Page 102 of Did They Break You

Cortland

Don’t talk to me like that pretty baby, or I’ll carve you up myself.

I swallow hard, staring at this words in the dark. And as the buzz fades and I think of Sloane looking at my arm, my stepdad talking to me like I’m a child, and Cortland’s fingers inside me in a cemetery, self-loathing enters my bloodstream.

A few minutes later and I’ve silently hauled the scissors up into my lofted bed and ran the blade over the inside of my wrist too many times, my phone facedown at my side.

But it doesn’t hurt enough, and it doesn’t bleed enough. Swallowing, I drop the scissors, pick up my phone. I ignore Cortland’s texts and open my browser.

It takes me no time to order box cutter blades.

“Do you ever play with knives?”

Thanks for the idea.

Now, I do.

A message comes through, Cortland’s name at the top of my screen.

I roll over onto my side, tugging my covers over my entire body and burrowing down beneath them.

Butterflies flip in my stomach. My arm stings.

“Your skin is too beautiful to carve up.”

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, trying to keep that door to the basement locked.

My screen is bright behind my closed eyes and I open them to see he’s sent another message. I click on our texts and scan them quickly, wondering what he’d think if he could see me now.

Cortland

Text me back.

And don’t you fucking dare hurt yourself.

That’s for me to do, not you.

Remi, I swear to God.

You know we can’t fight this forever.

I laugh alone in the dark.

I can try.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

REMI

I’m tucked awayin one of the study rooms in the library, poring over my developmental psych book, reading about Freud versus Jung, music blaring in my headphones—Bring Me the Horizon—when the lights go out.

I flinch, ripping out my earbuds, clenching them in my fist. It’s nearly midnight on Wednesday, and while the library is open 24/7, it’s definitely not full. Most students don’t even use these rooms, tucked away down a narrow hallway upstairs.

In the dark, I’m frozen, my eyes shooting to the door.

I can’t see anything though, and I don’t hear anything either. Maybe the power went out in the entire library. A thunderstorm.

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