Cut by Cathy Glass

Author:Cathy Glass
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780007287154
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2008-07-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Family

The following morning I woke Dawn at 7.15 a.m., and told her it was time to get up for school. She opened her eyes and looked at me, surprised, perhaps thinking that after what she had told about her friendship problems she wouldn’t be going to school today. But I thought there was nothing to be gained by putting it off – we needed to deal with the problem, and of course I intended to help.

‘I’ll take you to school in the car,’ I said. ‘And I’ll speak to your Head of Year.’

‘No, it’s OK,’ Dawn said, hauling herself upright. ‘I’ll go by myself. I’ll be fine, really.’

‘I think it’s better if I come with you on your first day back. It’s bound to be a bit strange seeing everyone again, particularly as the police have been in.’ Indeed I would have thought it would have been cripplingly embarrassing to face her class for the first time, but apparently it was not so to Dawn.

‘Couldn’t you phone instead?’ she asked. ‘I will go to school, I promise.’

I looked at her carefully. ‘Why don’t you want me to come in with you, Dawn?’

‘I don’t want a fuss.’

I couldn’t see how my having a quiet word with Jane Matthews could be construed as ‘a fuss’, but aware that Dawn needed to know that I trusted her, I agreed to phone instead of taking her, and left her to get dressed.

When she came down to breakfast I asked her how her leg was and if she wanted me to check that it was healing properly. I was concerned that it must have been quite a large cut to produce the amount of blood that had been on her pillow and, although the previous evening Dawn had said that it was healing, I would have felt happier having a look to make sure.

‘It’s fine,’ Dawn said, and began eating her toast. Clearly she wasn’t going to show me, and I thought that the scar on her leg, like the ones on her arm, were private to her. She wore black tights under her skirt, and her school blouse and jumper were long-sleeved. I wondered if, when the summer came and it was hot, she would still keep her arms and legs covered. The book we had read said that self-harmers often kept themselves covered up even in hot weather.

‘Dawn?’ I asked hesitantly as she ate and coochi-cooed at Adrian in his high chair. ‘What did you use to cut yourself?’ I was anxious that whatever it was could still be with her or somewhere in the house. I had checked her school bag the night before when I had taken out her crumpled school uniform and put it in the laundry basket, but there was nothing else in there apart from her books, pencil case and sweet wrappers.

Dawn looked at me guiltily. ‘A razor blade,’ she said. ‘I took one of John’s from the bathroom cabinet. I’m sorry. I’ll buy him a new one.

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