She looks around and all she can see are faces. Familiar and not so familiar. Smiling faces, happy faces, and not-a-care-in-the-world faces. She is wearing one of those faces now. She sits down with her friends and hurriedly covers her knees with her skirt - no-one notices. They talk, they eat, and they share their problems. Not her. She listens. Why would she tell them her problems? She's old enough to deal with them in her own way.

Emotional problems come and go, but the constant reminders will stay with her forever. Her hands and knees are the main places for eyes to wander, regretfully after meeting her flashing eyes. How dare they pry into her problems! This is her body and she will do to it what she pleases.

She started cutting in junior high. She doesn't remember why she reached for the razor the first time, she guesses because it was there. She was in too much pain, and didn't know what to do about it. So she cut. To see blood was reassuring, to think she was getting what she deserved. She was numb. She couldn't feel any of the pain she was experiencing, so she cut in hopes that she would. It got to be an impulse. Got in an argument with her mum or boyfriend, had a bad day at school, just reached for the razors. She doesn't think. She just cuts. And she doesn't feel, as desperately as she wants to. All she usually feels is ashamed afterwards.

She could have started drinking, or done drugs or even smoked, but there was such a stigma attached to that. And she still had to be the perfect kid. A perfect kid like her couldn't get mixed up in that. So she cut instead, because she could still escape and no one would know. Her own private idaho.

She just loves the feeling. When she's feeling down, she knows how to relieve the pain - with pain. Just a tiny nick and her sorrows are gone. A feeling of calm - and shame. People are totally oblivious to the problem. It's not that they don't care - they just don't know.

Why does she cut, scratch, pick and burn? Because she has to. She has to see the blood. She has to see the red nail marks. She has to feel the pull of her clotting skin. And she has to feel the cold water running over her burning body.

Glass, pins, razors, knives and lighters all serve an important purpose in leading her double life. And she's not the only one. As she stares across the playground, she meets his deep blue eyes, looking away quickly. They each know the secret of each other's past, present and reluctant future. They don't want to die. They're not crazy. It's just their way of dealing with life, day by day.