Can you remember how it started?

You say it's up to me to do the talking. You slowly lean forward with a box of tissues in front of me and your expensive leather chair groans like a living thing. Like the living thing it was before you took it's life away for your expensive office.

"Can you remember how it started?" you say.

I remember exactly.

It was the last cross country meet, right around the four mile mark. Everybody had passed me, just like the week before, and the week before that. Everybody expect for the girl on the other time. We were the only ones left in the race, our shadows passed along the ground slantwise; slowly they merged, then her shadow passed mine.

Her soles of her sneakers swan up and down in front of me, my steps fell in time with hers. My feet went where her feet had just been. She leaned in around the corner, I leaned in around the corner. She breathed, I breathed.

Then she was gone.

I couldn't picture her anymore. But what disappointed me was that I was last again. I've been last in every meet, every year.

On the bus ride back I couldn't help but feel defeated. The feeling of failure, the feeling of being always being last.As I get to my house I opened the door, "I'm home." I said to no one. My parents were never around. The room tilted right then lift, then straighten out. I grabbed hold of the dining table and tried to remember when the last time we actually ate as a family.

On the table there was play boy magazine. Next to the magazine was a special craft knife with the word EXACTO on the handle. It was sleek like an expensive fountain pen, with a triangular blade at the tip. I picked it up and laid the blade against the doily. The triangular blade slowly came up. Then I placed the blade next to the skin of my palm.

A tingle ran across my scalp. The floor tipped at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down wondering what would happen next. What happened next was a perfect, single line of blood bloomed from under the edge of the blade. The line grew into a long, fat bubble, a lush crimson bubble that slowly got bigger and bigger. I watched from above wondering how big it would get into it burst. When it did, I felt awesome. Satisfied, finally. Then exhausted.

I don't tell you any of this though, you didn't have the right to know. I didn't say anything, I just hugged my elbows to my sides. As we quietly stared at each other for our session.

And you finally sigh and stand up and say "That's all we have time for today."