Cut

         She went into the girl’s restroom at one o’ five pm and came out twenty minutes later with a piece of toilet paper dangling from her wristband. That was all it took.

         Mrs. Fain was monitoring traffic in the hall during the lunch rush when she saw Vanessa Creasy go into the girl’s restroom. At first, she thought nothing of it. Vanessa was prone to sneaking into the restroom to text her boyfriend between classes, a violation which occurred so frequently with students that the administrative staff of Herald G. Pittman High School let it go with a verbal warning every now and then on the morning announcements.

         Mrs. Fain went into her classroom and opened a window. This was her free period. She started to sit down at her desk but halted in mid-air, her behind bent over the chair, and realized she was missing her clipboard. She found it in the red chair in the hall and turned around, the clipboard pressed hard against her breasts, as Vanessa Creasy slipped out the restroom looking pale, her wristband smeared with blood.

“Oh my god,” Mrs. Fain said, tightening her grip on the clipboard.

“Mrs. Fain, I didn’t—”

The blood seeped into the toilet paper wrapped around Vanessa Creasy’s wrist. The girl covered it with her other hand.

“Do you need to see the nurse?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“But you’re bleeding, and—”

“It’s just a cut.”

“But—” Mrs. Fain paused and lowered her clipboard. She tried to relax her face. “Are you okay?”

Vanessa Creasy said nothing.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” Mrs. Fain asked.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“What?”

“I’m not—a cutter.” Vanessa Creasy stared into the woman’s eyes.

         Mrs. Fain ignored the stare and took the child by her other arm and led her to the classroom, which was warm with sunlight mixing into artificial light and barely a breeze moved through the open window. Mrs. Fain watched as the girl sat in a desk closest to the window. Mrs. Fain brought tissues from the bookshelf and sat beside her. “I am not calling you a cutter. I do not want you to think that is how I see you.”

         Vanessa Creasy reached for a tissue and dabbed her wrist. The cut was a perfect slash, slanted towards the right. At least it was a horizontal cut, Mrs. Fain assured herself, not vertical. Mrs. Fain scanned the girl’s arm, looking for other scars, but Vanessa folded her arms together.

“If you need to talk, I’m here.”

Vanessa shook her head. “That’s not what this is at all.”

“Then,” Mrs. Fain lowered her eyes to the crossed arms, and back up to the girl, “what is it?”

“My boyfriend did it too.”

“Oh Vanessa, did he make you do this?”

“No! I’m trying to tell you. But you’re taking it all wrong.”

“I’m listening, Vanessa.” Mrs. Fain was flipping through her mind all the times Vanessa had looked passive in class and didn’t want to answer questions, didn’t want to raise her head from her desk. I should have seen it, Mrs. Fain thought.

“He said we’d both do it. He’s got his, but I—I cut too deep and I flinched…” Vanessa Creasy started to cry. “And I can’t get another one, and he’s gonna be so upset.”

Mrs. Fain put her hand on Vanessa’s back. “It’s okay. Vanessa, where did you get the knife?”

“From the art room. It was an X-acto knife. I just borrowed it. I was going to put it back today.” Vanessa used her fingers to wipe her face. Her mascara streaked across her cheeks, and Mrs. Fain rubbed it away.

“How old is this boyfriend?” Mrs. Fain asked, taking a tissue from the box. Beneath the desk, she cleaned mascara off her thumb.

“Dennis is seventeen.”

Mrs. Fain nodded her head. “Okay Vanessa, I want you to go on to lunch now and forget about all this.”

“You still think—” Vanessa Creasy started to cry again.

“It doesn’t matter what I think, dear.”

“No, you don’t understand. It was a little glass bottle. I accidentally dropped it. That’s why I got upset.”

“A bottle?” Mrs. Fain asked.

“Yeah. He put his blood in his and I was supposed to put my blood in mine. Then we would swap vials and attach them to our necklaces. But I dropped mine and it shattered.”

“Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Fain.

“Yeah,” Vanessa sighed. She smiled. “It was my idea. I told Dennis I wanted a part of him to be close to my heart always. My dad doesn’t let us see each other anymore since he found out how old Dennis is, and I miss him all the time.”

         Mrs. Fain lowered her eyes, remembering Thomas Fauber, her own first love. In tenth grade he moved to Roanoke; his father had gotten a new job in some type of upcoming business. And Thomas promised he’d keep in touch. Kimberly had waited by the phone every night, listening between cricket chirps and mockingbird songs for a call that never came.

         Mrs. Fain wiped her eyes and tried to smile at Vanessa Creasy. “We better get you to lunch. The hour’s almost up.”

         Mrs. Fain allowed Vanessa Creasy to give her a gentle hug. “Thanks,” she said, her words vibrating off the teacher’s hair. Then the girl hurried out of the room.

Mrs. Fain went into the girl’s restroom to wash her hands. Her heels crunched on something round and hard. It was half of clear orb that tapered off to a point. She picked it up and tossed it in the trash.

         Sitting at her desk put Mrs. Fain at ease. She ran her finger along the smooth edge of wood. The telephone was cool plastic and offered a cold press to her rather warm ear. “Principal Hamilton,” she said, “yes, this is Kimberly. I just spoke to Vanessa Creasy; I’m afraid she has been cutting herself in the girl’s restroom…I know. No, I saw it myself. She told me her boyfriend asked her to do it—some kind of blood ritual thing. Dennis something, probably a junior. Of course you are the first one I thought to call. We have to do something about this; the poor girl was crying. Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

         Mrs. Fain hung up the phone and rubbed the picture of her three sons. Then she turned to the stack of last week’s tests and started marking with her red pen.