1.6 BLOOD AND TEARS
Lennon woke up to the sound of the other girls running around the room getting ready for school. She was still naked from when she had cried herself to sleep.
She waited till the other girls left the room before getting up and putting on a t-shirt and shorts. She went into the bathroom and washed her face, which was swollen from crying herself to sleep the night before.
She stood there looking at herself in the mirror for what seemed like ages, she let her mind drift back to the night before when Martin had been watching her in the bathtub.
How long had he been standing there she wondered? She felt the heat of embarrassment creep up her chest and into her face. She didn't realize it but she had taken a strand of her hair and started tugging on it as she let her mind wonder with questions.
What will he do next, she thought to herself? She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost screamed when the mirror in front of her shattered in its frame.
Lennon took a step back eying the mirrors broken pieces that still hung, but now looked jagged, as now not only one image of herself looked back at her, but what seemed to be thousands.
"Great," was all she managed to mumble looking puzzled at the broken mirror. She went into her bedroom and picked out her clothes for the day, choosing a light blue sweater with a pair of khaki pants.
She felt no need to impress anyone at her school. They all thought she was a freak anyway. She rolled her eyes and ran a comb through her long hair, making the finishing touches as a side braid which she let hang loose to the right side of her face.
She walked down the hallway to the kitchen where Marge was sitting with her coffee, the dark circles under her eyes stood out against her pale skin. She obviously didn't sleep well after her argument with Martin which kept her up most of the night.
"Something happened to the mirror in the bathroom," Lennon said hesitantly. Marge looked at Lennon with a distasteful look on her face. "What do you mean something happened to it," she asked her, narrowing her eyes as she started to get up from the table.
"I don't know really, I was just getting cleaned up and it shattered," Lennon said while looking down and tugging on the end of her braid. "Mirrors don't just shatter Lennon," Marge spat over her shoulder while walking down the hall to the bathroom.
Lennon scooped her book bag up and hurried out the door before Marge had the chance to pick another fight. While walking down the steps, she caught sight of Spencer walking out of her gate.
"Morning neighbor," Spencer said with a smile and a wave. "Hey back," Lennon replied with a smile. "Ready to go?" she asked turning to walk toward the school when Spencer grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her.
"Wait a minute," she said with a giggle, "my sister is always late," she said rolling her eyes. "Hey, Sammie! Hurry the hell up already," Spencer yelled.
"I really need to get going," Lennon said back to Spencer. She didn't want to wait around to see if Marge was going to come chasing after her, to blame her for shattering the mirror.
"Alright, alright I'm coming," said a voice coming from the porch of Lennon's neighboring house. Lennon looked back to see a girl coming down the steps. She didn't look at all like a girl, more like a boy. She had short hair which was brown and fell loosely on her face.
She had sand colored skin, like someone who had been out working in the sun, and Lennon didn't notice until the girl had gotten right beside her that she had the same striking eye color that she herself had.
"Who's this?" Sam asked when she came into stride with Spencer and Lennon. "It's our new neighbor, Lennon," Spencer said, "Lennon, this is my sister Sam." "Nice to meet you, Sam," Lennon said while looking down at her feet.
"Ditto," was all that Sam responded with. They walked a few more houses up before stopping short at an older more run down looking house that was a few blocks from the school. "Why are we stopping?" asked Lennon looking confused.
"Oh, Sam's friend lives here, her mom likes us to walk with her to school," Spencer replied while raising an eyebrow.
"Kirhsten!" Sam yelled loudly enough for Lennon to cover her ears momentarily. "So lady like aren't we?" asked Spencer with a giggle while pushing Sam. "Whatever," Sam replied while walking towards the house.
A girl then came out of the front door. She was slender, with stacked sandy blond hair. She was very girly and had pretty green eyes. She wore a pair of jeans that fit her hips nicely, and a black dress shirt that had short puffs at the sleeves, and the neck was decorated with lace, she also wore glasses, but wasn't at all nerdy looking.
She silently walked up to the other girls, looking confused at Lennon's presence.
Sam walked up to her and started whispering something that Lennon couldn't hear. After that, they continued in the direction of their school. At the stop sign of the block before the school, Sam and Kirhsten both stopped short and started talking amongst themselves again.
Lennon started walking across the street when she noticed Spencer and the other girls were not behind her. "Are you guys coming?" she asked as she stopped and looked over her shoulder.
"Do you really want to go to school that bad?" Sam asked a look of pity on her face.
"What are you talking about?" Lennon asked turning around and took a few steps back towards them. "Were going to ditch," said Spencer, "you want in?" she asked with a giggle.
"Oh, I don't know," said Lennon looking over her shoulder at the school. "What are you guys going be doing?" she asked raising an eyebrow of interest. "Stuff," this time Kirhsten answered.
She still had the same blank look on her face; this worried Lennon because she couldn't read her very well. "I think I better get to school," Lennon said reluctantly turning around and walking towards the school.
Then she saw them. The goons, as Spencer had called them. They were all standing on the front steps of the school entrance, all staring at Lennon. Jenny stood with her arms crossed, a look of trouble beamed in her eyes and burned holes in Lennon, and standing beside her was Hartley.
The other girls who Lennon had not been introduced too stood on both sides of the other girls. They looked intimidating, that was the only way to describe them. Lennon looked at them and then at the door to the school, she didn't know of any other way in.
She looked over her shoulder and saw Spencer, Sam, and Kirhsten all walking down the street, then she looked back at the goons, waiting to pounce. She whirled around and started jogging after her friends Could she call them that?
Friends? She had never really had friends before. "Hey guys, wait up," she yelled in the direction of Spencer and the others. Sam turned around and saw Lennon running in their direction and stopped the other two. "Looks like there is hope for her after all," Spencer said as they waited for her to catch up to them.
"You guys just seemed like more fun," Lennon said. "What are friends for?" Spencer said with a big smile. "See I told you guys she would be cool," Spencer said once again punching Sam in the arm in a joking matter. Lennon smiled to herself.
Yes, these were going to be her friends, she could just sense it. And for the first time in a long time, she was happy. They spent the day walking around town, which gave Lennon two things to do.
Get to know the new town that she was living in, and getting to spend time and get to know the girls.
Lennon learned a lot of different things about the girls, Kirhsten for instance, was very intelligent, and she was quiet and kept to herself, which made people get the wrong impression of her.
She hardly ever spoke, unless spoken too, and even at those times Sam seemed to answer for her, so it was more like Lennon was getting to know her second hand. Spencer was a lot like Kirhsten, and then again she was a lot different too, she too was very intelligent. She could ramble on about useless information, things people could go their entire lives without knowing. But she made the time interesting.
Then there was Sam, Lennon was more intrigued by her than the others. She was quiet in her own way. Lennon had gathered throughout their day together that Sam was not interested in boys.
She was gay, and Lennon had never met a lesbian or gay guy or gay anything for that matter. It was an interesting topic for discussion and she didn't seem at all bothered by other people knowing it.
Lennon had a lot of questions that she asked her throughout the day, and Sam had politely answered them all without hesitation.
Lennon didn't understand Sam's sexuality, but she didn't judge her for it either. The girls were all friendly, and they didn't ask a lot of questions about Lennon's past, and for that she was grateful.
They seemed to accept her and she them, that was all that mattered. As the day dragged on and it started to get late the girls decided to head back to their homes. She knew that even though she didn't want to go home if she didn't that it would just cause more problems for her.
She stopped with hesitation as she made it to her house, and watched her friends slowly ascend to their door.
"See you tomorrow," Sam and Spencer said in unison while Kirhsten merely waved her goodbye as they all went their separate ways. Lennon started walking up the doorsteps to her house and stopped right before she got to the door. She took a deep breath and entered the house.
It was quiet, red flag number one, which meant that Marge had probably sent all the kids to their rooms early. Lennon tried walking as quietly as possible down the hall towards her room when a voice came from the kitchen.
"Well, there's the little trouble maker now," said Martin. Lennon turned to the kitchen area and gasped when she saw Marge's face. Martin sat at the kitchen table, rows of beer bottles accompanied him, Marge sat at the table to the left of him, her eyes bloodshot and mascara was smeared down her cheeks as if she had been crying, her nose bloody and swollen and her lip was cut, like she had been hit repeatedly in the face.
Martin didn't look up the entire time he spoke; he just took a sip from his beer and stood up slowly.
"Where were you today?" Martin asked while leaning forward onto the table still not making eye contact with Lennon. "I was at school today," she replied looking down at her feet.
"Liar," he boomed, picking up the beer bottle and throwing it into the wall closest to the table making Marge jump in fear, and Lennon jump back startled.
"How are you going to lie to my face?" he screamed walking across the dining room to get into Lennon's face, grabbing her cheeks in his hands and squeezing them.
"Were you with a boy? Wanted to get a little of the stick huh? Yeah, you look like the kind of girl that likes to give it up to anyone who will give you attention," Martin said licking his lips and staring at Lennon with that same dirty look he had given her while watching her in the bathtub.
"Maybe I should see just how good you are," getting inches from her face and almost whispering to her, he took a big breath in, smelling her neck. "Nice and ripe I bet," his voice dry and raspy. Terror gripped Lennon in her stomach and she felt the waves of anxiety start to wash over her.
"NO! Get off of me you filthy pig!" she screamed trying to push Martin away, but he had her in his grip. She was frozen in terror. Martin moved his face closer to Lennon's until he was only inches away.
"Dirty girl," he said softly still licking his lips. Lennon could smell the beer on his breath and it made her gag. She closed her eyes and let the panic take over. SMASH was all that they heard. Marge flew down to the floor, looking frantically all over the place for the source of the sound.
Martin whirled around to see one of his beer bottles come flying from its spot on the table at his face. He ducked down just in time and the bottle hit Lennon in her head, shattering and knocking her to the floor.
A low groan escaped her lips. "What the hell was that," he screamed turning around, panic and shock clearly shown on his face. Seconds later another bottle flew from its spot on the table and hit the wall closest to Martin.
Marge started screaming loudly, and Lennon could hear the terror in her voice. Glass was laying everywhere on the floor of the dining room.
Smash went another bottle as it hit the wall on the opposite side of them. "What the fuck is going on?" Martin screamed while crawling into a ball trying to protect his face from the sheets of glass that kept raining down on him from the bottle after bottle that flew from the table and hit the wall beside him.
Lennon turned onto her stomach and started crawling for the hallway glass tearing into her hands and knees. "Where the hell are you going?" Martin screamed, grabbing onto Lennon's leg. Another bottle came flying towards Martin, this time connecting with the back of his head, he screamed out in pain and let go of Lennon's leg.
She tried to stand up but again fell back down, she was so dizzy, the bottle that hit her had gashed open her head, and blood ran down into her eyes, making it almost impossible for her to see, so she crawled down the hallway making her way slowly down to the back door.
Blood dripped from her face and onto the floor, and she could still hear the occasional glass bottle hitting the wall in the kitchen. She heard Marge's shrill scream from under the dining room table, "it's her, they warned us about her. Now look what happened!"
Martin let out another long scream from the room at the end of the hallway; she heard the sound of him jumping out of the way of the bottle missiles.
"I'm going to get you, you little bitch!" he screamed from the end of the hall, she turned to see him crawling in her direction a smile creeping across his lips to where she could see the blood covering his teeth.
"Oh daddies going get you," he laughed as he started to get up from his crawl, he was in a crouched tiger position and it scared Lennon to the point to where she pushed back her dizziness and tried to get up to run.
She made it to the back door and opened it up and started to run, WHACK was the sound her head made as she fell missing the first steps and her head made a connection with the concrete.
That was it, she was stuck, and she couldn't get up to run. She dug her fingers into the ground on the edge of the concrete and pulled herself further into the yard. She heard the back door swing open and slam shut.
She turned to see Martin standing on the stoop. A wild hysterical smile was plastered across his face. He stepped from the steps and looked down at Lennon with madness in his eyes.
He reached to the side of the house and grabbed a shovel that was sitting up against the wall.
Lennon let out a scream and attempted to crawl further into the yard, but Martin sat the shovel onto her back, she whirled over grabbing wildly for it. Martin pushed it down hard onto her stomach and she winced in pain.
"You think you can come into my house, MY HOUSE and do some voodoo shit on me?" he screamed at her, his eyes still wide and menacing he raised the shovel above his head and smiled down at her.
Lennon put her hands over her face and shut her eyes tightly silently sobbing to herself.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson you will never forget," Martin said laughing. Then Lennon heard a sound, and felt air rushing over her, followed by a scream from Martin, and then a sick bone breaking thudding sound. Lennon slowly opened her eyes.
All she could see was a blur of tears and blood. She wiped her eyes clear and looked up where Martin had been standing over her with the shovel and saw the beautiful pink and orange sky as the sun was now setting.
She was confused, what had just happened? She looked towards the house and saw the back door still closed.
She looked to her left and saw Martin lying in a crumpled twisted way that no person should ever be in, his eyes wide open blood trickled from his nose, the shovel still in his hand. Lennon rolled over to her right side, gasping for air. She looked at the chain length fence that separated her yard from the next houses.
She saw Sam standing in her back yard and Lennon gasped. Sam was standing at the edge of the fence, facing Lennon, her eyes shut, her arms outstretched and her hands facing out towards Lennon as if she were in a trance.
"What, what's going on?" Lennon asked softly. Sam's eyes shot open, and she jumped the fence and ran to Lennon's side.
"Holy crap Lennon, are you OK?" Sam screamed as she kneeled down and started to help Lennon to her feet.
She pushed Sam's hand away and brought her hands to her face and screamed, "What is going on? Is Martin, is he..." her voice trailed off. Sam came and grabbed her hands.
"We have to get you to a hospital Lennon," Sam said with a concerned look on her face. "Not until you tell me what happened," Lennon screamed. Sam shook her head and looked down at her hands.
"He was going to kill you, Lennon. I had to," she said. "Had to what Sam?" Lennon said softly putting her hands to her mouth. "I had to do it, Lennon, I had to stop him," was all she said.