Free Cut by Patricia McCormick

school report?” I say.
    You open the file. “A Miss Magee,”you say. “The school nurse.”
    “She was a sub.”
    “Oh.”
    Sun pours in through the window again; the rhomboid is now just a basic parallelogram.
    “She was the one who discovered that you were cutting your arms, wasn’t she?”
    “She called me sweetie,” I say. Immediately I wish I hadn’t said this.
    “Sweetie?”
    “Never mind.”
    I look for the rabbit crack on the ceiling, but I can’t quite find it.
    “She wore socks and sandals,” I say.
    “What else do you remember?”
    “She said her regular job was at a drug rehab. She said, ‘We let it all hang out there.’She was sort of a hippie.”
    You wait to see if I’ll say more.
    “I used to get these stomach aches. The regular nurse always sent me back to class.”
    “And this substitute nurse? This Miss Magee?”
    “She said, ‘Is something bothering you, sweetie?’”
    You smile ever so slightly.
    “I just kept staring at the eye chart behind her after that. I can still remember the first line: E F S P D.”
    You smile a little more.
    “She made me sit on the examining table. She felt my forehead. She took my pulse. Then she dropped my arm and said, ‘Oh wow.’ She said she’d be right back. I lay down on the table and the next thing I remember, she was shaking my shoulder to wake me up. My mom was standing there, pressing a tissue to her lips.”
    I check to see if you are pleased with all these words. You look concerned.
    “You know what?” I say. “I’ve thought about her a lot since I’ve been here.”
    You tilt your head.
    “About … what’s her name?” I say. “The substitute nurse.”
    “Shelly Magee.”
    “Yeah. I’ve thought about sending her a postcard.”
    You raise an eyebrow.
    “You know—‘Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.’”
    “Are you?”
    I don’t understand.
    “Are you having a wonderful time?”
    I pick a piece of fuzz off the couch, roll it between my fingers, flick it into the air.
    “Do you wish she was here?”
    “No.”
    “Callie, let me ask you something.” You sit forward in your dead-cow chair. “How exactly did Shelly Magee see your scars?”
    “She took my pulse.”
    “You didn’t try to stop her?”
    A sudden heat washes over me. I can feel my cheeks reddening, my throat getting tight. I pull my arms to my sides and sit very still.
    “I’m glad you didn’t try to stop her.” Your voice comes across the space between us, gentle but sure.
    I take in the sight of you in your leather chair, so calm, so normal, so pretty in your long green skirt.
    “You don’t think I’m crazy?” I laugh.
    You don’t laugh.
    “You don’t think I’m insane for doing this?” I hold up my arm, my sleeve pulled safely over my bandage.
    “No, Callie,” you say matter-of-factly “I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”
    I blink.
    “I think you’ve come up with a way to deal with feelings that you find overwhelming. Overwhelmingly bad, overwhelmingly frightening.”
    I sink back into the cushions on your couch. It occurs to me that I sit up perfectly straight the whole time I’m in here, that my back has never actually touched the back of the couch.
    “Really?” I say.
    “Really.”
    The clock says it’s time to go.
    “So, can you make me stop?” I say.
    “Make you? No. I can’t make you.”
    “Well, then, can you, you know, help?”
    You tap your lip. “Yes,”you say, “if you want to stop.” Then you stand up and say we’ll talk more tomorrow.
    I say OK, but what I really want to say is that I’m not sure I can stop.
    Everyone else must still be on the smoking porch because Claire’s the only one in the room when I get to Group. Her glasses are in her hands and she’s pinching the bridge of her nose; there are two red spots where her glasses usually sit. She looks up when she sees me at the door and smiles. I don’t exactly smile back, but I don’t not smile either. We sit there a while, me