Page 42 of Encounter

“Evening,” I said, barely loud enough for him to hear me, and walked into the kitchen, praying he wouldn’t bring it up. I wasn’t ten anymore. I couldn’t freak out and cry when I didn’t excel, and he couldn’t expect me to be perfect all the time.

“You don’t have to do much, do you Galen?”

Trying to ignore the shivers running down my spine as his voice cut into me, I took a sweetened milk shake out of the fridge and slowly turned around to face him. The way he looked at me always made me feel small. Like I was just some damn employee in his company he was going to give a talking to.

Mustering the courage to finally respond, I tried to hold my voice firm. “What?” I knew what he meant, but I hoped he wasn’t going to go there.

“It was a statement. About your life,” he kept using that disturbingly monotone tone of voice. “There really isn’t anything I expect of you. You’re not forced to get a part-time job, apprenticeship, or to do anything around the house. So... the least you could do—and theonlything I expect of you, considering the freedom and time you have—is to do well at school. Does that seem like too great of a request?”

I squeezed the bottle tightly, pressing my lips together.

I know I messed up. I know I should’ve done better.

“N-No,” I finally answered and had to look away like a coward. His gaze was too heavy, it was dragging me down while I was already beating myself up about it enough. “It won’t affect my grade too much, Dad. Considering—”

My attempt to brush it off didn’t even get the chance to see the light of day. “You know too well that this sort of thinking is a loser's way of thinking. The moment you let yourself go in one aspect, the moment you chuckle off this one test, itwillsnowball. Do you want to be some lazy, pathetic failure? Without a stable job and a place in this world?”

I swallowed and swallowed, but it didn’t seem to do anything. My throat kept closing. “I... No.”

Don’t think about it. Ignore it and don’t think about it.

“With all the opportunities and privileges given to you, do you feel like it is good enough to get forty-seven percent on your test when you could—and should—have a hundred? You aren’tstupid. It is nothing more than reading, memorizing, understanding, and putting it on a damn paper.”

“No, Dad,” I mumbled. My heart already pounded in my ears, echoing like a church bell crashing into both sides of my skull. The room was collapsing on me as the air seemed to have been drawn out of my lungs. With every passing second, I stood there, his gaze burned into me—it poked and assaulted me, creating cracks in the pathetic joke of a psyche I had. “I’ll do better next time.”

What the fuck is wrong with me? Barely able to stay in the same room with my own father for more than a minute before starting to break down.

“You shouldn’t fail in the first place.” As if he delivered that sentence with a blow into my stomach, he victoriously stood from the table and walked past me. “I’m heading back to the office for a few hours. The dinner’s in five days. You better hope your grandfather doesn’t hear about this,” he reminded me with a stern shout before he closed the door behind him.

My grip on the bottle loosened. I wasn’t hungry anymore—I was sick. Putting it on the kitchen counter, I went upstairs, feeling like my head was in a vacuum and my body was about to crumble into pieces any second.

I dropped my bag next to the door. The impact echoed in my ears, louder than it should be. The pressure already spilling throughout, made it almost impossible to think, to breathe, to move.

I rushed into my bathroom, locking the door behind me.

Every step and every bit of movement cost too much energy to bear. Like I was covered in heavy, thick tar that weighed on me, completely overwhelming all of my senses. There was no escape. Nothing could make it better but the one way—the only way I knew how. I clung to the image of a razor blade in my head, using it as a force to push through until I finally reached it in the bottom drawer under my sink.

Unbuttoning my pants and pulling them down to my knees, I slid down against the wall and sat there, staring at my thighs like I didn’t even realize it was my body for a moment.

My hand trembled as it hovered over the open skin, covered in previous scars. The guilt over them was the only thing holding me back, but it wasn’t strong enough. The pain grew stronger, always.

The shame, the unbearable disgust toward myself—I wanted to carve it all away. I wanted to cut and destroy every bit of myself until there was nothing left to hate, to pity, to be burdened by.

I wanted it to go away. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Closing my eyes and clenching my jaw, I ran the razor’s edge against my skin. The physical pain came and went—sharp yet familiar—taking my attention only for a moment before the tranquil calmness started to seep in. Like opening a valve, the tar began to drain away, the pressure escaped, and for the first time in a while, I was able to breathe.

God... Finally, nothing.

The rejuvenating, freeing, blissful sense ofnothing.

Everything that made meme—every stupid, useless part of myself—gone. At least for a little while. My hand still lingered at the end of the cut, until I finally lifted the razor, causing a slight sting in a sea of familiar pain my mind already zoned out.

As I glanced down at the wound, I didn’t feel. It was completely, gloriously numb. Even to the otherwise unsettling sight of blood; to the grotesque look of my scarred thighs. With a sigh of relief, I relished the moment for as long as I could. I had been a while since I cut, and in moments like these, I was always remindedwhyI did it. Why I always succumbed to it when things became too much to handle.

After a few silent minutes of sitting there, the tiredness began to set in. I was still satisfied, and the high of it all lingered at the back of my head like the fading sensation after an orgasm, but I was slowly drawn back into reality.

I had to take care of it.

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