Chapter Seven
Shadows twisted around Samantha as she slashed, slashed, slashed her arm open. Mini rubies appeared on top of her near white pale skin. Slash, slash, slash. Again and again. Misty murky gloom settled in around her bones, and remaining there to turn her cold as ice. Freezing her to the core. Heart pounding, she thought of her father and was reminded of the way she hated how sounded, the way his footsteps, resounded through the house, making her agitated just by his sheer presence. Even he didn’t love her and she was his daughter. What kind of fucker doesn’t even love his own daughter?
Arm stinging, red lines running down her arms, crimson tracks up her thighs (like snowmobile tracks in the snow), but she feel a thing. She never did. It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt, she told herself. Everytime she started to think it was painful, she thought of her dad, Melissa, herself, and all the different ways she’d been screwed over, and magically instead of pain she felt joy. Only the strongest of people could hurt themselves. Anyone could hurt another person, but nobody wants pain inflicted on themselves. Samantha had marks of power all over, tatooing her entire body in an endless ocean of scars and new cuts. Wonderful.
Who knew slipping into insanity was this easy, this blissful and indulgent? Everyday, Samantha grew gradually more obsessive, more locked inside her own head. A perfect flawless paradise that no one else could enter. no one else could invade. It was a blank canvas all her own to paint whatever picture she pleased, and that picture was of thin, thin, thin. In her paradise, it was all her own. She awoke to a searing, immediate despair, so lustful she was magnetized to it. A vortex she got sucked into. An invisible vortex no one could see but her. Seducing her, she fell deeper into her own grave everyday. And pretended everything was fine.
Yes, indeed, she still got dressed, went to school, talked to Savannah, and went about her daily life. Now a crazy person couldn’t do that, right? Do crazy people know they’re crazy? What does it feel like? And to believe Samantha had once, just a short while ago, been yearning for normal? No, no, normal was something she could never achieve, especially now, when she was in so deep. She was immortal, almost. No food, no sleep. Heck, she probably didn’t even need air. Amazing. She was flying, gliding across water, unstoppable. Until, all of a sudden, she wasn’t. An omnipotent, all consuming low invaded her, creeping into even her darkest crevices. She wasn’t supergirl anymore, the adrenaline wore off, and she was the same, pathetic Samantha she’d always been. These were the times she was so crestfallen and hopeless, she couldn’t move. After all the high, there was the inevitable low. It took a while to pass, and Samantha added it to her mental to-do list, find a way to avoid low. Growing longer each day, the list was filled with all sorts of tasks, ranging from change clothes and brush teeth to do homework and finish portrait for studio. Unsurprisingly, the latter usually got done first, if any were to be completed at all.
Though the lows were sucky, the vortex gave Samantha an eerie sense of purpose and perspective in the world. Brainpower increasing dramatically, she was as different as you could get from who she was in Graysville, except for a few key personality traits. And a few key people she thought about. One of them, remarkably unique, was Melissa Jackson. Her suicide still haunted her. Why? She had been one of the ones poised to get out, and whenever Samantha thought about it she felt guilty. Instead of Melissa, she’d gotten a better life, when Melissa no longer was alive. Also, Samantha had gotten something about it. Like she could have stopped her or something. What with seeing her that night, and the weird stuff about the trains? But, really, how was she supposed to know? Wasn’t it Melissa’s fault anyways? It’s not like Samantha pushed her in front of that train.