Private Moment

    It was a night where I decided that I needed answers. All these questions in my head had piled up over the weeks, while my brain struggled with stress from school. I was tired of feeling the way I was feeling with him so I finally asked.
    Talking was done, my mind calmed and we curled into each other. For the first time in a while we started to become intimate. We took our time. Slowly stroking each others bodies. First the arms then the chest, a use of nails here a little twist or flick there. It was soothing and calming with long kisses in between. At one point he held my left hand, softly stroking the skin while we kissed.
    It was then that he pulled back and asked 'What happened to your hand.' I immediately pulled my hand away from his and said 'It's nothing, don't worry about it.' Hoping he wouldn't remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago where I asked for a favor, thus revealing why I wear a fingerless glove.
    He remember though, really how could he forget. 'Why,' he says pulling back and looking at me. I just curl  up next him, one arm slung over his torso and say 'You have to be specific or I won't answer your question.' I don't know why I said this, why I made him state it. Maybe hoping that he wouldn't be thinking what I was thinking, but he was. He knew after all.
    So he asks 'Why did you do that to yourself?' I want to lie, say it's just a weird cut, no self-mutilation here, but I couldn't. We've been together for three whole fucking years, it's about time I told him about this side of myself. So I start to speak, slowly making sure every word is precise.
    I tell him what happened last friday evening after I drove him home. How I broke down into tears and balled my eyes out, then before I even realized I had grabbed my knife and slowly started to make a cut. Then another and another and another. There were four in total and even though I pressed hard and made myself bleed, only the first one hurt. The other three just made me feel shittier about myself.
    By this point I had pulled away, laying on my back and staring at the ceiling. I didn't want to see his face, I didn't want to know what he was thinking or feeling at this point.
    We sat there in silence for a moment, before he's curling into me, asking me why. Why? Because it makes me forget about reality for a moment, gives me control over something, keeps me from feeling completely and utterly numb, broken, dead. There are so many reasons why I did what I did.
    I ask him if he's okay. He's been so quiet since I've spoken, but he only replies with 'How would you feel if someone you care about started hurting themselves?' For a moment I can't help but think of another lighter blond that I cared for a while back. I've been on both sides of this coin. Still I answer 'sad, afraid, my heart would hurt for them.'
    We fall into silence, Aster still curled into me, while I continue to stare at the ceiling. At one point I start talking, why? Maybe because it was finally time to share a part of myself that is only ever hidden away on these pages, but I told him a bit of my struggle with depression. Around the time I first started cutting, why I did it, the thought process that went into it, my emotional state at the time and how eventually slowly I stopped.
    I don't remember the exact date of when I stopped but at one point I did. I remember I didn't just suddenly feel better, it was gradual and slow, but there were a few things in my life at that time that slowly helped me get out of my lonely pit.
    'You don't know this,' I said staring into the darkness, 'but at that time you were one of a couple of people that helped me stop.' Here I fell silent, unsure of what to say anymore. Aster starts to shake and I put my arms around him and rub his back, whispering that it's okay.
    I don't know why I told him it was okay, but after a few moments I spoke for a final time saying 'I regret what I did last week. And after feeling the way I did after. I know I'm never going to do it again.' A few moments later he calms and stands to go get tissues. No more words are exchanged and the next day he seems just a tad distant, but for once I push ahead and soon we're back to the way we were. Maybe just a teeny bit better than we used to be.