Page 56 of Save Me

I crawl on top of the plush duvet, resting my back against the headboard, and stare at the knife in my hands.

Before I can think about why I took it there’s a gentle knock at the door. I jump and quickly hide the blade behind my pillow just as the door begins to open and Ryan lets himself in.

“You forgot to make your tea,” he says, gesturing to the steaming mug in his left hand.

“Oh, thanks,” I say, as I realize I completely forgot about the kettle I had boiling as I washed up the dishes.

He walks towards the bed, and it always amazes me how graceful he is despite his sheer size. He sets the tea down softly on the nightside table, and the smell of chamomile and lavender immediately floats towards me. He turns around, but ratherthan head towards the door as I expected, he sits on the edge of the bed and takes a deep sigh.

“I thought we were past all of this,” he says with a look I can’t quite decipher.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ryan shrugs nonchalantly, but his eyes tell a different story.

“Don’t start running from yourself again, Evi. You worked too hard to find peace with who you are and what you’ve been through.”

I look at Ryan, and when our eyes meet I see a level of care and concern I’m not used to anyone except Jax showing me.

I sigh, whether in annoyance or defeat, I’m not too sure.

“Are you going to take it off me?”

“Are you planning on killing yourself with it?”

“What? No!” I feel like his words are a slap across the face.

“Then why do you have it? Why would you need a knife in your room?”

“You’ll think I’m insane if I tell you…” I trail off, suddenly nervous at saying the words aloud.

“Even if I did think that, Jax would never forgive me if I had you institutionalized, so out with it,” he says playfully, and I appreciate his effort to lighten the mood.

I look down at my hands that are fidgeting in my lap.

“Sometimes… sometimes the pain becomes too much.” I take a breath, trying to collect my thoughts and struggling to put them into words. “It’s as if everything that’s inside of me—everything that I’m feeling—just needs a way out. Like there’s a literal hurricane trapped inside my body and no matter what I do, no matter how many deep breaths I take, it just keeps raging within me, destroying everything in its path. And I can’t make sense of it. I don’t know how to calm it down, how to soothe what I’m feeling, until…”

“Until something distracts you from the emotional pain?”

“Yes. And no.” I look at him, finding understanding and compassion in his eyes. “It distracts me, but it grounds me more than anything. It brings me back to where I am now, and gives me something I can focus on, something I can control. It’s… soothing. And it’s almost as if when I see my skin turn red and the blood start to pool that I’m letting everything that’s trapped inside of me out; like the hurricane can finally leave my body. That, and then finally how I feel on the inside matches how my skin looks and feels on the outside. I know how this sounds, it’s fucked up.”

“It sounds like it makes perfect sense,” Ryan says casually, and surprise flickers through me at his declaration.

“It does?”

“Yup.”

“That’s it?” He looks at me and raises an eyebrow in question. “Like, no speech about how stupid I am or how dumb this is? No referral to a psychologist and a white padded room?”

“Do you want me to do all of that?” he asks with a small smile.

“I mean, no. But I just wasn’t expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Just do yourself a favor”—he leans over and grabs the knife handle that must have been peeking out from behind my pillow—“don’t use something that could take a limb off if you slip.”

He twirls the knife around his hand casually, not taking his eyes off me.

“And you’d be better off using something disposable, it’s more sanitary that way.” He pauses before looking at the angry skin on top of my thumb. “And get yourself a good antibiotic ointment if you’re doing this.”

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