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All the websites say cutting yourself is bad.
Zoey knows that for a fact, because one night she went on an internet deep dive to see if she could find just one that said otherwise, or at least one that explained why it was bad instead of just assuming she must already know.
Zoey hated it when people just assumed she understood. It made her feel an anger she never knew what to do with, besides hurt herself further of course.
The more Zoey did it the less she cared to try to justify it to herself. Cutting her skin made her feel better, what more justification did she need? Rumi and Mira had their crutches too, so what was so wrong with Zoey’s?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
The first time Zoey had done it was before she was even a part of Huntr/x. Sitting in her room, staring at the posters on her walls, trying to find something new in any of them. There was no reason for her to have been feeling as upset as she was, she just… felt that way.
Zoey had always been bad at ‘reading the room’ as it were. The jokes she told always fell flat, because she didn’t inject her voice with enough enthusiasm to tip people off to the fact she was even trying to tell a joke. Zoey thought that was ridiculous, because the flat tone was what made it funny damn it!
That was what had happened at the dinner table. Her mother had pried and pressed her about what the hell she was talking about when she tried to say something funny. There was no way to explain it to her that was satisfactory. Eventually dinner ended and her mom walked away with a huff.
It sucked, but it was no reason for her to be feeling the way she had been. No reason for her to pull her pair of craft scissors and draw them across her forearm.
No reason to watch transfixed as her skin opened up to reveal a pale white layer underneath speckled with pink spots. No reason to revel in the feeling of the blood welling up in the cut and spilling over the edges; dripping down her arm.
No reason to do it a few more times for good measure.
And that was just the first time.
It didn’t take long for Zoey to truly realize that cutting her skin open was the best way to deal with big emotions, either positive or negative.
If she was feeling exuberant and overjoyed after a good concert, or a nice date out with her girls, or even just a tasty breakfast, the adrenaline would quadruple after she locked herself in her room and drew her scissors over her wrist in jagged lines.
If the world was weighing on her too much after a bad sparring day, or if she couldn’t keep her rhythm during rehearsal, the sadness would dissipate into nothingness once her arm was marred with bloody wounds.
In Zoey’s mind there was nothing wrong with finding a way to feel better.
Besides, the cuts didn’t even hurt that bad, and it’s not like Zoey ever cut deep enough to require stitches, and she always made sure to use sterilized blades and clean her wounds afterwards, so there was no risk of further damage.
Zoey didn’t think what she was doing to herself was that bad.
The problem was that everybody else, anywhere she looked, thought otherwise.
If everybody thought that cutting yourself was bad, there was no doubt that Mira and Rumi would think the same thing, and there’d likely be no way to convince them otherwise.
So of course, to make sure her girls weren’t worrying about her unnecessarily, Zoey kept them covered. Long sleeves, hoodies, rash-guards, anything to make sure Mira and Rumi didn’t freak out.
And it worked! Nobody ever batted an eye.
The problem was, when you’re only hiding something because you know others won’t like it, it makes you susceptible to slipping up just by virtue of not feeling the fear that would make you want to hide it yourself in the first place.
It happens on a normal day.
Zoey isn’t always the first to get up, but she was today. There’s a sort of unwritten rule in the Huntr/x penthouse that whoever gets up first makes coffee and breakfast. Nobody had a problem with that, especially because it made all of them super happy to be able to cater to the others. There was something so domestic about it.
It was the summertime now, and Zoey had thrown off her fluffy hoodie in the middle of the night to stop herself from overheating. Normally she was good at reminding herself to put it back on before she left her room, but she hadn’t that morning.
Her tired brain hadn’t even registered the myriad of scars covering her arms when she looked at herself in the mirror. The thought that Mira and Rumi would be upset by them hadn’t booted up in her groggy brain yet.
Because that thought wasn’t her own. It had been told to her by the internet. It wasn’t even a real thing, it was just something to remember.
And god knows that Zoey wasn’t always great at remembering things.
After Zoey had put on the coffee, she heard the squeak of a door behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Mira walking out of her room, mid-stretch.
Zoey smiled and gave her a little wave before getting started on breakfast.
“Sleep well?” Zoey asked. Mira was always a bit grumpy after waking up, but Zoey knew she’d wake up faster if she was engaged in conversation.
Mira didn’t respond. Come to think of it, Zoey didn’t hear her flop down into one of the kitchen chairs like she normally would. Zoey knew her girls like the back of her own hand, so any change in routine stuck out like a sore thumb in her head.
“Mira?” Zoey turned to see Mira staring at her, looking terrified.
Zoey immediately put down the spatula in her hand and moved towards Mira.
“Mira? Mir, what’s–”
And then she realized.
Mira wasn’t staring at her, she was staring at her arms.
Zoey looked down at her arms, covered in raised lines, so clearly visible in her sleep tank.
Zoey looked back up at Mira. She was still just standing there, her mouth moving but no words coming out. It hurt Zoey to see Mira so caught off guard. Her girls were never caught off guard.
But Zoey didn’t feel afraid, or panicked, or anything like that. Sure, she knew her girls would probably not be happy if they found out, but she never internalized the fear of getting found out she was ‘supposed to.’
Zoey looked down at her arms again and held them up in front of her.
“Oh, uh… yeah. Here.” Zoey said, dumbly.
Then she held her arms out towards Mira for her to inspect. She’d probably want to check them, make sure she was cleaning them properly.
That snapped Mira out of her stupor and she rushed forward, cradling both of Zoey’s arms in her own, pressing them tight to her chest and holding them there.
Mira looked up at Zoey for the first time, looking her dead in the eyes.
“Zoey, what– what did– how– why would you–” Mira’s stuttering sentence was cut off with an abrupt sob, and tears started to stream down her face.
OK, now Zoey was scared. Mira never, ever cried.
Zoey pulled her arms out from Mira’s grasp and cradled her girlfriend’s face.
“Hey, hey hey hey, don’t cry Mir, it’s OK.” Zoey cooed, trying to calm her down.
Mira wrenched her face out of Zoey’s grasp.
“What– what do you mean it’s OK!? It’s not– it’s not OK Zoey!” Mira said, her voice rising.
Zoey took a step back at the fire in Mira’s tone. She looked away. The eye contact was starting to hurt.
Mira gasped lightly. “No, no no no, Zoey I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it– I didn’t mean to yell, I’m sorry.”
Zoey looked back at Mira again. There were fresh tears still streaming down her face.
There was a dull panic building in Zoey’s chest now. There had to be a way to stop Mira from being sad. She didn’t like being the cause of her girls’ sadness.
Zoey took a cautious step forward. “Look Mira.” She held her arms out to Mira again. “You can touch.” Zoey smiled for good measure.
Wrong thing to do. Mira’s face crumpled and she let out another pained sob. Still, she rushed towards her and held her left arm between her hands.
Zoey looked down. The majority of the scars were a pale white, hardly noticeable having been healing for years. Others were an angry red or a pale pink; the ones that Zoey had put there more recently.
Mira ran her thumb along her forearm, then flipped her arm over, revealing the careful etching of scars across her wrist. Mira let out a pained gasp, bringing her hand up to her mouth.
In an instant, Mira’s arms were wrapped around Zoey in a bone-crushing hug.
Mira was rambling, her voice hushed and frantic.
“Zoey– Zoey, listen to me, it’s gonna be OK, we– we can get a therapist, a–and– and we’ll have little check-in sessions together, j–just the three of us, so nobody hurts all alone.”
Zoey barely has time to process her confusion at Mira’s words before she’s releasing her from the hug and cradling her face in her trembling hands.
“Can you– can you tell me, or– or Rumi when you get the urge to hurt yourself? Please? We can catch those thoughts before it happens, OK?” Mira’s voice is shaking something fierce.
The confusion that she was feeling is morphing into frustration inside Zoey now. What in the world is Mira talking about? Zoey knew they’d be upset if they found out but this just seems so extreme.
“Why?” Zoey asks, silently.
Mira’s face morphs into a confused expression.
“‘W–Why?’ What do you mean, ‘why?’ I don’t– I don’t want you to hurt yourself Zoey.”
That doesn’t make sense. Zoey isn’t hurting herself, at least, not really. It’s a means to an end, a means to make herself feel better. Maybe Zoey isn’t thinking clearly. She’d normally be able to get an idea of what people mean, even when she doesn’t understand completely, but her brain is filled with a dense fog and Mira isn’t making sense.
The same question tumbles out of her mouth before she can think it through.
“Why?”
Mira’s face contorts into an expression of excruciating pain. Zoey’s never seen her look like that even when she gets slashed in battle.
Zoey is tugged into a tight hug again.
“Zoey– Zo… Zoey– no, no no nonononono, please don’t hurt yourself, please don’t, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease– it’s not good, it’s not safe– I can’t– I can’t lose you. You have to understand, I can’t lose you– I won’t lose you Zo~”
Zoey’s brain shuts off. Too much thinking. Zoey has always gotten exhausted when there’s too much going on that she doesn’t understand. She just slumps into Mira as she keeps babbling and sobbing next to her ear.
By the time Rumi comes out of her room it’s almost noon. She’d always been a late sleeper.
She can tell something’s off immediately. The normal residual smell of breakfast wafting through the kitchen was strangely absent. Did nobody cook breakfast? That’s odd. Somebody always cooked breakfast.
“Zoey? Mira?” Rumi calls into the empty space.
Rumi speed-walks into the living room. The chances of something bad having happened while she was asleep were low, but certainly not zero.
Her panic is quelled for only a minute as she sees Mira on the couch.
And then it returns when she sees Mira’s face, stained red with tear tracks, eyes puffy, her whole body shaking like a leaf in autumn.
Rumi rushes over and embraces her.
“Mira, what happened? Was it– was it demons? Or no– did we lose that sponsorship? I told you we don’t need that kind of shit it’s fine–”
Mira cut Rumi’s anxious ramble off. “No! No, it’s– Rumi, it’s Zoey, she’s– she…” A broken sob tore out of her throat and she was crying all over again.
Rumi’s heart sunk into her feet.
“What happened to Zoey? Where is she?” Rumi stood up, looking around the living room as if Zoey’d just be hiding somewhere. Rumi was about to jump in the elevator and search every damn crevice in the city when she felt Mira’s arm on her sleeve.
“No, Rumi, she's OK, she’s in her room. I– I think she’s asleep.”
Rumi let out a sigh of relief, but the relief didn’t last long, because something happened to Zoey.
“What happened?”
Mira chokes back another sob. “She– I– I woke up and she was making breakfast and she– she had a tank top on, and– and her arms Rumi, her arms were covered in scars. There were so many, Rumi.”
Rumi freezes, completely stunned at what she’s hearing. There’s no way Mira’s saying what she thinks she’s saying.
“Scars like… like… Zoey’s… hurting herself?”
Please don’t let it be true, please god don’t let it be true.
Mira nods infinitesimally before crushing Rumi in a hug that Rumi quickly reciprocates.
Rumi’s breathing picks up. She feels the tears stinging the back of her eyes.
“And the worst thing is, she didn’t even seem like she understood what she was doing was bad, that it’s harmful. She just held her arms out for me to touch like it was nothing!” Mira’s voice is muffled by Rumi’s hoodie.
“And– and I told her that she should tell us when she feels the urge to– to cut herself.” Mira’s voice cracks on the word ‘cut.’
“And she asked me ‘why.’ So– so I told her I didn’t want her to hurt herself, and she asked ‘why’ again, and– and– Rumi, Rumi I’m so scared!” Mira wails.
Rumi bites back the tears threatening to leave her eyes. She has to be strong for her girls.
“OK, OK, we can talk to her. We’ll wait in her bed with her, and we can talk with her. We won’t interrogate her, we won’t force her to tell us anything, we just… ask questions.” Rumi rationalizes in her head that if Zoey doesn’t seem to realize what she’s doing is bad for her, she probably won’t care to tell them the details.
Mira nods against Rumi’s chest. “OK. Yeah OK.” Her voice still trembling.
Rumi pulls Mira away from her and takes a deep, exaggerated breath, signalling for Mira to copy her.
They do some deep breathing for a bit until they feel a bit more in control of their emotions.
“OK. Ready?” Rumi asks.
Mira just nods and starts walking towards Zoey’s bedroom door, Rumi not far behind.
Zoey looks like she’s asleep. She’s still wearing her tank top, her body sprawled on top of her covers, her arms bare, her collection of scars marring her skin for anybody to see.
When Mira and Rumi walked in, they thought Zoey was asleep, but when they slowly made their way around the bed, they saw that Zoey’s eyes were open. Her eyes looked vacant and cold, and it nearly made both of the girls jump when they noticed.
Zoey didn’t react at all to her girls’ presence, so Mira and Rumi took this as an opportunity to sit down and cuddle close to their girlfriend.
Instead of jumping right into the questions, Rumi took Zoey’s arm carefully.
Zoey didn’t move.
Rumi took her arm and brought it closer to her, inspecting it. She let out a nearly inaudible gasp at the sight before her. There were so many scars. Some were small, nothing more than pinpricks, but most were long, stretching across the length of her wrist or forearm, and travelling all the way up her shoulder, eventually disappearing under the strap of her tank top.
Rumi bit her fist to keep from sobbing at the sight of her sweet, darling girl in so much pain that she felt the need to harm herself like this.
Eventually Rumi steeled herself and placed Zoey’s arm back where it had been against her own chest.
“Zoey?” She whispered.
Zoey’s eyes showed faint recognition. Good, she was at least cognizant of their presence.
Rumi peered over Zoey to make eye contact with Mira who was tightly embracing Zoey from behind, looking so deeply pained.
Rumi just nods at her, and Mira nods back, giving permission for Rumi to start.
“Uh, Zoey?” Rumi asks again.
Zoey lets out a small “hmm?” at the question.
“Um… I… can you maybe answer some questions for us? Because… this is… I’m confused, and– and scared, and I know Mira is too, but we just want to understand, OK? Can we do that?”
Zoey’s eyes flick up to meet Rumi’s, and paradoxically, she even gives a smile.
“Yeah, sure.”
Rumi swallows the lump in her throat at her behaviour that just doesn’t match what she’s seeing on her girlfriend’s arms.
“OK, uh… when did all… this start?” Rumi starts easy.
Zoey’s eyes fill with thought.
“Uh, I think I was thirteen.”
Rumi hears Mira gasp from behind Zoey.
Rumi swallows again, trying so hard to keep her voice steady.
“OK, OK that’s… uh, why did you start doing this?”
Zoey answers immediately.
“Well, if I’m feeling bad then I cut myself and the bad feeling goes away. If I’m feeling good then I cut myself ‘cuz it sort of… amplifies the good feeling I guess. It’s sort of an adrenaline rush.”
The way Zoey talks about hurting herself so candidly and matter of fact makes Rumi feel nauseous. Mira was right, she clearly had no understanding of how harmful it really was.
Rumi realizes those were really the only questions she had primed, so she looks over at Mira, silently telling her to ask whatever questions she has.
Mira nods and lifts her head a bit so Zoey can hear. “Zoey, you know this isn’t good for you right?”
Rumi sees Zoey’s face drop instantly.
“No. No, I don’t.” She says coldly.
Rumi feels her whole body go numb. How? How could she have missed this. How could she have missed one of the loves of her life hurting this badly?
But Zoey isn’t done. “None of the websites say why it’s wrong. I’m always safe, I know how much I can take. I know how to clean them. I always use a sterilized blade, I’m not in any danger.”
Zoey’s speech is so robotic it almost sounds like she’s rehearsed this.
Rumi is overwhelmed, and by the looks of it so is Mira. Neither of them know how to make Zoey understand how they see all of this.
And maybe that’s the problem. Clearly Zoey doesn’t like that they’re telling her how she should feel. Fuck, Rumi should know that. On the few occasions Rumi’s been around when Zoey has a meltdown, it’s often from them telling her how she should think or feel about something, or assuming she knows something she doesn’t.
That’s exactly what they’re doing right now.
Fuck, OK, new plan.
“Zoey, I have an idea.” Rumi says.
Zoey’s eyes flick to her again.
“Let’s find a therapist. We’ll get one that’s right for you. There’s a lot of… perspectives about this, and I won’t tell you that yours isn’t valid. But… maybe it’d help you to have another perspective? Not just about the… the… cutting, but about everything.” Rumi hopes to god she treaded that lightly enough.
Zoey looks downwards, thoughtful. Then she shrugs.
“I dunno.”
Not a ‘no,’ but not a ‘yes’ either.
Rumi looks over at Mira again and she looks anxious, like she might cry again. Rumi gives her a little nod to say whatever she’s thinking about.
“Zoey, do you… do you ever want to… die?”
There’s a palpable silence. Whatever answer Zoey gives will change how both Rumi and Mira deal with this going forward.
Zoey speaks after what feels like an eternity of silence:
“I’ve thought about it.”
Mira audibly chokes on another sob, burying her face in Zoey’s back and squeezing her tight.
“OK, OK, well… I don’t want you to die, Zoey. I need you in my life.” Rumi says, this time failing to keep her voice steady.
Zoey looks at Rumi but doesn’t say anything.
“Can we try some therapy, please? It’ll help to talk about it, I promise. We can even be there with you. Whatever you want.” Rumi pleads.
Zoey’s eyes suddenly go half lidded, and she yawns.
“Mm… OK.” Zoey agrees, her voice quiet. “I’ll try it.”
Rumi feels the relief rush through her. “OK, OK. Thank you, thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou. Oh fuck, oh god holy shit holy fuck.”
Mira squeezes Zoey even tighter, and Rumi can hear her chanting under her breath. “–I love you, I love you, I love you so much baby I love you so much–”
Despite it being early afternoon, Rumi feels so dead tired. She feels it in her bones.
Slowly, with the weight of her girlfriend in her arms, she drifts off to sleep.
Mira and Rumi will do anything to keep their darling safe. No matter what.