Ingrid's skin was the smoothest texture, so pale that it was transparent. I could see the blue veins that ran down her arms, and they made her seem fragile somehow. the way Eric Daniels, my first boyfriend, seemed fragile when I laid my head on his chest and heart his heart beating and thought, Oh. People don't always remember about the blood and the heartbeat. But whenever I looked at Ingrid, I was reminded of the things that kept her alive.
Nina LaCourThe first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal smell.
I should have lifted Ingrid's shirt to show the cuts. Look, I would've said to the nurse at her little desk, eyeglasses perched on her pointed nose. Help her.
Instead, I reached my hand out and traced the words. The cuts were shallow, so the scabs only stood out a little bit. They were rough and brown. I knew that a lot of girls at our school cut themselves. They wore their long sleeves pulled down past their wrists and made slits for their thumbs so that the scars on their arms wouldn't show. I wanted to ask Ingrid if it hurt to do that to herself, but I felt stupid, like I must have been missing something, so what I said was, F*** you too, b****. Ingrid giggled, and I tried to ignore the feeling that something good between us was changing.
We felt so small with the city lights stretching forever below us, and we yelled at the top of our lungs because we were just these small humans but we felt more longing than could ever fit inside us.
Nina LaCourTag: life humans feeling-small
They say that's what happens when you fall in love. You want to tell people things. You especially want to tell them sad things. Hidden sad things from the past. Something like: I was abandoned at a sweetshop in an unspecified European country.
Nina LaCourTag: love
I don't know if any of this would have happened if we had been at home... Would we have crammed ourselves into the bathroom of a San Francisco restaurant to play her song? I doubt it. There's something about distance, being removed from what's familiar, that let's things happen.
Nina LaCourThen, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak- I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak- the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt... Then I look out to where there's this huge group of trees in the distance, and I count those for all the times I called her some name, or told her she was being stupid- because even though I was always joking, it might have hurt.
Nina LaCourDylan, in her skintight black jeans, safety-pinned shirt, and bulky armbands, with her hair sticking out in every direction and that black freshly smeared around her eyes, doesn't just smile, doesn't just walk toward Maddy and put her arms around her. No. Instead, every muscle in her whole body seems to lose all tension, her step forward resembles a skip, and she lets out a hey that might as well say, I love you, you are so beautiful, no one in the world is as amazing as you are.
Nina LaCourI'll be better, so I won't want it to hurt anymore.
Nina LaCourThat's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for each other. They see what parents don't.
Nina LaCourTag: friendship hold-still
I leaned over the sink, closer to my reflection, and stare at myself hard. I don't know what I see. I don't even know what I want to see.
Nina LaCourTag: reflection self-image mirror hold-still
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