It had started so small...
She had found it accidentally, even. Just a pinprick at the doctors office that one time, and things were different somehow. She woke up the next morning, and she didn't cry, and got ready and went to wait for the schoolbus, like always. She had been smiling, she remembered that much at least. The dawn had been so bright and the sun had caused the iced-over tree limbs to shine like a raiment of frozen gold... and she had been smiling.
Then the bus pulled up, and the doors had opened, and her smile was gone. It didn't come back the next morning. Or the next day. Or the next month. Summer finally came and her smile returned, and she hadn't even thought about it at all for so long. Until Fall came again and with it, tears and torment.
Then one day looking through the basement, she slipped and fell hard and her hand landed on a wood screw and gashed her open. She had cried then, for who wouldn't, but that night she didn't dream bad and she didn't cry the next morning and she was starting to figure out why.
The first one was tiny, so little because she was scared and very unsure and what if her parents noticed? So tiny, and it could be called an accident if it had to be and well, they didn't notice.
They never noticed.
And it had been scary but she didn't dream bad, and now she knew for well and sure, exactly why. So it had became her secret way, and she had to be careful, cause sometimes there were marks, if she was crying too hard and messed up.
She had to make sure it couldn't be seen, cause one time her crazy uncle had noticed, and joked how she just had the worst luck in the wood shop. She had stopped then, a full stop. "No no no no no" she would say, and she did really well for a really long time, all the way through the holidays... until she couldn't stand it anymore...
And it worked. Oh sweet Jesus had it worked. Her muscles unlocked and she relaxed so hard in the bathtub that she almost fell asleep and drowned. A "near miss."
It got out of hand after that... it stopped being a blessing and started to be a problem. Everything was a problem back then, because cramps and mean words and hard looks and it started being harder and harder.. wanting more and more.
And she was starting to get so scared because it wouldn't leave her alone anymore, and she was secretly so glad when her crazy uncle got drunk and told her parents and when they wouldn't listen he half-wrecked the house and when her parents called the police on him, he told the police. He told them why, and what, and they believed him and looked. They found the marks.
More doctors then. Lots more. And they talked to her and gave her medicines and moved schools and she worked hard, so very hard, and found a way to stop... a way to run from it.
She ran. It was running that did it. Running til her heart like it would nearly pop, and she couldn't breath and finally... Finally something else to take away the pressure. So she ran and ran and won trophies even. The running is what did it, and she got so damned good at running that they gave her college money just for running.
The pressure was there, it never really left, but she could run and it would be okay and if that didn't work she would drink herself to sleep or something. But school was hard and the tension mounted and she thanked heaven for that stoner at the party who said he'd sold plasma for booze money. By the end of the year the Red Cross were calling her a hero.
Still it was there. It stayed junior and senior year, but she kept running and running and giving and giving and gritting her teeth and drinking and smoking until she failed a test, and they kicked her off the team. She'd begged and cried... and cried and cried, but they didn't care.
She'd been drunk for two weeks now, and maybe just once, just one more time.. Her old hope... the one thing that nobody could take away... this precious, scarlet moment.