//------------------------------// // Exhaustion // Story: Cortisol // by TamiyaGuy //------------------------------// I’ve been staring at the knife in my hand for the past ten minutes. Normally its blade would already be stained by now. Not stained red as you might think – that only happens if you make another cut close to where you’re already bleeding, or if you hold the knife in the wound for long enough for the blood flow to start. No, normally it’s this faint, almost greasy stain that smears over the cutting edge. Whether it’s fragments of skin or plasma or something else entirely, I don’t even know. I don’t want to know. But the blade’s still clean. Instead of physical sensation, it’s thoughts that suffuse me instead. Of this morning, of yesterday afternoon, of what went well, what went wrong, what simply went. Of the mistakes I definitely made, could have made, probably didn’t but that won’t stop the ‘what-if’s and the rumination. All jumbled together in this tempestuous mess that’s making me unable to tear my eyes away from this stupid, destructive little temptation. I know it’ll help, is the worst part. At least temporarily. Will clear that fog, that haze, for a few hours, a few days even. But I hesitate, instead turning my thoughts to Wallflower. What would she be thinking right now? Is she in the same place as me, dwelling on countless minutia, perceived mistakes that I’ve completely forgotten about by now? What would she feel if she was still here? Shame? Disappointment? Understanding, the kind that neither of us wish we felt? Or maybe she’d feel the exact same way I’m feeling right now. ‘Conflicted’, for want of a better word. Or maybe she’s just having a pleasant evening after enjoying a hearty bowl of soup. Not presuming that someone else is feeling the same way she is in the vain hope of explaining away some nebulous cloud of self-destructive thoughts. My weary gaze travels over to my other arm as it rests on my leg, palm-up. It settles on the spot just below the wrist, and I clench my hand briefly, watching as the tendons tense and flex beneath the skin. It starts to make me feel sick. That’s good. If I feel sick because I’m terrified of damaging something important, it means I’m less likely to cut. Or cut there, at the very least. Your thighs are already scarred to hell, so why not just- Don’t think about that. Focus on that sick feeling, let it keep you grounded, because it’s better than anything else right now. Really? Better than that shameful, horrible feeling of complete relaxation, of letting out all that tension when you- Especially that. And suddenly, through the faint nausea that comes from being made acutely aware of exactly how one’s own body functions, I wonder why the hell I’m here. Not even in the pseudo-philosophical sense of pondering some grand meaning to existence, but why I’m here, right now, in the living room, mesmerised by the light glinting off a blade that for some reason I’m still staring at. Why the temptation is still there. Because today went well. It went really well, in fact. Even with the ever-niggling suspicion that it was all a show for the sake of politeness, it’s hard not to realise that Wallflower and I made a connection that I don’t think either of us thought was possible. Over such a messed-up topic, we found something to take comfort in, something worth laughing about. And yet, through so many missteps. So many trip-ups. So many times you tried to take something hopeful and drag it by the hair back down to your level. I don’t realise I've been smiling until it’s wiped back off my face. A train of rumination releases its brakes, and slowly it gathers momentum – reminders, recollection, repulsion. At the cowardice, the inappropriate humour – hell, the very first words I spoke to her were about the worst ones anyone could possibly have picked. Making her feel responsible for the disaster I caused at the café, and responding to that by… I never even apologised to her. I completely blew up at Wallflower, near as dammit sent her into a panic attack, and I couldn’t even be bothered to eke out so much as a ‘sorry’. Seems like I answered my own question, then. I think it was better left rhetorical. And so I’m back here, dwelling on what I screwed up, what pain I could’ve caused, how things could’ve gone differently. My grip on the knife’s handle tightens, just barely. ‘How things could’ve gone differently’. Now that’s a thought that takes me back a long time. Not just a different time, though, but a different place, a different world. A different goal, a different mentor… but the same failures. For a moment, the whole façade threatens to come crashing down. What others have told me, what I’ve told myself, the very person I’d hoped I’d turned into. But give me half an excuse and I repeat history: Charge into battle, get mad when it doesn’t work out, then flee like a coward, filled with the urge to tear something apart. Be it myself, or Wallflower, or Princess Twilight, or… Sometimes it really does seem like nothing ever changes. Not in a way that matters. The cutting edge rests against the skin, a light pressure making the flesh deform inwards slightly. All it would take is the slightest movement in either direction. A momentary slip, deliberate or accidental, to succumb to that temptation. It wouldn’t even be that big a deal – the stained bandage from yesterday needs changing anyway, and it’s concealing an ugly, gaping wound that no doubt is going to leave a hideous scab in a few days. What’s another couple of cracks on something that’s already mangled beyond repair? But the knife doesn’t move a single millimetre. Because somehow, all the setbacks from the past two days, all the awkwardness, all the failures, bring with them a strange reassurance of their own. I can’t even figure out why. Is it the sense of connection? The feeling that I’m not alone? A strange, self-pitying, rather pathetic thought, since I was never alone in the first place. After all, Twilight knows. Rainbow cares. But Wallflower? Wallflower understands. Was it the perseverance? The fact that through screw-up after screw-up, Wallflower kept trying. We both did. Either through a simple gesture of kindness or defusal through humour or just gritting our teeth, neither of us cut our losses when it would’ve been so easy to. Or is it simple pain empathy? The subtle itch in my arm that always flared up when I saw the scar tissue, and the matter-of-fact conclusion that I’d be cold and dead before I just ignored Wallflower’s struggle, for better or worse. Does it even matter? Slowly, carefully, I lift the blade clear of my forearm, making sure not to slide it horizontally in the process. A thin line of blanched skin is left in its wake, and it quickly fades to a healthy amber, uniform with the rest of the unmarked skin. Like nothing had happened at all. It’s a quiet breath that I let out of my nose, an almost imperceptible unfurrowing of my brow, but it feels like the first movement I’ve made, the first noise I’ve heard for hours. The apartment’s quiet at this point in the night, neither peaceful nor dead. Just still. Pensive. Waiting for a release that never came. But the blade of the knife flips closed with a snap, and with a trembling resolve I decide to leave that particular release unsatisfied. At least for this evening. The soft clack of metal on glass echoes throughout my living room with a certain finality to it. There’s still that horrible tenseness in my shoulders, that coiled spring inside my stomach, but even then I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. It’s probably too late in the evening, anyway. Just one of the lessons I wish I’d never had to learn: Cutting while tired is a bad idea. I almost laugh. Of all the justifications, the one that comes to mind is ‘it’s getting a bit late’. Whatever excuse I can take, I guess. It’s a bizarre feeling, starting to put away my supplies without a bandage around my arm to show for it. The thought hits me as I’m carrying the gauze and tape back to the medicine cabinet, instinctively holding my arm up at an awkward angle while shuffling across the room. Normally it’d help prevent blood from dripping down onto the floor and staining everything, but without having to be constantly mindful of bumping an open wound against stuff I can’t help but pause to admire the utterly ridiculous pose I’m striking. I put my arm back down, resting it against my side. Somehow, holding the medical supplies in my other hand, it feels unnatural. Like I’m using the wrong personality for a particular social situation. But I continue anyway, and by the third trip to return the tissues to the bedside table, it feels like any other evening. Any normal evening. Any evening where I haven’t spent the last hour lost in my own stupid head, desperate to do something horrible. Spent the last hour wasting time and not even bothering to go through with it in the end. Spent the last hour overcoming the urge, I very quickly correct myself. It’s not cowardice that I didn’t go through with it, it’s strength that I didn’t succumb to the temptation. Maybe the next time this happens, I’ll say that and actually believe it. Coming back to a clean coffee table, untainted by drying red stains and crumpled tissues, it feels almost strange. Some subconscious part of my brain knows how an evening like this is supposed to go; knows what is supposed to happen, what the consequences are, and how to deal with those consequences. Now that it hasn’t happened, now that the plan’s gone awry, it doesn’t quite know what to do. Twenty minutes spent staring at something that you know is going to happen, and then it just… doesn’t. There’s no fanfare, no congratulations, no reward, because why would there be? Why should I be feeling proud for doing something that everyone else manages on their own with no problem at all? My mind wanders, once again, to that flash of purple on green. But it’s not in shame. It’s not in fear. Instead, it’s with the kind of quiet realisation that can only come about when there’s nothing left to focus on but your own thoughts. When you stop, take a step back, take the same broken logic that you’ve applied to yourself for years, and try to apply it to someone else. And even though you’ve known all along that it’s broken logic, that you shouldn’t be tarring yourself with that brush, somehow thinking of tarring someone else with it exposes the whole self-destructive lie for what it is. Because I know, here and now, that it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I tell Wallflower that overcoming that urge is nothing to be proud of. And if anyone else tried to say that to her? I think I’d kick their teeth in. “Hm.” The sound echoes throughout the apartment as I come back to reality. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing in the lounge like an idiot, but I don’t particularly care – I didn’t have anything planned anyway. I still don’t quite know what I should be doing, but at the very least I’m now able to default back to my normal routine and wind up the day. Which, in some bitter twist of irony, starts off with replacing the dressing from yesterday’s cut. But somehow, the act isn’t imbued with the sense of shame that it normally is. Instead, it’s a necessity from a past slip-up, not a reminder of a disgusting failure. A seldom act of self-care and not some pitiful attempt at damage control. Even as I peel the medical tape off and wince at the sharp stinging sensation that tears through my arm, it’s bizarrely, perversely uplifting to know that it’s still the right thing to do. The context may have changed, but the act itself is as well-practised as ever. Remove the gauze and wash the wound under clean water. Replace the dressing with a clean pad, replace the bandage, replace the medical tape. It’s become autonomous by now, simply a skill learned through experience, and it’s not easy to push back against the pang of guilt that comes from reminding myself of exactly how I gained that experience. Then it’s done. Wound bandaged, dried blood washed off, with nothing to show for it except a neat square of gauze on my forearm. But it no longer feels like I’m hiding my shame. It’s just the next step towards healing. I still look at the used first aid supplies with a scowl, though, cramming them deep into the bottom of the wastepaper basket. Some vain hope that they’ll be forgotten by proximity, even as the injury warms my arm up uncomfortably and makes it impossible to truly ignore. I wonder if I’ll forget about them once the sensation subsides, or in an hour, or a day, or a week. I wonder if I even want to, or if I need that constant reminder so that I don’t forget what I’ve done. I wonder if that would just make the whole thing worse and that what I actually need to do is stop letting this dumb thought live rent-free in my head. Of course, I won’t. But does it even matter? One thing’s for sure, though: It takes longer than it takes for me to trudge to the bathroom, grab my toothbrush, and wrap things up for the day. An odd feeling of something close to – but never quite reaching – normalcy, some switch flicked in my brain labelled ‘reset to defaults’, and I carry the feeling with me to my bedroom, until I finally drop my head, exhausted, onto a pillow. My breath comes out of my nose in short, sharp puffs, just above a jaw that I only now realise is still clenched. And time ticks on, as it so often does in the darkness and stillness of an empty apartment at midnight, agonisingly slowly. Eventually, consciousness simply stops being worth the effort. As I finally start drifting off to sleep, I don’t have a smile on my face. I’m still just as tense and restless as before, mind still circling around, worrying about countless stupid minutia that I know it’s pointless to worry about now but that sure as hell won’t stop me from worrying. That urge, that terrifying logic, is still there and I hate it even more than what it’s caused. I’m not happy. I’m not proud. But I’m not drifting off to sleep with another new bandage on my arm. I’m not drifting off to sleep feeling the stinging warmth of a fresh wound that’s as sickening as it is soothing. I’m not worrying about rubbing my arm against something while I sleep and waking up to red-stained bedsheets. And maybe that’s a start.