Tag Archives: self harm

Kassandra Sees Every Fault Reflected in the Mirrors

Chapter 31

This is a Young Adult story tackling issues of self-harm and suicide. It is intended for teen readers or older. If you want to read from the beginning, click over to chapter 1.

A thick blackness churned around Kassandra, her feet dangling into the open void. No way to tell if she was falling or staying still. Nausea crept up her throat. She squirmed and reached out, searching for something solid. Her feet struck the ground and the darkness drained away, like water leaving a bath tub.

Kassandra stood in a hallway with mirrors on every wall with hundreds of reflections glancing back. What was this place? The world’s longest dressing room? Stepping forward, her Converse sneakers squeaked on the marble floor. The nightingale flapped down the length of the hall. At least she wasn’t totally alone.

Another mirror covered the wall behind her. Kassandra touched the surface—slick and solid. Her fingers quivered. No way back to Dad. He was still trapped. The far end of the corridor terminated in yet another mirror. At least she’d get plenty of time to stare at herself.

Kassandra started walking. Better check everything out before going into full panic mode. There had to be some way out of this room. Slender marble columns punctuated the spaces between the mirrors. The nightingale perched on one of the metal candelabras lighting the hall.

Kassandra glanced at a mirror and stopped. It didn’t reflect the corridor. Instead, it showed Mom’s room, complete with clothes cluttering up the carpet. A reflected version of her stood right next to the dresser, groping through all those bottles of nail polish.

Kassandra remembered this. She’d needed some cash and tried to nab some from Mom. 

One of the bottles tumbled to the floor and red polish oozed out. She stepped away from the mirror as the reflected Kassandra started yanking tissues out and dabbing at the stain.

This was freaky, like watching some whacked out personal movie. She’d really done a number on the carpet with the nail polish. Weird, watching it made it seem so much worse than when it actually happened.

The next mirror showed her room—bed in the center surrounded by Auntie Jo’s bookshelves. Mom was there, the empty nail polish bottle clutched in one hand. Kassandra’s cheek was flushed red from Mom’s slap. The mirror was silent, but Kassandra knew she’d just said something snarky. Mom’s shoulders sagged, all the energy drained. 

Mom trudged into the hall and the mirror followed, all the way to her room. A huge red blotch still stained the carpet. She stood right inside the door, eyes looking straight ahead as tears trickled down. Finally her hands came up to cover her face.  

Kassandra cringed. Mom never cried. She always came off as such a hard ass. 

Auntie Jo appeared at the door and Mom wiped her face. It’s the same move Kassandra had done when someone caught her crying. 

She backed away from the mirror. This is getting pretty strange. Moving on now.

Kassandra tried to avoid the next mirror, but a single glance stopped her cold. It showed a public bathroom with a bank of stalls on one side and sinks on the other. At first it looked foreign, but then a scruffy version of Kassandra crashed through the door. This was the school’s restroom. 

The reflected Kassandra staggered into a stall and slammed the door, but it bounced back open. She snarled and slapped it closed, fingers trembling as they fumbled at the lock. Then she pawed through the purse for the push pin. 

Kassandra tensed, wishing she could reach in to stop herself. 

The version of her in the mirror held out one arm, crisscrossed with white scars, the pin hovering above the skin. Finally it pressed down and blood beaded on the surface. Tears streamed across her reflected cheeks. Her nose clogged up with snot, creating a bubble with each breath.

Kassandra stumbled away from the mirror. She couldn’t watch any more of this. A glance down the corridor made her heart sink. Not even halfway through. What the heck was this place? 

The next mirror depicted her room back in Seattle. The door opened and a version of Kassandra entered wearing the dark blue dress from Dad’s funeral. 

A powerful flood of memories washed over her.

Dad had been laid out in a mahogany coffin so polished it seemed to glow. Kassandra could hardly look at him. His body was too still. More like a photograph than a man. Her mind slipped into an icy paralysis and nothing seemed to thaw it out. Not Mom screaming at the car doors that weren’t unlocking. Or even when Mom broke down crying at an intersection as cars honked and whizzed by. Kassandra was anesthetized, all emotions immobilized in rock hard ice. She needed to feel something to break free. Even if it meant pain. And the box of razors had been there on the workbench. Ready and waiting. 

Kassandra stared at the girl in the mirror. The room showed a very different version of her. A massive Waterhouse print, with Circe pouring a bowl of water, hung over the bed. A stained glass circle nestled in the window, casting kaleidoscope colors against the pale yellow walls. Miniature fairy houses and bottles adorned every conceivable nook.

Kassandra still had everything stowed away in boxes. Even though she’d been at Auntie Jo’s for weeks, she hadn’t unpacked them. It wasn’t who she was anymore.

The reflected girl sat cross-legged on the floor in a bra and underwear, the razor held over one arm. No scars yet. The bare skin looked too smooth. She glanced once at the locked door and then pressed the blade down. A half smile played at her mouth, oddly peaceful. 

Kassandra knew the feeling—total oblivion. Like nothing in the world could touch her. 

When the reflected girl lifted the razor away, a thin red slash marred the skin. But she wouldn’t cry. 

Kassandra could almost pick the girl’s thoughts out of the air. Crying was stupid. It couldn’t bring Dad back, so why bother.

Real tears trickled down Kassandra’s face as she backed away from the mirror. There was no point hiding them now. 

The reflected girl moved the razor to a fresh section of skin.

“No, don’t.” Kassandra reached out to the mirror. “Please.” The muscles on her arm tensed, feeling the phantom pain. She turned, not able to watch, and charged down the corridor. Mirrors flicked by, each showing another cutting scene. Some were close up, with just a view of the scars. Others focused on the face with that scary relaxed look. She finally collapsed at the end of the hall, eyes clotted with tears. 

“Why are they showing this to me? Make them stop.”

Kassandra yanked off the fishnet gloves and tossed them on the floor. More scars crisscrossed the left arm, mostly because she was right handed. She’d switched arms only when most of the available real estate had been used up on the left. The scars formed little bumps of flesh, zigzagging along the skin, her body’s attempt at healing. If only it were so simple. She couldn’t scab over a wound on the inside.

The tears dwindled to a trickle. Kassandra took a deep breath and steadied herself. She had to find a way out. Dad counted on her to help Mom.

Scooting away from the last mirror, Kassandra inspected it. This one acted the way a mirror should, the reflection shifting when she moved. Grease and muck coated her jeans from kneeling in the garage and her shirt was soaked in the front from crying. The skin looked puffy around the eyes and her cheeks were flushed red. She was a total wreck. A hiccup of laughter burst out. At least there were plenty of mirrors around.

Kassandra giggled, but it was a crazy nonsense laughter and it worried her. Was she losing it? After a moment, she reeled it in. 

“I have to stay in control.”

The nightingale caught up, landing on the marble floor. It pecked at the discarded gloves. 

“Help yourself. You can have them.”

Kassandra glanced back at the mirror and noticed something odd. She was reflected, and so was the nightingale, but not the hallway. Instead the mirror showed a door directly behind her. Maybe this was the way out. She didn’t dare look back. It would ruin the illusion. Reaching for the door knob, her fingers clunked into the glass, meeting her reflected hand. 

“Swift move. Now what?”

In the mirror, the door was behind Kassandra. Maybe if she reached backward… The round door knob brushed against her fingers. She gripped it and saw the mirror-image doing the same. The door swung open. But now what? Kassandra couldn’t walk forward because then she’d smack into the mirror. And if she turned around, there’d be just an empty corridor.

Kassandra took a step backward, away from the mirror, and the reflected image shuffled through the door. From the edges of her vision she still saw those mirrors. Only by focusing on the mirror in front of her, did she see herself pass through the door. The Converse squeaked as they slipped on something. The marble floor was damp.

She spun around and came face to face with a man, hanging upside down, a thick rope looped around one foot. Instantly, another image superimposed itself—a yellow rope strung up on the garage rafters. Dad’s body dangling right side up. But then it vanished. Only the man hanging from his foot remained.

Kassandra recognized him. This was Gabriel Rykell, Luke’s brother. She must be in the Hanged Man card. 

Kassandra’s Secret is Exposed

Chapter 17

This is a Young Adult story tackling issues of self-harm and suicide. It is intended for teen readers or older. If you want to read from the beginning, click over to chapter 1.

“Okay.” Auntie Jo slipped into the passenger seat of the blue Beetle. “You going to tell me what this is all about?” The vents blasted, causing the photo of Ronald to flutter under the stream of hot air. Outside, thick droplets of rain attacked the roof of the car.

“The nurse called me practically when I got in the door. She said you were sick.” Auntie Jo glanced over. “Are you?”

Kassandra shook her head. “Just high school stuff.”

Auntie Jo wrenched the gear shift into first. “At least tell me you kept an eye on those cards.”

Kassandra’s breath caught in her throat. The cards. She shoved one hand into the purse as the car veered onto the main road. The wipers skittered and hopped across the windshield, hardly affecting the sheets of cascading water. Her fingers curled around the deck of cards. Still there. Pulling them out, the first one was the Magician—a blank silhouette outlined where the figure once stood. 

A mental image flashed: some schmaltzy Vegas guy in a suit sporting a goatee and sawing a lady in half. That wasn’t Luke at all. The trick with the bottle caps seemed more street hustler than magician. Assuming he really was the guy from the card, which felt like her being nutzo again.

“What’s that?” Auntie Jo glanced away from the road.

Kassandra looked down. One of the fishnet gloves had gotten caught when she dove in for the cards. Now it bunched at her wrist, revealing the scarred skin underneath. 

Auntie Jo swerved the Beetle to the side of the road. “No, no, no.”

Kassandra immediately yanked the fabric back over her arm as the tires crunched on the gravel shoulder. She was so stupid. No one could know. 

“Show me!” Auntie Jo yanked up on the parking brake.

Kassandra shuddered as the fear, raw and cold, slithered under her skin. If she could crawl inside herself and disappear she would. But Auntie Jo fixed her with a stare that would not quit. No way to get out of this. 

One thumb hooked under the elastic band, Kassandra tugged the fishnet glove down, the fabric gathering in a heap at her wrist. White scars crisscrossed the skin, along with five tiny pricks made by the pushpin. 

“What?” Auntie Jo heaved a sigh. “Why did you do that to yourself?” 

“It’s just…” Kassandra saw the ridges of raised flesh from the scars made by the razor blade. “It started after Dad died.”

“Oh honey. I know how it feels.” Auntie Jo stroked the side of Kassandra’s face. “You must feel so alone.” Then she glanced at the arm, crisscrossed with hashmarks. “This is serious. You’ve been hurting yourself for eight months and no one knows?”

Kassandra nodded.

“We need to get you to see someone right now.” Auntie Jo ground the stick shift into the gears again. “Before it’s too late.”

“No, don’t take me to a hospital. They’ll just hook me to some IV or something”

Auntie Jo shook her head, scanning the road for a break in traffic. “Someone has to look at you.”

Kassandra couldn’t see a doctor. Then Mom would know and start freaking out again. She’d find a way to blame Dad for it. Kassandra grabbed Auntie Jo’s shoulder. “You know we don’t have any insurance. Mom can’t afford a doctor.” 

The car vibrated, impatient to start moving. Auntie Jo rotated in her seat, tears glistening in her eyes. A truck whizzed by on the road, sheeting the side windows with spray. She covered Kassandra’s hand with one massive palm. “I feel sometimes like you’re my daughter too.”

Something broke inside. Tears pushed at the corners of Kassandra’s eyes. It was true. Auntie Jo looked after her better than Mom did. 

“You’re my second chance.” Auntie Jo’s body trembled and her voice cracked. “I can’t lose you too.”

Kassandra shook her head. “I’m not Dad. I won’t kill myself.”

“You have no idea how fast things spiral out of control.” Auntie Jo fingered the silver ankh and eyeed the photo of Ronald taped to the dashboard. Then she squeezed Kassandra’s hand hard enough to dislocate bones. “You’re so special to me. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

“It won’t.” Kassandra shrugged. “I’ll quit doing it.”

Auntie Jo knitted her eyebrows together. “No you won’t. You don’t dismiss something like this.”

“I’m not. It’s just…”

“Your mom needs to know.”

Kassandra’s whole body clenched. “She’ll freak.”

Auntie Jo gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “And how do you think I feel?”

“Please, don’t tell her.” 

Auntie Jo chewed her bottom lip as rain pattered the windshield and thrummed on the roof of the car. She glanced over and Kassandra held her breath.

“I’ll leave your mom out of it for now.”

A smile forced its way to Kassandra’s lips.

“But,” Auntie Jo aimed a finger. “The cutting stops. All of it. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Auntie Jo made a gimme motion. “Hand over what you’ve got.”

Kassandra rummaged through the purse until one finger pricked on a sharp point. She pulled out the pushpin.

“Is that it?” Auntie Jo looked questioningly the pin. “What do you have at home?”

Kassandra shook her head and answered quickly. “Nothing. I left it in Seattle.”

“How’d you make those?” Auntie Jo eyed the white scars.

Kassandra’s gut clamped into a ball. “One of Dad’s razors.”

Auntie Jo mulled this over, rolling the pushpin between two fingers. In one swift motion she reached out and locked a hand around Kassandra’s wrist.

“If I find you with anything else. Anything.” Auntie Jo stared Kassandra dead in the eyes, thumbnail digging into skin. “The deal’s off. I tell your mom and you go to see a doctor. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be checking your room to be sure.” Auntie Jo let go and started working the gears until the stick shift clicked into place. Seeing a break in the stream of cars, she pulled onto the road. 

Kassandra stared out the window, watching droplets slither down the glass. This couldn’t be happening. She needed to rewind the day and hurl the pushpin all across the bathroom. 

Arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, Kassandra pictured the razor bundled up in a sock stuffed in a boot. She wanted to crawl deep inside that boot so no one can see her? To fade away, dissolve, and forget. Just wipe everything clean. 

Auntie Jo would find the razor. Then the secret would explode into the open. Everyone would know. Kassandra’s body shivered and she squeezed her arms tighter.

She couldn’t let it happen.

The Secret Hides in the Boot

Chapter 3

This is a Young Adult story tackling issues of self-harm and suicide. It is intended for teen readers or older. If you want to read from the beginning, click over to chapter 1.

The goal of the first day at school was to dress hip enough to not get picked on, but not so over the top to put you on the radar. 

Kassandra cracked open the dusty trunk that served as a closet and inspected the prospects with a sigh. This would’ve been so much easier with some real choices. Sure, there were plenty of shirts and accessories for the top half. But from the waist down, she was screwed. The prospects were limited: the jeans with the holes in the knees, but she’d worn those yesterday; a pair of old black jeans, now a size too small; and two shorts. Kassandra eyed a pair of the shorts. Everyone would gawk at her white thighs. Not a great first day impression. Besides, the shorts were a Mom purchase. Once upon a time, she had some kicking Capris, but Mom tossed them because they were one of Dad’s gifts.

Resigned, Kassandra chose the jeans with the ripped out knees. Better to have some holes than to pop a seam with the black constrictor pants. She snatched a not-too-girly top, slipped on the fingerless fishnet gloves and laced up the red Converse chucks from the secondhand store. They didn’t match the outfit, but they were paid for, so on they went.

The front door to the house swung shut and moments later Mom breezed past the room, blouse wrinkled and riding up in the back. Kassandra glanced at the clock, nearly seven in the morning. So Mom was using the house as hotel now—checking in and checking out.

Kassandra scooped up the crocheted purse. She needed to make a run for it before Mom figured out something to blame her for. 

“Kassandra!” Mom hollered from down the hall.

Too late.

Mom stormed into the room. A few strands of dyed black hair escaped her ponytail and dangled over her forehead like stalactites. One hand clutched the empty nail polish bottle. 

So she could spot something in all that mess.

“I found this in the trash.” Mom shook the bottle accusingly. “Were you in my room again?”

Kassandra clenched her jaw. “It’s not your room, you know.” The words came out like bullets. “Our house is still up in Seattle. At least until it sells.”

Dark blotches ringed Mom’s eyes and the corners of her mouth turned into a frown, yet not a smudge marred the immaculately drawn lipstick. 

“Okay. I can’t do this right now.” Mom waved a dismissive hand and headed back to the hall. 

Kassandra stepped forward. “So who were you shacked up with this time?”  

Mom spun around. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”

“You’re so right.” Kassandra’s neck muscles tightened until they felt like guitar strings. “I guess I don’t deserve to know.”

A vein in Mom’s forehead quivered. Condition red. Hands clenched into fists. Then she took a deep breath and smoothed the creases in her blouse.

“His name is Sam.” 

Kassandra heard a distant shout, deep in her brain. Let this go, it said. This was just Mom’s way of dealing. But the guitar strings quivered—everything pulled too tight.

“Does this one even know your name, or does he call you babe?”

Mom slapped Kassandra hard enough to whip her head to the side. 

“This is why I don’t come home at night.” Mom had one finger pointed like a laser.

Kassandra’s cheek burned but she refused to rub it. “Go off with your stupid boyfriend. He’s not going to replace Dad.”

Mom glared, but then faltered, wrinkles grooving her forehead. The roots of her black hair showed tufts of grey intertwined with the natural auburn.

Her shoulders sagged. “No one will replace Dad. But it’s not about him anymore.” Mom trundled down the hall and shut the door to her room. 

Something wet struck Kassandra’s hand. She mopped up the tears but who was she fooling? Crying was pathetic. A sign of complete weakness. Kassandra whacked one of the packing boxes, over and over, the same thought replaying in her head—I’m so stupid. Finally a cardboard flap tore off and sailed to the corner of the room. It landed near her pair of purple Doc Marten boots.

Auntie Jo glanced in before continuing on to Mom’s room. The argument echoed down the hall.

“I’ve had enough of that girl. It’s always the same.”

“Maybe if you spent more time…” Auntie Jo said.

“I can’t be around her. I just can’t.”

Kassandra edged closer to her door, pulse beating erratic and hot.

“I should have left her in Seattle. Then we’d all be better off.”

Kassandra filled her lungs to bursting, not daring to exhale. Breathing would make this real. And it wasn’t. She wanted everything all at once, to march in there and scream, to crawl into a corner and whimper, to run as fast and as far away as possible.

“I’ll shower at the gym.” Mom stomped down the hall, shooting past without a single glance. The keys jingled and then the front door slammed.

Auntie Jo came in, wrapping her arms around Kassandra. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

Kassandra shivered. Everything felt numb, like watching the world from somewhere outside her body. 

Auntie Jo gave her a little squeeze. “I know you may not feel like it, but breakfast will do you a world of good.”

“Sure.” Kassandra managed a nod before Auntie Jo disappeared down the hallway.

The room fell into silence. It hurt for Kassandra to breathe, like a fist pressing against her chest. She rubbed a raised section of flesh under the fishnet glove. Kassandra needed to get things under control. 

What she needed was shoved in the toe of the Doc Martens. Kassandra pulled out the sock and unrolled it. Lines of red streaked the inside of the fabric. She picked up the razor blade, flecks of rust dotting the grip. It used to be one of Dad’s box cutters. 

One nudge, and the fishnet glove slithered down her left arm. Scars crisscrossed the pale skin—tiny stripes of white. Kassandra brought the blade down but a reflection flashed along the metal. She turned the razor flat to inspect the side and saw something in the shiny surface—chestnut brown. Then the image moved.

Dropping the razor, she scooted away. A coppery tang filled her mouth. In a moment, the metallic taste vanished.

The blade seemed normal now. It lay on the floor next to the lump of sock. The same kind Dad used a thousand times to scrape gunk off the windows. Kassandra crawled closer. Nothing reflected in the metal. She could hardly make out her own silhouette.

“Honey?” Auntie Jo called. Not at the door yet, but close. Coming down the hall.

For a second Kassandra’s mind felt heavy and sluggish. She imagined the floor splitting and the earth swallowing everything: the razor, the boot, the blood. Then reality snapped back. No one could see this. Everything went into the boot—the blade and the sock—no time for fancy wrapping.

Auntie Jo reached the door and scanned the room, a frown forming on her lips. “Are you okay?”

Kassandra glanced down at her left arm, still bare and displaying the patchwork of scars. She jerked her arms behind and tugged the glove up.

“Totally.”

Auntie Jo gave a weak smile. “I’ve got toast and bacon waiting.” She spun around. “Thy feast awaits you.” 

Kassandra paused at the door and gave the purple Doc Marten’s one last look. 

Had she really seen anything or was it just more loopiness on her part? The color burned into her brain—chestnut—so familiar. Goose pimples sprouted along her skin.

Those were Dad’s eyes. But that wasn’t possible. Not ever.