The Unknown Road

41 - Archie

WHEN I COME TO, I have no idea what time it is, or how long I'd been unconscious for. The sun was only just creeping up over the horizon, with thin rays of light coming through my window, so it can't have been past eight.

As I try to move, motivating myself to get up, every limb and every bone in my body hurts.

My stomach feels like I've had an anvil dropped on it, with a dull throb pulsing through it every few seconds as my body becomes accustomed to the pain. My face, my jaw in particular, was hurting so much it was sending shooting pains through my entire body. My eye, which is painful but not as painful as the rest of my bruises, is slitted, and I was having trouble focussing on anything using my left eye.

I put a testing finger to the bruised skin on my cheek, and I almost call out at how that slight touch caused what felt like a lick of flame to wash over my face. I pull my hand away and jerk my head and pain lances harsher up my entire neck and back.

I still feel groggy as I try to get my arm underneath myself to push my body upright. My head feels like it's swimming and I genuinely don't know if I'll be able to stand.

"Come on, Arch. Get up."

I can hear Tessa's voice in my head, giving me strength, and I sit up further. Everything hurts but when I sit up, I do start to feel a little bit better.

My memory is a bit foggy from yesterday, but I certainly do remember him hitting me, and more than once, and not just because of the pain spreading through my entire body. But I can't really remember what we'd been talking about. What we were arguing about was foggy and distant compared to the pain spreading through me.

When I spot a piece of paper, I lean down on instinct to get it. I Immediately pull back, my stomach protesting, so I decide to crouch instead, reaching for the piece of paper at my feet. After struggling for a few minutes I manage grab it and I sit down with a sigh of relief as I unfold it slowly.

It's the photo of Tessa and me at the football game, and I realise yesterday's argument had been about her. It was about how he didn't want me to see her. It all starts flooding back to me, and I realise he'd been trying to say both her and Matt were a bad influence, and yet he couldn't be further from the truth.

When I get most of the creases out of the photo, I place it next to me on the bed as I spot the other two over near the window. And it's when I painfully crouch down to pick up the second photo that I see my reflection in the mirror on the back of my bathroom door.

My entire face has swollen up like a balloon.

My left eye, where Dad had swung and hit me, is starting to swell so much that my eye closing. There was an indent just under it, on my cheek bone, and I could see the imprint of Dad's signet ring. It means he must have hit me extremely hard to make that kind of mark.

As I step closer, my jaw is basically black with a bruise, and as I try to move my mouth, agony sweeps up my entire face and I have to grab the chair next to me to stop myself from falling. If I fell, I wouldn't get back up.

As I take another step closer to the mirror, I'm horrified at the extent of my face. The whole thing is covered in one big bruise, probably spread from my jaw. My eyes are both swollen from being cracked in the nose last night and my eye is closing more and more by the seconds.

Panic rises in me as I realise how far my dad was willing to go, and it's starting to sink in that enough is enough. I need to get out, and I need to get out today.

But before I thought about anything else, I want to get some ice for my face. If I put ice on it - my eye especially - it may stop the swelling. The pain in my face is becoming more and more unbearable, and as I look into my reflection again, I can now barely see out of my left eye from the swelling.