. And I push the point harder and I still feel nothing, but there’s a deep indentation now. And I push some more and then I feel a tiny sting, and I can see that I’ve burst the skin because a little blob of blood is building up around the point. But that’s all there is. This tiny sting and then nothing. I’m still watching, like I’m in a trance or something. The point is still dug in there, beneath the skin, and the blob of blood has started to run. I don’t feel it, and as I look I don’t even see the arm as my arm at all. It’s Sylvia’s arm. And it’s fascinating to watch as I draw the scissor point up my arm and more blood follows this track. It hurts at first, but Sylvia is right; only for a moment. I’m watching the blood flow and I feel that it’s my blood and Sylvia’s blood, like this act is bonding us somehow. And more rivulets are running over and around my arm. They’re dripping onto my legs but I don’t feel that at all. Everything else that was weighing down on me has gone. I’m just watching. Until all I’m doing is just seeing red.