Authors Note

Just a quick note to say thank you to all the people who's been reading, voting, adding my book to their reading lists. I give shoutouts here and there but I've dried up but I haven't stopped noticing this book. Thank you for reading NSTWB, thank you for 300 reads!
Matric has been hard, people have been hard and I almost didn't want to update but this is my therapy. So enjoy.

My fingers were my eyes. Rock hard, ridges, multiple of them, ran up her wrist. I still couldn't see them but I had a feeling that they were a crimson and long.

My eyes met hers. They were shattered. She was afraid. Afraid of my reaction, afraid of if the news got out or maybe, just maybe, she was afraid that one day she'd cut too deep.

She was cutting herself.

She nodded. I must have been asking a question because her answer was yes. My other hand gripped her sleeve and pulled it quickly up. No sense drawing out this already traumatizing experience.

I still, to this day, admire people who show off their scars. I didn't know Adeline's story, just that it was a horrific one, yet she still had the courage, the strength to show me what she was doing to herself. She still had the nerve to trust someone like me, someone who thought he knew pain, who thought that he destroyed lives.

Now though, I thought of whoever had caused her this pain and hated them.

I wasn't an idiot. This was the world. People died, people fought, people suffer but people laugh, people live. Someone had stolen the latter from her.

She was struggling. She was alone. She was broken. She was strong. She was brave. She was trusting. She was beautiful. She was a beautiful, strong, woman.

A drop fell on the cuts as I brought them to my lips. Her fingers wiped away my tears.