Where I End and You Begin by Andra Brynn Read Free Book Online Page B

Debbie, or of Dr. Ryland, or Dr. Sanford, or Dr. Mitch, who went by his first name, or that therapist that was crazier than me, who offered to help me with hypnotherapy and thought that Hillary Clinton decorated the White House Christmas tree with Satanic symbols.
    I can’t. I can’t let someone poke around inside my brain, ripping away the scabs, opening my old wounds in new ways. It’ll just make me crazier.
    I burst through the doors of the Student Health Center and I’m shocked that it isn’t dark outside, that it isn’t raining. If I could change the weather with my moods, it would be the middle of the night, and I’d be running, running, running through the woods, away, away.
    I’m going to fail out of school.
    My breathing hasn’t slowed down. In fact, it picks up. Faster and faster.
    I’m overdosing on oxygen. I’m overloaded, everything on high alert, and there’s only two choices: I can pass out, or I can use it to run.
    I choose to run, just like I always have.
    The world speeds by me. Everything is a blur. My throat hurts. My backpack bounces against my spine, so heavy, but I am insubstantial. I will run until the end of the world, I will fly off the face of the earth, the wind will pick me up and whip me away—
    “Hey!”
    I almost don’t hear the sound of someone trying to catch my attention, I’m so wrapped up, but when I do realize someone is trying to get my attention I force myself to slow down. My breathing is almost under control.
    Do I look normal again? If I keep running, I won’t look normal.
    I stop and turn.
    It’s...someone. A guy. I slept with him earlier this year at a frat party. He was bad at fucking, but good at head, and he has a tongue piercing. But I can’t remember his name.
    I want to fall down and smash my head on the concrete, but I don’t. That would make me seem weird.
    He jogs up to me, barely out of breath. “Hey, girl! How are you doing?”
    “Hey,” I say, giving him a big smile so he won’t know that I don’t remember his name, or never knew it in the first place. My heart is still fluttering in my chest, the blood in my throat pounding against my skin. If he looks closely, he’ll see it. He’ll see I’m in trouble. He’ll see I need help. Help me, I think at him.
    But he’s checking me out. “You’re looking good,” he says.
    I don’t look good. He wants an easy lay.
    “Thanks,” I tell him. “What’s up?”
    “I was just about to go out with some friends to get an early start on Friday drinking. You want to come with?”
    His eyes are eager, his thoughts soft and dirty, but his body is warm and I’m cold and he’s going to feed me alcohol until I don’t feel anything any more.
    “Yes,” I say. “Yes. Let’s go.”

.0.
    I read a story about a ghost, once. Not a ghost story , but a little snippet about a ghost, a long time ago. I remember the picture that went with it, too. The story goes that at some castle in England there’s a female ghost who runs across the courtyard at the same time each day. She always moans in pain, her mouth open and gaping, blood gushing from it. Her tongue has been ripped out.
    The illustration of her was awful. Blood running down her chin, her eyes wide and terrified. Her dress was crimson, too, and her hair flew across her face as she ran.
    I remember thinking, and this was back when I was little and thought everything was possible—I remember thinking, Just stop and breathe and write out what you need to say. Tell someone who did this to you.
    Now that I have known terror, I know that it swallows you whole. Terror throws your soul out into the void, and it comes back as an animal. Everything is focused on the pain and fear. And what would a ghost write with, anyway?
    They always want help, but they are trapped, locked into an inevitable fate, unable to arrest their fall long enough to scream.

.6.
    T equila burns down my throat, and a roar goes up from the table. I slam my shot glass down on the scarred