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“I remember.”
“And the whole thing numbed me.”
I nodded.
“I couldn’t feel anything, Aiden. I felt like a zombie. All the things that used to make me happy or sad or angry didn’t affect me anymore.”
“It hardened you. I know.”
“And I wasn’t interested in anything. Everything seemed so pointless.”
She put her hands in her lap and I put a hand over them, smiling as she wrapped her fingers loosely around mine.
“I just wanted to feel something.”
“When did you start doing that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d heard about it before and one day I just tried it with one of the box cutters from the junk drawer. At first I felt kind of stupid, but I kept trying and soon I was sort of looking forward to it. Like it was a little hobby that I was getting better at, something that kept me from defining myself as the girl with the dead Mom.”
I squeezed her fingers back.
“I know it sounds crazy,” she said.
“No it doesn’t,” I said. “It’s just sad.”
“It was sad. I was sad. For a long time.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
She looked at me through glassy eyes. “But you were, Aiden. You were there for me.”
“Obviously it wasn’t enough.”
“Yes it was.”
I exhaled through my nose.
She shook her head. “You have no idea what your friendship meant to me at the time. And there’s nothing you could’ve done that would’ve changed the choices I made.”
“I want to believe that.”
“You should. I mean, I know I didn’t exactly choose the healthiest way to cope, but I was just working through my shit. It was something I had to do.”
“Maybe.”
“Your friendship helped me through it without you even knowing. I remember lots of times I’d want to go home and cut myself- almost to the point of obsession- but I’d want to keep hanging out with you more so I’d skip it.”
“So you were obsessed with me even then?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about obsessed, but I definitely thought you were shit cool.”
I smiled.
“And you never treated me like I should be depressed or like I was different.”
“But you’ve always been different. I’ve always known you were different.”
“But you didn’t treat me that way,” she said. “And the fact that I felt normal around you helped me not lose touch. Your friendship kept me from getting washed away by my own grief.”
