Sleeves of war.

I finally found the coffee shop we arranged to meet at. He was already waiting, (despite me being five minutes early) reading a paperback. Sipping a milkshake. Which was a contrast to his appearance. He seemed like the coffee type, all edges and sharp lines.

 Dressed in all black, an unkempt afro on his head.He certainly didn't look like a Steve. A perfect candidate for my first blog interview. I go over, shake his hand and give a not so subtle look at the lines of scars showing from the end of his short sleeve shirt all the way to his wrists.

He sees me looking and smiles and I inwardly curse my detective skills. I might as well get all the stupid questions out.

"Do they hurt? What did you use? Can I touch them? "

I wouldn't be surprised if he replied with "what do you think?"

Instead, he laughs, the way I'd imagine a lumberjack laughing, sounding like an avalanche.

" You just get right into it don't you? At least put your bag down yeah?"

We banter back and forth for a while and after my drink comes, he tells me his story.

"I d started cutting because I wanted to feel something. No big incident happened that sent me there. It was actually a lot of little things."

When I ask what little things, he sips his milkshake,not answering for a while.

"Well, I moved schools, left all my friends and couldn't make new ones at the school I joined. I thought they were all different from me. A bit after that,  my parents split up. Then they both threw themselves into their work.

I started to feel like a ghost at home and at school. My dad especially, hardly listen to me, we would be in the same room but for all the attention he paid me, I could have been the wallpaper.

I think the most underlying thing I felt that whole time was loneliness. I was so lost in that black hole. One day I couldn't take it.
 I punched a wall till my knuckles bruised. And it wasn't enough. I felt like hurting myself with my bare hands. I wanted to feel something other than that loneliness. I thought If I felt enough pain, something in my mind would click and I would figure out why I don't have even one close friend.

 So I  scratched my legs hard enough to draw blood but my nails weren't long enough to do much damage. So I took a scalpel I used for art and took it to my upper thigh."

He pauses to order another milkshake. Leaving his words reeling in my mind. The imagery replaying on my mind. When he asks if I want anything else I looks at my mostly untouched (and by now) cold coffee and shake my head. I've been holding it to my mouth and putting it down just to have something to do with my hands.

He continues
" I made a long deep cut, and felt an instant wave of relief. I realised that I cut too deep, and as if to rectify my mistake I cut again a bit below that and felt even better. Satisfaction is the best way I can describe the feeling after cutting myself.

The morning after, I was nervous. I felt like everyone would know what I did and I'd be the school freak. I put four elastoplasts on my two cuts and shoved the band-aid wrappers deep in the dustbin so Mum wouldn't see and ask.

As my mum was driving me to school I thought she would notice, she would somehow smell the cuts on my legs. And I didn't know how she would react. I thought the band aids showed through the trousers.

She didn't notice,  nobody did. And after a few days, I tried it again. On my other leg, for symmetry. Somehow, in my mind I thought symmetry was important." He laughs again, his lumberjack, avalanche laugh. Only this time it's tinged with sadness.

"I won't go into detail about the other cutting situations, they're too many. I moved to cutting my arms a few months in. Firstly I'd do it close to my shoulders, then lower and lower hoping that someone would see my cry for help. See through the long sleeves I kept wearing.

Eventually, I graduated. And in university I got a friend, Anna. She was outgoing, upfront and accommodating of everyone. She was my sanctuary. You sort of remind me of her."

I laugh and say I have a familiar face.

He smiles and moves on with his story.

"She was like the sun, you couldn't ignore her, and you couldn't change her mind either. She decided we were best friends and no matter what I did, I couldn't shake her.

I stopped cutting a bit after my third year. I don't know why I kept cutting until then, because I  wasn't as lonely in University. Infact there, it was hard to do anything alone. I had had a few girlfriendsby then, and a few more friends aside from Anna.

Maybe I kept at it out of habit. Plus cutting was my stress reliever. It was my constant friend. I also didn't have a specific moment when I realized I wanted to stop. I just did, around the time Anna saw my scars.

She'd seen them before, but it was the first time she saw most of them and addressed them. I remember her exact words and somehow, they made me feel seen more than anyone else ever had.

She called them my sleeves of war.
And just when I thought I was done with that battle... I had graduated almost top of my class, I was about to ask this girl I liked to start dating. I was doing okay. Then... Anna died. On the night after our graduation. Her whole life before her..."

 He Pauses, slyly trying to catch his tears and I busy myself with my cold coffee pretending not to see.

"I'm sorry," he says,standing up abruptly then sitting down again.
"I can't continue," he says, his eyes red from holding back tears.

I'm about to tell him he doesn't have to continue when he changes his mind and goes on.

" On the day of her funeral I sat by her mom. Anna was an only child and her mum asked me to sit and hold her hand. She didn't have family. Well,  not much of one. But her mom always called me the son she never had.

After laying her to rest, we went to her house. I snuck up to Anna's room, the only room with pink walls. I remembered her complaining about it when I first visited her house.

I saw a razor on her desk and picked it up. I sat on her bed and cried, trying to stop myself from remembering her, from wanting to cut myself.

It was the last time I did it, to date. And it was the worst. I cut myself so badly, I thought I was going to kill myself if I continued, but that thought didn't stop me. I wasn't stopping, until, Anna's mum found me in the middle of it. My bloody meltdown.

I don't know why she didn't scream or shout. I'm sure it was a scary sight for her. She took the razor and hugged me. Giving me a hug only mothers know to do. I cried like a baby. She cried too. But more silently than me. With more dignity." He laughs again, a small laugh, less avalanche-like.

" She looked at me, hands on my cheeks and said, 'I won't lose you too.' Those were the five hardest words I ever had to hear."

He swallows, and I realise he actually won't continue this time.

I stand when he does, and I give him a hug, feeling like we're not strangers anymore.

"I'll see you around Steve" I say as he walks out of the coffee shop. I sit back down facing his unfinished milkshake.