There's usually a time in your life where it's falling apart. Maybe you were Queen B, commanding someone in the movies and some new girl takes your place. Maybe you're an adult and your finances are running out. Maybe you don't have enough money for retirement.

For Crystal, it was every day.

Today was no different.

She was sitting in her favorite class, writing, when a note was tossed at her head. She sighed and picked it up.

Bitches die. See ya in hell.

She fought the urge to gasp. It wasn't new, and it certainly wasn't original, but it still hurt.

She turned around, knowing Mr. Metric would be busy. Jackie, the "Queen B" of the school, was grinning, obviously proud of herself.

Crystal knew not to cry. To not show a reaction. Or, not an obvious one, anyway.

This was why she carried that knife. Hopefully, it was sterilized.

As Mr. Metric sat in his chair and read, and the other students wrote, Crystal made a swift cut. She made sure it didn't bleed too much as she applied a bandaid from the pocket of her jeans. The blood flowed down her arm, and she swore no matter how often she watched it, it would never get old.

She made another. This one was accidentally deeper, but she relished the pain. It helped her focus. It highlighted her senses, made it easier to concentrate.

But she didn't care about some dumb lesson.

She grabbed some tissues and wiped up the blood before it dried, though she regretted it.

After four she knew she had to stop before people saw. So she wiped up the remaining blood, bandaged her wounds, put it all into the dark blue backpack hung on her chair, and asked to be excused to the bathroom. Jackie snickered about something behind her, and Crystal just knew it was about her.

When she arrived in the tile-coated bathroom, she couldn't help the few tears that escaped her eyes. She tried so hard to be perfect for everyone, to fit in, but she couldn't. No one liked her, save Luke, who followed her around like a lost puppy. Honestly, it was more annoying than cute.

She sighed as she wiped at her eyes. Over the years, she had gotten good at hiding the tears. No one cared about them, so why should she?

She flipped her blonde hair behind her shoulders, a sigh flowing out of her lips as she realized the sleeves of her black turtleneck were wet from blood. Thankfully, it wasn't stained red, so it would be easy to deny. She grabbed the knife from her back pocket and held it under the sink, watching as the blood disappeared down the drain. Then she cleaned the handle, and her own hands and put it back in her pocket.

She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm her racing heart. She could feel the burn of tears behind her eyes and forced them to stay there. She had already spent too much time there, but she doubted the teacher would send anyone to check on her. No one noticed when she was gone until the bell rang. She could walk in halfway through the lesson and the teacher wouldn't notice.

Some people thought it was a blessing. It was, sometimes. It kept the foster care people off her back. But it didn't help her depression that even teachers didn't notice her.

Sometimes she wondered. If she did something big, would people notice? Would they start to respect her, notice her?

She doubted it.

"You know, you shouldn't do that."

Crystal turned around in surprise and fear. She looked down to avoid eye contact and swore under her breath when she saw the stain of her own blood on her hands.

"Why do you care?"

Luke glanced at her, a sad smile in place. "I'm pretty sure you know why."

He stepped closer to her and put a hand under her chin. He lifted both up, forcing her head to be level with his. One thing Crystal had always loved about him was that they were the same height, so he didn't have power over her. She could always rip herself out of his grip. Yet she never did.

She couldn't meet his eyes, never could, so she found her blue eyes straying to the tiled walls. One thing she used to do in Kindergarten was she would look for patterns, look for proof it wasn't completely random. She would make shapes, like squares, out of different colors.

"Crystal, please look at me," Luke murmured. Crystal didn't listen, instead choosing to find a triangle made of blue and pink tiles.

"If you won't look, will you at least listen?"

Crystal didn't answer, hoping that would be enough of an answer. She wanted to tell him to go away, that she was dangerous, but he was the one person she couldn't push away. He would always come back.

"Hurting yourself isn't going to help anything. Why would you? Why would you want to feel extra pain?"

She couldn't hold them in anymore. She tore her eyes from the walls and looked him in the eyes. When she saw the emotion that lay there, she broke. She sobbed like a child into his arms, but she couldn't bring herself to be ashamed. Not at that moment. Not when everything was against her, and she finally had something on her side.

Then she opened her eyes.

She wiped at her eyes, which even in sleep had been wet. She lay there for a moment, just thinking. Crystal wished she could confide in Luke, but who's to say he wasn't playing her? That he wouldn't be the same as the others?

She wiped at her eyes again before her eyes strayed to the knife on her bedstand. She couldn't remember why it was there, but now that she had seen it, she couldn't get the urge out of her head.

So she sat up, adjusting her bra as she did so. She wasn't wearing a shirt, but she couldn't risk one of the younger boys coming up in the middle of the night and seeing her naked, so she wore a bra and some booty shorts.

She yawned, disappointed but unsurprised that she hadn't lasted the night. She checked her alarm clock, which she hadn't set because she knew this would happen. It read 1 A.M.

She wasn't going to school today, so she wouldn't have to worry about feeling guilty when she saw Luke.

She felt her stomach rumble, but she ignored it, as usual. She couldn't give in, not now. She didn't want to throw up again.

She shrugged the thoughts off. She glanced at the knife again. Betty didn't know she had it, didn't need to know what she was doing, right?

She picked it up and ran her fingers along the sharp edge. She forced herself to not press harder. To not draw blood.

She glanced around. After making sure Betty wasn't nearby, she replaced her fingers with her wrist and pressed down. Blood bubbled up from the neat line. She forced herself not to make another, not so fast. She had to savor it.

She wiped her wrist against the bare skin of her stomach to wipe the red liquid away before forcing her wobbly legs to hold her. She walked over to the door of her private bathroom.

Because she was the oldest in the orphanage, she got the largest room. It was part of how she had gotten away with her "problem" for so long. She had only recently gotten it back.

She flinched at the reminder of the promise she had made Jacob, but she couldn't think about it now.

She grabbed some toilet paper and held it to her wrist. It was a shallow cut, so there wasn't much blood escaping, but she still fought the instinctive wince.

She looked out the window. It was early morning, but she didn't think it would still be this dark. The stars stood out against the completely dark sky, shining as though they were begging for someone to make a wish on them. She couldn't see much else and didn't see the point.

Suddenly, she heard a loud boom!

She jumped, used to the quiet. No one except her was ever up, so what was that?

She felt something hit her skin. It burned, and it hurt, and Crystal fought with everything in her not to scream. It burned especially against her wrist, and it was too much. She was on the ground, biting her tongue, silently begging the pain to go away.

When she had cut, when she had broken her promises, this was not what she had meant. She didn't want this excruciating pain flowing through her veins.

"Please," she whispered, her voice hoarse.

Then the blackness overwhelmed her.