Skye's POV:
The next few months of school were very uneventful. I remained the quiet, shy girl I’d always been. The only real change was in music. Mr. Tomlinson often called me to his desk after class to ask how I was doing, to which I always responded “good” or “great” or on a particularly bad day, just “fine”. He confronted me about Anika and the pimp-posse but I denied his accusations about being bullied.
The less he knew, the better.
He also pushed me to participate more and “act my true potential” in the stupid activities we did, which I did do on my better days.
For example, one day we were instructed to do a short lyric-writing activity (alone or with a partner, since there was an odd number) and present our 10-30 seconds of song to the class.
Me being me, I chose to work alone and rebel against his stupid presentation.
I wrote the lyrics, of course. I love writing. When the time came to present the lyrics, though, I waited for all of the volunteers to go and then I excused myself to the bathroom when the time came to call on people randomly. I ended up skipping about thirty minutes of class just hiding out in the bathroom, and I came back just as the bell was about to ring.
As I was leaving, Mr. Tomlinson called me over.
I panicked, of course.
My hands shook as he towered over me, looking as if he were about to tell me off.
“Well played, Skylynn. Well played.” He said.
Bottom line is, I ended up getting an A on the activity.
And he never made me present.
The abuse at home only got worse. Not drastically, though. My father found a knife fetish, and would love to leave small cuts on me before he raped me or any other time he was suuuper drunk.
My mother, on the other hand, got better. She went to AA meetings and tried to push my father to go, but he never did and she never pushed too hard in fear of his abuse turning to her instead of just me.
That’s right. I said just me. She somehow managed to escape it all.
It was refreshing to have a clean, helpful, somewhat supportive mother around all the time, just like old times. She even found a job so that we had some extra income and I could’ve reduced my hours working, but I found my job to be my escape. In fact, I took extra hours if that meant that I could be away from my father more often.
If anything, he seemed to be drinking more than ever. He went from being drunk a couple nights a week to every night a week to every waking hour.
He was sneaky though. No one ever found out.
Of course I journaled all of my feelings, especially when I cut.
I was very careful about hiding the bruises and cuts as well, but since it was still pretty chilly, I was able to wear layers. I used some of the money I earned working to buy some cheap hair bands and bracelets to add yet another layer of cover.
The bullying situation certainly didn’t get any better.
One day, Anika and the pimp-posse stopped me in the hall as I was on my way to Music.
“Nice sweatshirt, slut.” Anika said, motioning to my colorful tribal-patterned sweatshirt.
Hey. Not all cutters are goth.
I stuttered out a “thanks”, not exactly sure how to respond.
“Did you not hear me? I want your sweatshirt.” She said with conviction.
I buy my own clothes (yet another reason I work) because my parents have decided I’m grown up enough to do that, and if I do ask them for clothes, we go to Walmart.
Have you seen Walmart’s selection of clothing? The bullying about that would be almost unbearable.
Back to the argument.
The only thing I could think to say at the time was, “But it’s mine”, which was obviously not the right response.
The first thing I felt was the blow to my face, quickly followed by a couple kicks to keep me immobilized while Anika tried to wrestle the sweatshirt off of me. She probably would have gotten my sweatshirt if the minute-bell hadn’t rang, causing the posse to disperse and hurry off to their next class.
I stayed on the cold, dirty floor for a couple of seconds before forcing myself back on to my feet and hobbling to the bathroom.
The punch had given me a bloody nose, so I shoved some toilet paper up my nostril as I reached for the Ibuprofen in my backpack.
Yes, I do have Ibuprofen. I steal it from my parents, who use it for God knows what. They don’t really notice because I’m always careful not to take too much or use it unless the pain is almost unbearable.
Now was one of those desperate times.
I dry-swallowed two pills (the water here is nasty) and tried to focus on my breathing. I didn’t cry, I was used to the pain. I was so used to it that my body was almost numb.
I’m not sure what the deal was but the bleeding still hadn’t subsided after a solid ten minutes of me holding tissue to my nose and pinching the bridge, so I decided I best be going to class before Mr. Tomlinson gives me detention or something.
Ever since that night, though, I’ve felt kind of invincible around him. Like he’d never hurt me.
I slowly walked back to class and slipped in unannounced (luckily, the door was unlocked). I thought I’d gone unnoticed until the end of class, when Mr. Tomlinson asked me what happened. I played dumb until he brought up the bloody tissue, to which I responded, “It’s just the dry weather” and scurried away.
The last thing I need is a bullying intervention.
A/N: Filler. Sorry.