Invisible

         I always told my mother that I didn't need therapy. That I was just fine, and some stranger doesn't need to hear about my problems. Yet, here I am.
         
Mom told me to wear something nice. Something I would wear to grandma's birthday party, which I didn't think was a very good reference, seeing as my grandmother has never had a birthday party. I put out a pair of jeans. No holes, no frays, nothing, and a white blouse. I figured, grandma can't see, maybe the therapist can't either.

         Mom tried to make conversation on the way there. I ignored her. She tried to explain why this was happening. I ignored her. She told me that she loved me. I rolled my eyes.
There were more cars in the parking lot than I expected. The building was white; exactly what I expected. Sliding open doors, white carpets on linoleum floors and odd looking people. I wasn't comfortable. I was anything but.
I hardly heard Mom asking the receptionist where to go. I was invisible.
"Honey, he'll be asking for you soon." Mom put a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off. I didn't want to fight with her. I was sick of fighting.
"Anna Freeman?" I didn't look up. It didn't even sound like my name. It was the name of someone who disappointed her family, fought with her friends, and hated herself in every way possible.
"Anna honey, you have to go in now." I ignored her.
"Anna. Anna?" It was him. This man with the moustache, the hair, the tie, and the socks that go up to his shins. I didn't see his face. I didn't look up; I didn't want to look into his eyes.
I felt a hand on my arm. I shivered. It was cold and clammy.
"Anna, please. Please just try." I wasn't happy. I wasn't going to talk. But I had to go. I stood, reluctantly.
"Come this way." I followed.

         "Your mother wanted me to get right to it." I nodded. Get right to it, huh? "Can you tell me why it started?" Of course I could. But I wouldn't.

         I was thirteen. 8th grade at private school. The thought of it had never occurred to me until my best friend Aubrey told me she was "thinking about it". I started thinking about him half way through 7th grade. Nothing made sense about the way I felt. I had been gone from that school for a year. I never stopped thinking about him, but I never really thought about him, if you know what I mean. It didn't make sense that all of a sudden I was consumed by my feelings for him. Feelings that were dug up from the deepest bottom of my heart.
         Before I was sad I wrote. I wrote poems. Poems about his eyes, his touch, his face. Poems about when we were little, playing on the playground at my elementary school. Poems that at first, made me happy. I was glad to think about the times that happened, and not about the times that would never happen again
         But the poems didn't work. They didn't help me to not feel the way I did. It was true that I loved him, but would never be able to see him, talk to him. I can never describe that feeling with words. I didn't know how to deal with that kind of pain. That kind of loneliness.

         "Anna?" I was awoken from a trance. I forced my eyes to look into his face. I turned my eyes away from him to look at the clock. An hour had passed?
"Well I suppose that's all for today. I'll see you out." I got up and followed him out the door. I didn't have to strain to hear the worry in my mother's voice.
"Did you make any progress, Doctor?"
"Despite the fact that Anna didn't speak, we did make progress. Her silence shows that she's not ready to talk about her problem."
"So you really think she has a problem? I thought it was just a phase..."

         It's not like I enjoyed worrying my mother. I didn't. My family means everything in the world to me, and disappointing them was partially why I started again. I stopped for a while, I think like, 59 days. How long is that? A few months?
         Those months were hard. Every time I wanted to I thought of my family, and what they would think if they knew. My cousins mean more to me than any friend ever could, and disappointing them isn't worth anything.
         I only had therapy once a week. It was good because that gave me seven days to dread having to sit in front of a man I didn't know and be silent. My transparent words didn't affect him as they did me. Seven days, that's just enough time.
         I probably do it at least once a week now. More if things are really stressful or hard. I don't do it nightly. I guess that shows improvement.
I don't cry when I do it. I do it because it makes me happy. I don't do it to make myself feel worse. I do it to make myself feel better. Cooped up in my room, I make one cut, cover it up, then go downstairs and be happy. It's perfectly fine, right?

"She's really making you go to therapy?" Aubrey was shocked. Her parents don't know she still does it.
"Yeah."
"That sucks."
"I know." I can tell in her eyes that she's glad it's not her. When my mom found out last year, she called Aubrey's mom. She told her everything, and her mom did nothing.
I was envious of that. I wish my mom didn't ask me every day how I was feeling. I wish she didn't make me show her my arms once a week.
But she didn't know what was hidden on my legs. My stomach, my shoulders. There were plenty of places she didn't see on a regular basis, and she knows that.
I'm a pathological liar. I can sell a lie like a used car salesman sells a shitty car.
"There are other places other than your arms, Anna."
"Mom, I'm not. I promise. I'm totally over that."
"I know, I just worry." I smile like I'm the happiest kid in the world. And part of me is.
         I'm not depressed or anything. I'm happy most of the time. I hang out with my best friends, and my family is the world to me. Killing myself was always only a possibility for my benefit, but I always stopped because I knew that. I get sad, but what teenager doesn't?

         Aubrey didn't ask me about my therapy again; I had the feeling she didn't want to gloat by bringing it up. It was Friday. 6 days left. No plans, so I go home like I always do, and there's my mom. I can tell she's been waiting for me to get home.
"What?" I ask her. No emotion in my voice.
"Honey, Dr. Milligan and I feel that therapy only once a week isn't helping you." I refused to look at her.
"So...?"
"So you're going to see Dr. Milligan after school everyday at 4:00." I still didn't look at her. I didn't want her to have the satisfaction of knowing I was pissed.
"So..."
"So, honey, it's 3:30. We should get going." I didn't move. I wasn't going.
"Anna, please. I'm doing this for you're health." Bullshit. But I got up anyways. I'll do anything to avoid a fight with my mother.
"Thank you, sweetie."

         "Anna, do you have a boyfriend?" Dr. Milligan dove right in again. I shook my head.
"Do you like a boy?" What the hell was this, the dating game? I shrugged, but my shrug was a lie. I didn't want to tell Dr. Milligan that I had fallen for my best friend.

         Jeremy and I started being friends in 7th grade. It was one of those best-friendships that started right away. Jeremy always went against the grain at my school, so a lot of people thought he was weird. I never really agreed with anything my school believed in anything my school stood for, so it was kind of fate.
         Jeremy and I talked about everything. He was like my brother, or maybe my sister, that's how close we are. He knows everything about me, my flaws, my cutting, and my therapy. But he loves me (like a sister) despite all those things. He was one of my common denominators for not killing myself. He was a part of me. A part of me that I never wanted to lose. I loved him.
         But in a different way than he loved me. I loved him like a brother, yes, but there was always a different part of me, a big part of me, that was in love with him.
"Can you elaborate? Please talk to me, Anna." Dr. Milligan was almost begging me.
"Jeremy has a girlfriend now." I whispered.
"Thank you, Anna. Now, who is Jeremy?"
         So I told him. I told him about the day I met Jeremy, the day we became best friends, the first time he held my hand when I was scared, the first time he met my parents, to yesterday, when he carried my books for me.
"Jeremy is your ex-boyfriend?" Dr. Milligan didn't understand.
"No. He's my best friend." I said, looking up at him.
"And he doesn't know that you like him?" I shook my head.
"I don't like him" I said. Dr. Milligan looked confused.
"I'm in love with him."

         An hour later I had spilled all my deepest feelings for Jeremy to a man I despised. He was happy though, and happy to tell my mother about our 'progress' as he called it.
"Anna spoke to me today, we got far into a possible reason for her self-injury." Self-injury, that's what they call it now. It's not cutting, it's self-mutilation or the harming of oneself.
"I'm so glad. What did she tell you?" She was prying.
"Confidentiality is one of my biggest priorities in being a therapist." And I was thankful for that.

         Mom tried to talk to me on the way home. She asked me what I talked about with Dr. Milligan. When I ignored her, she changed gears.
"Maybe you want to invite someone over tonight, Anna. Would that make you happy?"
I shrugged.
"Yeah I guess."
"Well then call Aubrey and we'll pick her up on our way home."
"Can I call Jeremy?" I held my breath.
"Sure, honey."
         Mom rarely let Jeremy sleep over. Only when big things happened; when my dad moved out, when my dog died, and now, when she was forcing me to go to therapy.
         Turns out Jeremy and Heather had no plans tonight. I was surprised, as well as pleased.
"Yeah, Heather's at her grandparent's house in Virginia."
"Cool, we'll pick you up in 15."
"Aight." I hung up, smiling at little. Mom smiled right back.
"I love to see you smile, Anna."
"I know, Mom."

         Jeremy loved to see me smile, too. He told me so, everyday. He told me that I was beautiful when I smiled; lovely when I laughed. He used words like beautiful and lovely; he was that kind of guy; which makes me want him even more. He tells me I am special. He tells me that he'll never leave me. He tells me that he will always be there for me. He tells me that despite everything, we'll always have each other.
         I felt special when he told me that. I felt like I mattered, and his friendship was the only thing that matters in my life. I love Aubrey, yes, but she's very scattered, and definitely not always there for me. Aubrey's my fair-weather friend.
         Even though he knew I didn't want to talk about it, Jeremy wanted to hear all about therapy. He wanted to know how I felt when I went, and what I told him.
"Did you tell him everything?" He asked, sitting on my bed.
"No. I hardly told him anything." Jeremy looked disappointed in me. I knew he wanted me to get better, even if I thought I had nothing to get better from.
"Anna, I think he can really help you if you just talked to him." Jeremy looked stern. He only looked that way when he was telling me about how much he hated that I started doing it again. That only makes me want to do it more, I hate making him disappointed in me.
"I can tell that you want to do it now, Anna. Let's do something else besides talk about it, okay?" I nodded, unable to say anything except "How about a movie?" Jeremy smiled.

         It was late, my mother had already gone to bed, and Jeremy and I were hanging out in my room. I was wearing long pajama pants despite the fact that it was almost summer, and Jeremy knew why.
"Anna, you don't have to hide them from me." He said, glancing slightly at my legs.
"I do." I said, not looking him in the eye.
"Why?"
"Because it's embarrassing." I said, still not making eye contact.
"If you're so embarrassed then why don't you just stop doing it?" He wanted a straight up answer that I couldn't give to him. Instead I stared at him, tears welling in my eyes.
"You shouldn't be embarrassed to cry in front of me, Anna. Go head and cry." So I did. And he didn't try to stop me; he held me instead. He put his arm around my shoulders and let me rest my head on it.
"It's okay." He whispered. "You'll get through this. And I'll be with you the whole way. I promise." Jeremy's promises were the only thing keeping me together.

         I woke up the next morning tired and groggy. My eyes focused and I saw Jeremy, sound asleep next to me. I laid back down, listening to his rhythmic breathing. My heart pounded to the beat of his. I was lost in my thoughts of him.
"Anna?" I awoke, again. I couldn't remember falling asleep again. Jeremy was looming over me with a concerned look on his face.
"You alright?" He kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of his lips on my skin.
"I'm fine." Jeremy smiled at me. All I could do was stare at him, and how truly beautiful he was; any girl would be lucky to have him. Suddenly, his phone rang. He looked at caller I.D and then said, "Sorry, girl, I have to take this" then hurried out of the room. I sighed. It was Heather. I inched towards the door, knowing I shouldn't, but longing to hear their conversation.
"I'm with Anna right now. No, no she's just going through something right now. Yeah. When will you be home? Yeah, okay. Yep, I'll call you later. Okay, bye." I heard his footsteps coming towards the door and flung myself back onto my bed, burying my face in my pillows.
"Still tired, little girl?" He lay down next to me, putting his arm around my waist. I could have lay there forever with his arm around me.

         It was late. Jeremy had left, and I was sitting in my room, alone. I looked over to my desk where a picture of me and Jeremy was sitting. We were laughing, and he had his arm around my shoulders. I walked over to the desk and opened the bottom drawer. Inside was a small black jewelry box. I took the box out and opened it, staring down at a shiny metal razor. It was calling for me. I picked it up, fondling the sharp edge with my thumb. It was worn down from use, but still viable. I rolled up my sleeve, looking for a vacant spot among the scars. I found it, right above my veins, just large enough for the slightest bit of redemption. I poised my hands around the razor, gripping it tightly and moving it towards my skin. It was shining, new and clean, unharmed and unused, longing for a scar to replace the happy skin. I placed the tip of the razor against my skin, digging it deeper and deeper into my flesh. I removed it and watched a tiny bead of blood form around it, but it wasn't enough. That tiny bead was nothing. It didn't even count. I placed the end of the razor into the bead, feeling the slightest amount of pain. I eased the blade into the cut and pulled it slowly across the fresh skin, breathing quietly and smiling. Everything was perfect in this place. Everything was right and I was happy. Happy. Happy?
         I did it for Jeremy. I did it for mom. I did it for everything I wanted but I couldn't have. I did it for Aubrey. I did it for Heather. Most of all I did it for me. Everything about that one cut made everything else disappear for the moment. Everything about that moment made me never want to leave. This was my sanctuary, and I never wanted to lose it.          

But I had to. I had to stop; even if I didn't want to. I had to stop for Jeremy, for Mom. For everything in my life that was good and not worth losing. I didn't want to lose Jeremy to this, and I knew that if I didn't stop I would.
I set the razor gently into the box, its shiny metal face sneering at me.
"Stop it." It was staring at me with laughing eyes. It was calling to me, in a way that I could not block out.
"Come on, Anna. You know you want to. I miss you, Anna..."
"No." I whispered.
"Oh Anna, you know one cut won't do anything. I love you, Anna..."
"Stop!" I screamed. All I could see was its mocking face, looming up at me from a tiny box. I grabbed hold of it, my hand grasping around its crooked neck. My arm twitched back and I threw it across my bedroom, hollering at the top of my lungs. I wasn't aware, though. I wasn't in my room. I was in a strange place, with hundreds of razors, tall as buildings, standing over me and calling out to me.
"No! No! No! No..." The razors went black. I heard footsteps running, fast, and a concerned mother screaming, crying, holding me and not letting go...
         
         "Anna?" I heard a familiar face that sounded very far away. I did not possess the strength to open my eyes and look at the concerned face that, in reality, was right next to mine. I fell back asleep, if that's even where I was. But I didn't feel asleep. I wasn't in a dream world, I was somewhere else. Not quite sure of where I was, but still, certain I was somewhere.
         I felt cold hands; on my arms and my face. I felt metal on my back and neck. I felt lips on my forehead and knew they belonged to Jeremy. This alone allowed me to blink.
"Anna? Are you awake?" I heard, distantly. My mouth opened, slightly and briefly.
"Anna? Talk to me, it's Jeremy." Jeremy. I tried to open my eyes, but my body would not allow it. My eye lids were heavy and my mind was growing blank.

         Jeremy and Heather were getting married. Jeremy wanted me to be his best man, so I said yes, because he is my friend. He made me wear a suit, and I stood next to him while he watched her walk down the isle, glistening in her beautiful white dress, smiling with perfect teeth and perfect features. Her father sat down and they faced each other.
"Jeremy Colin Griffin, do you take Heather to be your lawfully wedded wife, through sickness and health..." I drifted, unable to listen to the fat man wedding the man I was in love with to someone else. Then I heard it.
"I do."
"You may kiss the bride." And Jeremy smiled and Heather smiled and they kissed, passionately and in a way that I knew I would never experience, because I was inferior to Heather. They broke apart, held hands and walked down the isle, as Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Griffin. I screamed, and woke up. 
         I felt hands all around me. But I didn't care. I had to get out. My arms were waving and my heart was pounding and I screamed. Jeremy. He came over. I saw him run to me, and push the nurses and hold me, and I stopped moving and lay there, in his arms, crying and breathing heavily. And then I noticed them, beautifully scarred on his arm, in a neat little pattern. Two long two short and a heart. They were pink and soft. I reached out and touched them and Jeremy looked up, tears in his eyes and I knew why he did it. And I wanted to die.

         They let me go home on Monday. They said I was fine but they noticed the freshly made cut on my leg and talked to my mom and she told them I was going to therapy. Rehabilitation, they said. I have a real problem, they said. And I suppose that was true.
         Jeremy came home with us. He sat in the back seat with me. I was so tired. I slept on his shoulder while he rubbed my arms. But I wasn't asleep. My eyes watched his arm go back and forth, staring at the scars on his arm, horrified at what I made him do. When I get home, I thought. I'll make everything right. So we drove up the driveway and I planned it all. Jeremy walked me to my room. As I stood in my doorway, the only thing I could see was my old friend. Shining in the little bit of light trickling into the room. Jeremy faced me now.
"I'm going to go home now, okay, Anna?" I kept my eyes steady on the razor.
"Anna?" Jeremy shook me. "Will you be okay until tomorrow?" I nodded. Jeremy didn't smile, but kissed my forehead.
"I love you, Anna." I nodded again. He turned away from me and left the room. When he had walked down the stairs and I knew he was gone I turned and looked it right in the face and knew I was ready. I didn't write a note, it didn't even cross my mind to be that considerate.
         
         Nothing about my decision scared me. I wasn't afraid of what would happen or what people would think because I knew this was what I had to do. I stuck my arm out and examined the veins, blue and pulsing and waiting. I poised, didn't even sit down first, the razor in my hand, shining and excellent. I glanced outside, hoping to see Jeremy walking towards his house but he wasn't, and I didn't care because I was doing this for him. I started deep on the side of my wrist, not quite lethal yet, because I wanted to savor the pain. It bled automatically and I watched the blood slide down my wrist like a marker, telling me where to go next.
         So I followed it. Keeping it as deep as possible, right across and I paused in front of the vein. I breathed heavily and noted that my breathing became weak. I was losing myself to this but I didn't want to stop. I had to keep going. So I did. I slowly worked the razor into my vein, losing sight at every moment. And the last thing I saw was it slowly open up, the hot life pouring out of my body, and it couldn't be stopped. And then I stopped feeling. I didn't feel my body crash to the floor or Jeremy and my mother running into my room. I didn't hear them crying or Jeremy screaming for me to hold on that everything would be okay, because I already knew that it was. And I closed my eyes and waited for the tight hold of death to carry me away.