Paint Me Beautiful

exist only in swirls of color, in flashes of red hair and tangled limbs. I see Claire falling again, hitting the ground, bleeding. And then the vision stops, and there's nothing but black. I open my eyes again and see that Emmett is talking and Marlena is talking, but I've gone deaf.
    I move past them both, put my fingers up to the yellow siding and open the purple front door.
    Down the hall I go and I step inside my room with this horrible numbness eating me alive. I felt anger on the porch, fear, sadness, disappointment, trepidation. Now, all I feel is numb, and even bad feelings are better than none at all.
    I turn around, close my bedroom door and lock it. Using the last bit of strength I have inside of myself, I push my dresser in front of it. I don't know what my parents or Marlena can do, if anything, but I'm not leaving this place without a fight. I need to think about how to deal with this, but I can't do it when I'm so fucking numb that my fingers and toes tingle and my chest shudders as I do my best to keep breathing.
    I sit down on the edge of my bed and remove my muddy boots, so that when I walk, I'm so light and so weightless that I feel like I'm floating, toes brushing the floor as I move right past the razor blade and grab that smiling picture of my mom, the one with the cracked glass. I remove the velvet backing, the cardboard, the photo itself, and then I set it all down on my desk with the frame.
    Dear Me, I want to look pretty when I die.
    I take the two pieces of glass in my hands and pull the sheet from my mirror. I set them down next to my makeup and start to paint myself beautiful. I put on some red lipstick, some green eye shadow, cover the bags under my eyes with foundation. And then I open the drawer next to me and pull out a pair of scissors. I take what's left of my blonde hair, wrap it around one hand and start to cut. I cut away the old me, let her fall to the floor in yellow wisps and leave only a short buzz of red-orange that burns my head like fire. I look the best I have in weeks.
    Not the way you knew me, but like a movie star who threw herself down stairwells and in front of cars.
    I never intended to die that day. What happens next is pure chance and circumstance, and no, I'm not crazy. It may seem that way to you, but only if you've never hurt so bad you can't breathe, felt so deep you can't think, fought so hard you can't move. Fate's hand is guiding me, and I'm pushing against it, trying to figure out who it is that I want to become.
    I pick up the glass again and head into the bathroom, closing the door and locking it behind me. White tiles surround me, reflect back the small bit of light that leaks in through the skylight as I find a comfortable spot next to the toilet, leaning my head against the wall to keep it steady. It feels so heavy that I can barely keep it upright anymore.
    I don't intend to kill myself when I put the glass to my skin and cut.
    Red, red ribbons drip delicately from wrists so small you can put your fingers around them.
    I don't feel anything when I make that first, horizontal slice. If I'd wanted to die, I would've cut vertically.
    And the blue tinge that taints my lips looks like frost on the branches of our favorite tree.
    Blood wells hot and sticky from my wound, slips down the sides of my pale arm and crashes to the white tiles, staining them red, red, red.
    Search and destroy me with your soft teeth, hard lips and gnaw away at me until you leave a gaping hole where pain nests and beauty screams.
    I wish I wasn't born this way. I had a good life, no reason to be sad. My pain defies logic, but then what emotions doesn't? Does hate make sense? Does love? I don't think so.
    All of this because you never loved me enough – could never love me enough because you wouldn't see how much that I loved you.
    I make another cut, trying desperately to find some emotion hidden inside of myself. More blood falls, soaks into the fabric of my dress and blends into the swirls of fabric.
    Down, down, down I was falling.
    A knock at my bedroom door. I don't know who it is. Emmett, I hope, but I don't get up. As soon as I feel something, I will. I'll get up and I'll go out there, and I'll tell them all the truth.
    Down and even deeper into me until I was down too deep to swim.
    I am anorexic.
    And I wished I had never left that bridge.
    I self-harm.
    And the water filled my lungs.
    I'm bulimic.
    And I stopped breathing.
    I'm depressed.
    And in that moment …
    In