Bleed Read Online Free PDF Page B

creaks. Luke is getting up.
    I leave my bedroom door open a crack—-just wide enough so he can see—and then stand in the middle of the room, a stack of dirty ceramic plates at my bare ankles, dinners for one. Facing sort of sideways, not toward the open door, but not away from it either, I unhook the straps of my overalls and flip the bib part down. I recite the Pledge of Allegiance one full time to myself before sliding the overalls down over my hips and past my knees. Stepping out of the pant legs, I pause through the chorus of “Bloody Wand,” my favorite Cryptic Slaughter song, playing in my head. Then I kick the overalls and they hit the wall, landing on the heaping stack of Harlequin novels Nicole brought over to Band-Aid me and James’s breakup four months ago.
    I rub my hands over my hips and thighs, trying my best to smile, to like the way the skin feels. Instead I feel the leftover chicken pock on my upper back thigh. A Hershey Kiss—shaped birthmark on my right hip. I pull my T-shirt up, feel the air greet my gut, a chill wipes over my shoulders as each becomes free. And then it’s just me, in my bra and panties.
    And I feel nothing.
    I toy with the straps of my bra, the frayed fabric at the hem, almost laugh out loud just thinking how old and ratty it is. Then I unhook the back, let my boobs just dangle. I cup them and squeeze them, poke them and tweak them. And when I feel enough is enough, I place my fingers inside the hem of my panties. I shimmy them down in time to Bloody Wand’s instrumental part, fighting the urge to play the air guitar. I pick them up with my toe and press them against my cheek, stifle my yawn with the fanny part, all the while trying to act like they’re good enough to eat. Yum, yum, yum. Then I slap my ass a few times for my own amusement, have to stop myself from going too fast. Slow, slow, slow. I finger through the black, wiry hair between my legs and imagine fishing line, the days Luke was referring to—him and his daughter at the lake.
    Done.
    I get dressed quickly, pull a long T-shirt on over my tangerine bikini, in case me and Nicole go back to her house for a swim, poke my arms through the straps of my overalls, and slip into a pair of lime-green flip-flops. I open my bedroom door. There, waiting for me on the dining room table just a few feet away, is Luke’s wallet. I open it, take out two twenties, and shove them into my pocket.
    Enough money, but not enough time. Nicole will be here in a half hour. I’ll have Sadie cut me and then rain-check her for that ice cream.
    I look out my bedroom window. There she is, hiding in the azaleas, just like I told her. She’s got her thumb lodged between her strawberry-shaped lips, sucking. “You can come back in,” I say, opening the window.
    I pull up on the screen so she can climb in. Only, her blub gets in the way and she barely makes it. It takes five full attempts at hoisting herself up before she’s finally able to get up on the sill and push her arms all the way through. But then she gets sort of stuck there, midway, her legs sticking straight out the window. I give her a chair to lean on for support. This helps. With some extra pull from me, she makes it.
    She takes a seat on the bed, and she’s huffing and puffing, like climbing through a ground-floor window is any big deal. I hand her the safety pin. She frowns and pulls at her eyelashes.
    “Just do it and then we’ll go.”
    She holds the pin up to my arm, but then starts the shaking thing again.
    “Do it!” I say, between gritted teeth. “Cut me!”
    She scratches me. One long, white slit along my inner forearm, just below the elbow where the skin is dry. Her eyes fill with baby tears. More and more and more. I wonder if she can even see straight.
    “Harder,” I demand. “You need to press down to break the skin.”
    It takes her a few times to actually make me bleed. And when she finally does, it’s a pretty decent line, about an inch and a half. It