The Picture She Painted

On November 12, 2012, a seventeen year old depressed girl was found unconscious on the bathroom floor of her home. When paramedics arrived at five a.m. they noticed she had multiple severe cuts along both forearms. She was pronounced dead 5:10 a.m. after ten minutes of CPR performed by the paramedics. The autopsy later revealed the cause of death was suicide.

It was a Sunday morning when Anne heard a buzz coming from her phone. She looked at it and as soon as she saw the name Kelly, she knew it wasn't going to be a friendly text. Kelly was a girl in her class who always put her nose into business that didn't involve her. Anne knew exactly why Kelly was taking time out of her busy, popular life to message her (who wasn't a part of that group at all), for pure enjoyment.

“Hey loser,” Kelly said.

“What do you want?” Anne replied.

“Nothing. I just have something to tell you,”

“What?” Anne asked nervously.

“No one likes you. I don’t even really know why you come to school”

“Ok,” Anne said sheepishly

“Maybe if you didn't look like such a freak people would like you,” Kelly wasn’t stopping.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because someone needed to tell you’re ugly.”

“I didn’t do anything to you.”

“No, but you were born. And that’s enough,” Kelly said relentlessly.

She turned off her phone. It had become a regular event that Kelly and her other minions tormented Anne. She always believed it was safer to not tell anyone about the bullying than to tell a teacher or her parents. After all, every time a kid stood up to bully at her school in their small town called AllerHill, they ended up with a broken bone and a broken heart. Anne felt she was too small and singular to ever make a difference.

Anne and her mother were planning to go shopping for some new jeans that day at the mall. Anne didn't like shopping. She hated going into stores and watching all the prettier girls pick out outfits way more fashionable than Anne or her mother would choose. The other girls giggled and snickered as they judged the girls around them. The mall was yet another place where Anne could not escape the looks and laughs.

Anne’s mother found her a few pairs of jeans to try on. The change room was the scariest part of shopping. To her it was a jail cell made of four walls, a mirror and terrible lighting that made her pale skin look orange. She looked in the change room mirror and it made her sick. She looked down at the price tag and stared at the size. The number haunted her. She had never seen such a high number on her jeans. Tears instantly started flowing to her eyes, face turning red, breaths becoming deeper and harder. she felt self hatred, disgust, ashamed, ugly and fat. It was the worst she ever felt. The shopping trip rapidly turned into a self pity party with the guest of honour being Anne; who didn't buy any jeans that day.

The rest of the day felt like a blur to Anne. Nothing seemed to excite her, not even painting cheered her up. Anne tried to paint every day. The pictures she painted were divine. They were abstract to the eye but to her mind they made sense. It just so happened that on that night, instead of using a paintbrush and paper to paint a picture, she used the razor and her skin as the canvas. She was painting her undisclosed feelings on her forearm. A deep and twisted way of expressing her haunting thoughts that started to feel normal.

The bathroom floor was cold and hard. The running water coming from the shower created a cloud of misty steam. It was two a.m. in the morning. Anne should have been asleep but she had a bigger more pressing desire on her mind. Both of her parents were sleeping upstairs. The house was silent, except for the small bathroom across the hall from Anne’s bedroom. The only sound resonating from the bathroom was the faint murmur of Anne weeping.

There were a few objects laying around Anne. A stained towel she hid in the bottom left hand drawer of the vanity, toilet paper, and a small silver rectangular blade she stole from her fathers razor. She sat there in silence in fear that her parents would walk in at any moment. Anne stared at the razor, felt the smooth edges, then glanced over at her not so smooth forearm and couldn't help but whimper. She ran her fingers over the bumpy surface of her skin that she covered with long sleeve shirts and sweaters everyday of her life.

She heard footsteps coming down the stairs followed by a small knock on the door.

“Honey. You okay,” Her mother asked?

“Yeah mom. I’m fine,” Anne replied calmly.

“Why are you still up?”

“I just had a bad dream. Im going back to bed in a second.”

“Alright honey. Love you!” Her mother said.

“Love you too,” Anne meant it.

“Sweet dreams sweetie.”

“Thanks mom.”

She wasn't fine. Anne hated lying to her mother who had been supportive all throughout her life, but what was she supposed to tell her? She couldn't tell her the truth because that would be the end of everything she had grown accustomed to over the past year. Anne started weeping again. She felt like a disappointment to her mother and anyone else who cared for her.

That was the reason for the first cut that night, and boy was it deep. The thought of being a disappointment to her loved one’s hurt her. It created a very loud and distracting thump in her chest. Triggering her hand to move the blade across her skin until there was blood seeping out of the cut. She realized once she made the cut it only made her a bigger disappointment so another cut become visible on her skin. Anne rushed to grab the blood stained towel to press it against the cuts to stop them from bleeding too much. The feeling she felt from cutting was toxic. A toxic pain that only made her want to do it more. Like she was pleasing her inner devil. Her inner devil that always won against her innocent mind.

A twisted little grin appeared on her face that she only experienced while cutting. It was an addiction and an obsession that consumed her and every single thought she produced. She couldn’t escape it.

Another cut to numb the pain of feeling empty and alone. Anne always had people around her but always felt alone. Even in a heavily crowded room Anne still felt alone. She never really felt included nor liked. She was on the outside looking in. She chose to be alone most of the time because it was easily that way. She never had to force a smile when she didn’t feel like doing so. Never had to make awkward small talk with anyone she came across with. She avoided social scenes. Another cut appeared along with the grin on her almost emotionless face.

She had a monster growing inside of her, and she wanted it gone. Unfortunately the only way she knew how to do that was to make everlasting meticulous cuts along her wrists.

Another cut for the names she heard in the hallways while walking by her peers.

“Weirdo.” Anne said to herself as she pulled the sharp edge of the blade along her textured skin.

“Loser.” One more cut.

“Fat.” Another cut.

“Freak.” Another.

“Stupid.” Cut.

“B***h.” One more.

“Ugly.” Two cuts for that one.

She felt nothing. She only wanted the monster growing inside of her to die. So she cut again, and again.. Deeper and deeper. She wanted oh so badly to feel normal again. There was something different about this night. Anne wasn't stopping. On any other day, after five or six cuts she would wipe her arm clean and dry her eyes and head to bed. The total for the night so far was at thirteen. Thirteen deep, freshly opened wounds upon her arm and she felt no better. The pain she felt in her heart was not decreasing, so the cuts were increasing.

Her heart was racing a mile a minute. She body temperature was decreasing. Anne felt as if she was never going to retain the feeling of happiness again. So another cut appeared. Plus two more. Anne was shaking at that point. She could taste nothing but salt from her tears. Breathes became too hard and too exhausting to make constant. She still felt the monster pounding on her insides while she harmed her outsides. The feeling intensified. Anne cut a few more times. And with each cut the blade became more invasive to her skin. The cuts were too deep. Anne didn't know how deep their were. She grew sleepy but was too tired to move. Another cut.

Stopping wasn't a question anymore. The pain had started to feel too good to stop. She thought she was killing the monster inside of her but she was killing herself. She was too into cutting and attempting to kill the monster to notice nor care. She felt exhausted with her life that she didn't care if it continued.

One more cut turned into two, and two turned into four. That was the last cut ever. That was the last picture she had ever painted. The last motion she ever made. The last decision she ever had to face in her heartbreaking world. The last jab that finally killed the monster inside of Anne. But sadly the monster was herself.

Author's Note

this is a really personally subject for me so please no hate. just feedback :)

Reviews

[Stan Lee]

It was very well written although the theme made me want to close my eyes and click away. It's a personal subject for me too from an angle that I know the heartbreak it causes those who loved the victim of inner demons. My only suggestion is that you write " a depressed seventeen year old girl" rather than "a seventeen year old depressed girl" as I believe it would flow better.