Fifty thousand dollars. They'll spend it however you want, and all you need is a witness. You were going to do it anyway, weren't you?

Your neighborhood is drenched in sepia, and smothered in curling leaves. Your house looks just like every other house on the block, a generic cutout styled after the suburban dream. I check the address twice before I knock on the door.

You don't answer at first, so I rock on my heels and wait. It's warmer than it should be in November; I didn't need to bring a jacket. They say that global warming will kill us eventually, either through UV exposure or when the ice caps melt and we all drown. That doesn't matter much to either of us though. Right now it's just warm enough to wear tshirts.

I knock again. This time the door opens. You ask if I'm here to? I nod. I try to smile, you don't. You don't invite me in; you just drift back through the house. I follow you, closing the door and taking off my shoes as I do. Your pictures are on the walls. I wonder if your parents are proud of you. I wonder how well they know you.

You're in the kitchen, drinking wine from the bottle when I catch up to you. I don't ask if you're old enough to drink because you're already answering that. I know your age, but I don't object. You tell me that alcohol clears your mind. You're not drinking to take the edge off, you say, but rather to put the edge on.

You take the bottle with you as you trail away again. I follow, up the stairs, down the hall. Your room is across from your parents'. I don't ask where they are, but you volunteer that he's at work. There aren't as many pictures up here. Compared to downstairs, there isn't much at all.

There are no posters in your room, no magazines, no CDs. You don't have a computer, TV, or stereo. Empty except for your bed, your desk, your bookshelf full of books I've never read, your closet. You sit on the bed. I pull out the chair under the desk.

For minutes we just sit. Sometimes you talk, about the weather at first, then your friends at school. You keep branching off, never staying on the same topic for too long. You don't sound detached, but you're not talking to me. I wonder if you know that you have my attention.

You lean to the side to retrieve a notebook and pen. I don't move, but from where I'm sitting I can see everything. Gray cover, white pages, black lines, black ink. You tell me that color just distorts things.

You fill a page, tear it out, fold it up, set it aside. Only a few lines on the next page before you dogear it and put the notebook away. I know what you wrote on the page you tore out, but I wonder what those few lines were. Were you dramatic? Plain? Cold? Did you blame somebody, everybody, yourself? Did you try to hurt someone? Did you tell somebody that you love them?

You hestitate for a moment, then ask if I don't watch. I tell you that I have to, but I didn't need to say anything because you already know. You take another drink of wine, then set the bottle on the floor. There was a paring knife in your pocket; now it's on the bed. I don't ask if you see the irony in choosing a paring knife, if you even know that the knife is meant for peeling away skin.

I don't remember if suspense hung heavy in the air as you picked up that knife. I don't remember anything before you press the blade to your wrist, ease it down, pull it to your elbow like you're picking at a scab. The sharp intake of air that follows is your first breath.

You bleed in black and white.

The other arm isn't as easy. Your hand shakes as you drag the paring knife up your forearm in short jerks. You remind me of your pen, pouring ink over the white pages of your sheets. I think you're crying, but I don't look at your face. I'm trying to decipher the message that you're scrawling on your pants, your bed, the floor. I wonder if you know that you have my attention.

What are you writing? Is it a journal? Prose? An epic, comedy, or tragedy? Are you bleeding a sonnet? Or are you composing a symphony? No, an ode? I can hear music. Somebody must like your sense of rhythm and melody. They're playing the song that you haven't finished yet.

You're on your back and the music is over. It was a perfect song, though I don't have anything to compare it to because I had never heard music before you.

I'm not supposed to, but I touch you. You don't respond. I'm not supposed to, but I question you.

"Does it hurt to be so beautiful?"

You still don't respond. It's not because you can't, though you can't, but because you don't want to tell me something I already know.

I take the torn page with me as I leave your room, your house. Your neighborhood is bleached white, and suffocated in snow. November is cold this year, and I wish I had brought a jacket.