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Cliché wasn't her thing.
Her skin wasn't pale at all. It had always been tan.
Her hair wasn't dark. It was a sandy, dirty blonde color.
She wasn't thin. Her figure had been described as voluptuous by more than one person.

She wasn't a cliché.
But she was a cutter.

She never told me how it started. The first thing I remember was the heart-shaped scab forming on her upper arm. There was no way you could pass something like that off as an accident, obviously. There was also one around her wrist, all the way around, which she wore numerous hair elastics to cover up. There were other scars and scabs I'd seen before. She didn't seem reticent about telling me that, "Yeah, I did that."

It made me sad. I remember that. I guess I felt like I'd failed her somehow. But another of my friends did that too, and I was used to the feeling. I had to pick up and move on. Out of sight, out of mind, they say. It feels like I forgot about it. It feels like it went away, but I know it was still there all along.

She was the only one who understood when it happened to me.
The rest of them wanted me to stop. But she knew what it felt like, she knew why I wanted it.
She helped me take apart a razor.
She doesn't encourage me, but I don't need encouragement. What I like best is that she doesn't discourage me.
She gets it.

Sometimes she wishes she looked like the others, pale, dark-haired, and tiny.
But she doesn't do cliché. It wouldn't suit her.
She's perfect the way she is.
Anti-cliché.