Trigger warning: Blood, skin picking
“Nobody is looking, you are fine, don’t worry, nobody knows.”
Everyone is staring, they all know, they can see through my jeans and see that I’m bleeding all over my leg. It’s running down into my socks, leaving stains, soaking them with blood. Everyone knows. With every movement of my legs speeding through the halls I can feel the crispness of the dried blood on my leg cracking. It runs down my leg, getting colder with every inch it slides. Rushing into the bathroom, I quickly lock the door behind me and pull my kit out of my backpack. I take out the rubbing alcohol, some towels and the bandages. I pull up my jeans. It’s gotten worse. There are so many scabs and so much more blood than seems humanly possible. Every single scab on my leg has been picked. All the holes in my skin are throbbing, as if parts of my beating heart are around each wound, and the blood is drenching my leg on its way down. It’s staining the bathroom floor, I can hear the chunks of blood toppling over each other as they race to get through the drain making a disturbing squelching. I rub the towels on my leg to clean up the bleeding. When I pull up the towel to add more alcohol, I stop in my tracks. My jaw drops and I’m horrified. It’s happening again. There is no blood on the towels. I look at the floor. The blood that was just there is gone. It was all in my head…