Kessa began to cut her meat into tiny pieces. As a whole it was unmanageable, frightening; but divided and arranged, the meat could be controlled. She cut four pieces. She'd count to four between each bite.

Self-mutilation is a frightening barrier that keeps us from seeing a person who is lost, in pain, and in desperate need of help.

She'd lost two more pounds. A picture of the models she'd cut out of the magazine flashed through Kessa's mind. And the winner is... seventy-three!

Soon I'll be thinner than all of you, she swore to herself. And then I'll be the winner. The thinner is the winner.

Repetition brings familiarity, and familiarity is the opposite of the unknown.

The nerves of the skin send pain signals to the brain to warn us of the danger from and impending injury. In the case of self-inflicted wounding, this pain acts as the body's own defense mechanism to stop one from proceeding in the effort at physical injury. If a person proceeds despite the pain, that means that he or she is motivated by something stronger than the pain, something that makes him or her capable of ignoring or enduring it.

She ran her hands over her body as if to bid it good-bye. The hipbones rising from a shrunken stomach were razor-sharp. Would they be lost in a sea of fat? She counted her ribs bone by bone. Where would they go?