Before I could stop myself I was running my fingertips over the length of the scars, feeling the bumps on the skin.

“Dana?” Alice had noticed that I had stopped what I was doing. Her leg jerked as my fingers touched them and she suddenly pulled away, rolling her body to sit up on the edge on the bed. She sat there in silence, staring at the large oak wardrobe before her.

“Alice, how did you get them?” I already knew the answer but part of me just wanted to hear Alice say it for herself.

“It was a long time ago”.

Alice

I knew that the time would come when Dana noticed my scars and I had dreaded that day since we had gotten together. Sometimes I had thought about what I would say to her when she did see them, but I had never come up with anything. I knew that I couldn’t lie to her, I had to be honest, it was just that the words to explain were so difficult to find.

A vision suddenly appeared in my head, a flashback of the days when I would cut myself. I saw myself, a young girl of fifteen, sitting up in bed and pulling a sharp bloodstained razor blade across my legs, watching the deep red liquid ooze from the self-inflicted wounds. When I did it, pain would sear through my legs but it was a comfort to me, knowing that I was in control.

I closed my eyes tight, trying to block this image out of my head and realized that Dana was saying my name.

“Alice? Are you okay?” The tone of Dana’s voice was concerned and she sounded scared.

“I’m okay. I’m sorry, it’s just I don’t know what to say, I always knew you’d see them but it’s hard for me to explain”.

Dana shuffled across the bed to sit up at my side and she took hold of my hand. “It’s okay honey, you don’t have to explain if you don’t want to”.

“No, you’ve seen them now you deserve an explanation”. I took a deep breath. “For five years I was a self-harmer, when I was fourteen to when I was nineteen”.

Dana’s grip tightened on my hand. “But why?”

“I just hated myself you know and it helped, it made me feel better to hurt myself, like a punishment. I never had the perfect family life either, my parents split up when I was really young and everyone always thought that my brother and sister were better than me, I was never quite good enough”. A small laugh escaped me “I guess I’m still not now, according to your mother anyway”.

“I’m sorry she made you feel that way Al, but she’s wrong, they’re all wrong. I can’t stand the thought of you hating yourself; I can’t express how amazing I think you are”.

“Yeah, well….” I didn’t really know what to say, I knew that no matter what Dana said it probably wouldn’t make me feel any better about myself.

“So you stopped when you were nineteen?” Dana asked.

“Yeah, there’s been a couple of times since but I haven’t done it in over ten years.” I realized that Dana was worried that I may be still doing it or that I have done it recently so I turned to her and stared into her sparkling blue eyes. “And I’m not planning on doing it ever again, don’t worry. Dana you have made me the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life and when I’m with you I feel like I can do anything and that I’m actually worth something. So please, don’t worry, I’m happy and I’m not going to be doing anything like that again”.

The stunning brunette sighed and her worried expression formed into a smile. “Good. I want you to be happy more than anything in the world”.

“I am. Come on, it’s been a long evening let’s get some sleep”. I pulled myself back up onto the bed and tucked my legs under the soft cotton sheets. Dana did the same and lay behind me, spooning me with her arms wrapped around me, leaving no room between us. She kissed the back of my neck tenderly and we drifted off into sleep, however my dreams were uncomfortable, plagued by the memories that had been brought back to me.