The Girl
stood in front of the mirror, and hated herself. Everything about her was
wrong, everything could be so much better. Then the voice started again, the
one named Clara. “Look at yourself. Look at the mess that is you. Your face is
too white; don’t you wish you were alive? Don’t you wonder if you can still
feel pain?” The struggle with the voice was clearly visible on the Girl’s face.
Then, she gave up. And that was visible, too. The look of sadness disappeared,
the muscles of her face relaxed. She scanned the room with deadened eyes, until
they stopped on a pair of scissors lying behind the big chair in the corner.
She walked over and slowly sat down, picking them up with hands that did not
tremble.
Cutting
was too easy. She felt strangely detached as she slid the blade of the scissors
across her shoulder. Not too far, never too far. Six little drops of blood,
swelling bigger along the line the metal had traveled. This was such a precise
thing to do, she thought. It was so easy to control. She made another incision,
this time on her chest, longer, deeper. Then another, on her stomach. She
flexed her abs to make it easier to cut into the skin. Once, the tip went a
little bit too deep. She barely winced, but the blood ran a little more freely
than it should.
Her
heart pounded. But still, the white face was devoid of emotion. The scissors
made such a funny sound when they cut skin, she noticed. Such an interesting
skritch, skritch, the sound of metal cutting something it shouldn’t.
The
Girl moved to the full-length mirror which was leaning against the wall a few
feet away. She looked at herself critically, and then gasped. Her ribs were
disappearing. She knew it. She was losing the bones. The more she had to eat,
the less she was able to see them. She exhaled sharply; sucking her stomach in
as far as it could go. Ah, there they were. They jutted out a good three
inches. The lovely bones. She picked up the scissors again, and carved one word
onto her ribs: love. And that just about summed it up. That was why she did
what she did. There was the reason for her panic at losing the bones, for her
cutting away of the skin that covered them. If she could only be the bones, she
could be beautiful, and if she was beautiful, it followed that she would be
loved.
Half an
hour passed, and the Girl lay on the floor, exhausted. Cutting was such a rush
until the sharp pain abated and gave way to the dull ache and misery. She lay
there as her pulse pounded in every incision, her eyes closed. She was acutely
aware of every little cut, its depth and length and just how much it ached. Then
she remembered the promise, and the tears came in a steady stream of hot
saltiness. She hadn’t cried real tears in so long. Months. But.. she had
promised that she wouldn’t cut anymore. She never broke her promises, and now
she had broken this all-important one. The tears flowed until there were none
left. Then the Girl stood up, looking into the mirror again. Twelve cuts
covered her chest and shoulders, six on her ribs. She somehow liked the way
they looked, so red against the white of her skin. So red and alive. “If I ever
die doing this,” she thought, “I’ll be the most alive I’ve ever been.”
Her
eyes widened as she realized the heavy weight of meaning that thought held.
This was wrong, wrong! She was not in control. It was Clara, Clara who held the
scissors, who told her that this was
how she could feel alive again. But it was a lie! Suddenly everything was
clear. Clara fooled her into thinking that the cutting was something normal.
“It’s your body, after all. Who’s to say you can’t do what you like with it?
And if cutting it is what makes you happy, then cutting it must be the right
thing to do!” What the Girl always seemed to forget every time she cut again,
was the hurt that came with it.
Later that
night, she asked her brother to drive her to the chapel. She had to see Him.
They arrived in the dim silence of the church, and walked to the back of the
church and into the chapel. They knelt side by side in the pew, and she looked
up at the crucifix. Her Christ, her savior, was there before her, covered with
wounds he bore for her. And suddenly, she looked into her heart, and she knew
love. She saw it in the wounds which covered the body of her savior. It was
there in His eyes, downcast with the pain caused by her turning away from Him. It
could be seen in His arms, outstretched on the wood of the instrument of
torture, reaching out to her, whose sins had condemned Him.
It was
as though He was asking her why she needed pain to feel loved, when all she had
to do was come to Him to receive perfect love. The tears streamed down her
face, tears of joy this time. He loved her, so she was beautiful. She was
sanctified by His love, made perfect by the fact that she was precious in His
sight. She gazed with adoration at the cross before her, and smiled through her
tears, because she was loved, she was precious, she was good enough.
Those
scissors would never again cut what they should not. She would go on with hope,
with gladness, with joy. She ended that day with a new resolve, to live her
life to love others, and never again fear that she would not be loved. Because
whether or not the people of the world saw her as beautiful, or lovable, Jesus
always would.
The
Girl left the chapel that day with her head held high. The voice named Clara
was still there to fight, but in the long run, Clara did not possess the shadow
of a chance. Love has a knack for keeping
demons at bay.
