Her big brown eyes, full of tears, stare back from the mirror. She can see herself plainly, every detail. Her long dark hair, her pink lips, tear stained cheeks, pale skin. She knows she is considered beautiful, but she doesn�t see it. How can she with so much ugliness inside? A tear falls into the sink below and she looks down surprised. I�m still crying, she thinks. Somehow with all that looking she failed to see what was there. Just like everybody else in her life. Sure, they see her. They speak to her. Some even pretend to enjoy her company. But nobody really knows her. Nobody sees what is on the inside.

    She gives a little laugh. There is nothing inside. Her own private joke: she desperately wants someone to see what isn�t even there. Oh no, there�s something there. But it�s so dark no one can see it. Only I know it�s there because I can feel it. It weighs heavy in my stomach, eating away at me. If only I could let it out. Get rid of it somehow. Then I could fill myself with happiness and there would be nothing inside to eat it up. I would just be happy.

    She stares into the sink and sees the razor blade. She picks it up. She examines it curiously, as if it were a foreign object, like she didn�t just put it there five minutes ago. It is a spare blade from an exacto knife. Brand new, never used, not dulled from experience. Its shiny edge glints in the pale bathroom light. The pain fills her. She feels it eating her organs, her heart. Wanting so badly to make it stop, she presses the razor against her wrist, takes a breath, and closes her eyes.

    The girl wakes in a hospital bed with her mother weeping. Her father sits in the corner of the room, silent as usual. She can tell he�s wishing the chair would swallow him whole so he could get away from all this emotion. Her mother meanwhile continues her overt display, more than making up for his taciturnity. The girl knows too that her mother thinks if she cries enough she can prove her love.

    The girl sighs and examines the room. It is a typical hospital room, sterile but making attempts at being friendly. White walls, white sheets, color TV. Ice pitcher next to her bed, a sandwich with one tiny bite missing, next to her mother. A brown pleather easy-to-clean, just-in-case, chair her father sits on. No one ever says just in case what exactly. She wonders. And of course, the obligatory curtain of privacy. No matter where she is, she never seems to get any privacy. Even in a room all alone her thoughts haunt her, torment her, refuse to give her peace. Finally, she looks at herself. The lower half of her body is covered with a sheet. She lifts it up- sigh of relief- her legs are still there. She�s in a hospital gown, ugly and ill-fitting. Her wrists have soft white bandages around them. One is turning a little pink in the center. Just as she�s about to look under the bandage, a nurse walks in with a sniveling boy. The nurse smiles at her, speaking volumes without opening her lips. �See, look at all these people who love you. You�re lucky. You have every reason to live.� Obviously she doesn�t know the burden of love. The nurse leads the boy to the bed and leaves. Her mother and father look at each other, at her and the boy, and simultaneously leave without saying a word. The boy, her boyfriend, timidly sits on the edge of the bed. He moves to take her hand, but sees the bandage and stops. It�s not contagious you know. He tries to smile at her and almost breaks into tears. He manages one simple word accompanied by a confused imploring look: why. He speaks flatly. It is not a question. She looks into his face with pity. He�ll never understand. I feel bad for him, I do. I can tell he loves me. He thinks he loves me anyway. He doesn�t know who I am, what I have inside� She looks away, not answering him. She feels his finger on her cheek, caressing it, and she shrinks back. The bed shifts; he is getting up, moving away. She looks at him apologetically, but it�s too late. He is already gone. Good, it�s better this way. He�ll never understand. I�d only hurt him. He doesn�t deserve what I would do to him.

    She�s in regular clothes now, sitting in her mandated therapist�s office. The bandages on her wrists are thinner now, and her cuts have stopped bleeding. She�s going home today. The doctor has deemed her fit for society once again. This is her last appointment. She wishes she could feel sad. Or excited. Or really anything at all. But despite sitting in this room for an hour every day for the past two weeks, pretending to pour her heart out, she still feels nothing. The pain she felt before the �incident�, that�s what her mother and father are now calling it, is gone. When she woke up in the hospital bed it was gone. In its place was true nothingness. Not light, like air, but thick and dense, like fog. The pain was better. It hurt more, but I knew I was alive. Now I walk around asleep. I lay at night awake. I feel nothing, wishing for pain again.

    The therapist walks in, interrupting her thoughts. He coughs a nervous cough and asks her how she�s doing. She in turn looks away from him, and mumbles she�s fine. He informs her that since this is her last session, she will not need to stay the entire time. Her mother and father are outside waiting for her, and she�s free to go when she chooses. He asks her if there�s anything else she�d like to discuss. Anything else? There wasn�t anything I wanted to discuss in the first place. She softly shakes her head. He sighs dejectedly. The kind of sigh that says �If I could just reach one� But I haven�t. My job is worthless. I give up.� He stands and opens the door. She too stands, looking at him finally. He scans her face, searching for something. Some emotion, regret, relief, joy, sadness, anything. But her face is blank. A canvas that has been painted white and will not absorb more color. Blank forever. She walks out the door to her supposed freedom.

    After her two-week hiatus, it feels like she never even left. She follows as her father carries her bag to her bedroom. He sets it on the floor and turns to her to say something. He closes his mouth, as if he changed his mind, and leaves, closing the door behind him. Now I know what they mean by deafening silence. I used to pray for silence. Who knew I would ever pray for noise? Mechanically she puts her clothes away. She doesn�t know what to do with herself. She sits on the bed for a moment. She gets up and brushes her hair in the mirror. Two weeks ago she stood in front of a different mirror and saw the blackness inside. Now she sees nothing. She sees her face, her body as an empty shell. She gets up to go to the bathroom.

    Her hand on the doorknob, she stands feet planted outside the bathroom. She stares at the door seeing something beyond. She sees the events of two weeks ago. She sees the bandages still on her wrists, a temporary reminder, unlike the scars that remain. She sees her therapist, someone who once had aspirations of changing the world, one troubled teen at a time. She sees the nurse, a bubblegum woman with a plastic smile melted in place. She sees the boy and knows she broke his heart the gentlest way she could. She knows too that she�ll not see him again. She sees her father, a man raised in a cold household, taught never to express any kind of emotion. She sees her mother, reaching out for attention just wanting someone to say they love her. And she finally sees herself, Kate, a girl just looking for something to make her whole.

    Someone comes up the stairs and startles her. She looks at her mother and at her hand on the doorknob. She turns it and enters.

neb 9/16/03