[LJ Idol 10: Week 15] Patchwork Skin
[Warnings]
Warnings: self-harm mentioned, various accidental injuries, some rather serious
Katie will regret this later, screaming "FUCK!" at the top of her lungs in front of a cabin of eight year old kids she's supposed to be in charge of. Especially because some of the kids are clearly more shocked that "Miss Katie said the F word!" than they are that...fingers aren't supposed to bend that way.
"Miss Katie needs to go to the hospital," she manages through gritted teeth. "As soon as someone else can take over to watch you guys."
"You mean us GIRLS!" Olivia, the smallest and yet loudest of the campers, yelled.
"Yes. I mean you girls."
Somehow, she doesn't actually break down crying. Somehow, she doesn't swear again, especially not at them.
It's broken. She couldn't be as careful as she told them to be - she caught her toe on a tree root, was about to fall on her face and used her hand to break her fall, and. Well.
She hopes that once the emergency room splints it, they'll let her come back and stay with the kids. She doesn't want to lose something else important that way.
--
Trailing up that arm, there are other scars. One that looks like the sort you'd get from having slit your wrists but that no, really, was actually from one of the mostly-feral cats back "home" at her parents' place that Katie thinks of as her cats. She'd taken her chances a little too soon actually trying to pet Callie, and Callie didn't like it and let her know it. She was nine when that happened.
People accepted that story when she was nine. Not so much when she was sixteen.
She doesn't cut. Never did. She's done a lot of things but that's never been one of them.
--
There's the weird network of diagonal scars that she doesn't talk about. That she kept sealed for years like they sealed her "record" as a juvenile delinquent.
She wanted to talk. Wanted to scream as she asked them why she would have done that to herself if her objective had actually been to cause serious harm to her opponent. Sure, a few discolored patches of skin were nothing compared to a lasting brain injury and she never would have claimed otherwise. But the first and only time she had tried to offer the marks on her skin as a defense, that had been the response. She never tried again.
She can't help seeing them, when she's training in the off-season, when she's getting ready for a game back at U Conn. She uses them to remind herself to be careful out there, to be mindful.
Maybe if it had been a warmer day at camp, if she hadn't been wearing the windbreaker that covered her arms, she might have seen her own scars and been more careful.
--
She doesn't say anything about that to Melissa, when they talk as one of the camp kitchen staff drives her to the emergency room. She tries to laugh about adding another scar to the crazy-quilt mess that is her arm, wonders if she should get a tattoo, asks Melissa what it should be.
"Coach doesn't want tattoos on the team, though, not ones you can see in uniform," Melissa reminds her.
She sighs. "I just - my arm is such a mess. And now it's going to be worse. Maybe I should put the patchwork girl from Oz there, that's what I feel like with all this mess."
Melissa says something sweet about how if Katie's arm is patchwork, it's a warm quilt that Melissa would rather be under right now.
Katie misses her so much. So much. They're both counting the weeks until school starts again.
Warnings: self-harm mentioned, various accidental injuries, some rather serious
Katie will regret this later, screaming "FUCK!" at the top of her lungs in front of a cabin of eight year old kids she's supposed to be in charge of. Especially because some of the kids are clearly more shocked that "Miss Katie said the F word!" than they are that...fingers aren't supposed to bend that way.
"Miss Katie needs to go to the hospital," she manages through gritted teeth. "As soon as someone else can take over to watch you guys."
"You mean us GIRLS!" Olivia, the smallest and yet loudest of the campers, yelled.
"Yes. I mean you girls."
Somehow, she doesn't actually break down crying. Somehow, she doesn't swear again, especially not at them.
It's broken. She couldn't be as careful as she told them to be - she caught her toe on a tree root, was about to fall on her face and used her hand to break her fall, and. Well.
She hopes that once the emergency room splints it, they'll let her come back and stay with the kids. She doesn't want to lose something else important that way.
--
Trailing up that arm, there are other scars. One that looks like the sort you'd get from having slit your wrists but that no, really, was actually from one of the mostly-feral cats back "home" at her parents' place that Katie thinks of as her cats. She'd taken her chances a little too soon actually trying to pet Callie, and Callie didn't like it and let her know it. She was nine when that happened.
People accepted that story when she was nine. Not so much when she was sixteen.
She doesn't cut. Never did. She's done a lot of things but that's never been one of them.
--
There's the weird network of diagonal scars that she doesn't talk about. That she kept sealed for years like they sealed her "record" as a juvenile delinquent.
She wanted to talk. Wanted to scream as she asked them why she would have done that to herself if her objective had actually been to cause serious harm to her opponent. Sure, a few discolored patches of skin were nothing compared to a lasting brain injury and she never would have claimed otherwise. But the first and only time she had tried to offer the marks on her skin as a defense, that had been the response. She never tried again.
She can't help seeing them, when she's training in the off-season, when she's getting ready for a game back at U Conn. She uses them to remind herself to be careful out there, to be mindful.
Maybe if it had been a warmer day at camp, if she hadn't been wearing the windbreaker that covered her arms, she might have seen her own scars and been more careful.
--
She doesn't say anything about that to Melissa, when they talk as one of the camp kitchen staff drives her to the emergency room. She tries to laugh about adding another scar to the crazy-quilt mess that is her arm, wonders if she should get a tattoo, asks Melissa what it should be.
"Coach doesn't want tattoos on the team, though, not ones you can see in uniform," Melissa reminds her.
She sighs. "I just - my arm is such a mess. And now it's going to be worse. Maybe I should put the patchwork girl from Oz there, that's what I feel like with all this mess."
Melissa says something sweet about how if Katie's arm is patchwork, it's a warm quilt that Melissa would rather be under right now.
Katie misses her so much. So much. They're both counting the weeks until school starts again.