Patricia McCormick

A tingle arced across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next. What happened next was that a perfect, straight line of blood bloomed from under the edge of the blade.

My mind is a video on fast-forward. A video with no soundtrack.

It was like my whole body was just this one spot on my arm that was begging to be scratched, carved, cut—anything, anything—for relief.

“I think everything’s my fault.”