Both her inner thighs were scarred from years of cutting and although each laceration was little more than a nick, the cumulative effect was a mess. The trouble was that in the early days, when Katie first discovered this release, she hadn't had the reserve and self-control she now possessed. She had cut with the abandon of the explorer so early gashes were real gashes. These longer scars were still visible over twenty years later and Katie avoided cutting across them because it made her wince. Whether it really hurt more, she didn’t know. There was a numbness in these old scars that meant her skin had lost its sense of touch (wasn’t that the point?), but it hurt her inside, in her tummy it seemed, and only on really bad days would she deliberately open old sores. But most days, and this was one of those days, just a little nick of a reminder would do. First though, her bath – this was Katie’s luxury, her indulgence and her peace. Katie set her alarm for six-thirty in the morning.
