Tortured Hearts {Jonnor}

8.0

{return}
At 8:45 in the morning Jude was stood in front of the mirror. He didn't quite remember how long he had been there, but it must've been longer than ten minutes by the sound of the insistent banging on the bathroom door and groans of his siblings. It might've been annoying to some, but after a few minutes it had simply become background noise to Jude.

He made eye contact with his reflection and remained staring for a few moments. His eyes drifted along his face, looking over each of his features with great focus.

His gaze fell upon his left cheek, or maybe it was the right cheek, it didn't make much of a difference. He stared at the paleness of his skin and for some reason it irked him. The color that is.

For some unknown reason he felt that it was too pale. He needed a tan, he thought to himself.

He wasn't sure why he felt he needed a tan all of a sudden, but for some reason he just did. He felt unhappy with his current complexion. Almost as if it made him feel unattractive.

ugly

The word scared him. He never thought of himself as that. Not that he ever focused on his physical appearance much, if anything he prided himself on the fact that he was rather content with the way he looked. But suddenly the word felt as though it described him more than ever before.

Jude was never one to care too much about his looks other than maybe making sure he put jell in his hair. So the fact that he felt so suddenly compelled to change something about his appearance was quite unsettling to the young boy.

As he continued to examine his face he stopped suddenly. His eyes looked upon the dark bruise that encircled his eye and he frowned.

The black eye was becoming quite an inconvenience to be honest. Not only was he questioned constantly by anyone who saw it as to how he got it, but it also hurt like a bitch.

If he thought the first day was painful, then boy was he wrong. He could barely open his eye due to the shooting pain that it caused.

Jude's thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice. "Jude, love. Are you almost done in there?"

He recognized it as his mom and sighed, realizing he needed to get ready. "Um - yeah." He scrambled to grab his change of clothes and hair jell. "One second."

Jude gathered his things and swung the door open, only to be faced with a red faced Mariana and his mom.

He blushed a bright red and smiled apologetically at his sister. "Sorry?"

She simply groaned and stomped past him, slamming the bathroom door closed. He flinched at the loud band the door made and turned back to his mother who shook her head. "It's okay, Jude, just maybe don't take fifteen minutes to pee next time." She smiled, her eyes drooping from what he guessed was lack of sleep. "Now go get ready for school, momma said you guys have to drive away in ten."

I nodded quickly and stumbled back to his room.
***
It had been a while since Jude had actually felt unsafe at school, but the feelings of apprehension that he felt when his moms car pulled into the teacher parking lot was unmistakeable.

The feeling of dread and fear overtook him in a matter of seconds as he reached for the doors to the school. He gripped the metal handle in his sweaty hand for a few moments, in the correct position to swing the door open, but he made no move to.

He looked through the window in the door that gave a view of the halls and remained still.

With one last deep breath, Jude pulled the door open. He was engulfed by the cold indoor air and the overwhelming smell of axe body spray as usual.