Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

You lay there silently, still in bed, listening for sounds of movement outside your door. It’s still locked so you know at least you are partially safe inside your room. You move to sit up, ignoring the pain in your side, after hearing nothing coming from the rest of the house. He must be gone.

You know you have to go to school but you don’t want to. You’re wondering what they’re going to think. You know they’ve never notice you before, but what if someone spots the cut on your lip, or the light bruise now forming over your eye. You think about staying home from school that day, but decide against it. He could come home at any time and in any state. You never know what he’ll do to you now, and if he finds out that you stayed home it’ll be much worse.

You get up and go to your closet. As usual, nothing but black, but there is a large number of long sleeve shirts. Looking down at your uncovered arms, you see the blue and purple spots decorating it…nicely? You quickly grab one of the shirts off the hangers and go to get the rest of your clothes. Little color, as usual.

You arrange yourself so that no one would be able to notice the bruises or the cuts. The long sleeves of your shirt and your hoodie provide a cover up for your arms. You let your hair fall down so that it slightly covers up the purple bruising under your eye. You don’t like to look at yourself in the mirror, but after realizing that there was still blood on your lip and the side of your head, you have to. You clean off the side of your face, wince as the towel touches your lip, and cringe as you dap away the remains of the blood from the side of your head. You’ll take a shower later.

After getting dressed you leave the solitude of your room to get your bag. As you’re closing your door, you could swear you hear movement downstairs. You freeze, straining your ears to see if whatever made the sound down stairs had left. You hear nothing, but you take your time moving down the steps. You hardly make any noise as you lightly step into the living room, quickly glancing around, taking in every detail. There is no one there.

You sigh in relief as you step towards the front door, grabbing your bag right where it was dropped behind the couch. Nothing changed. You were surprised, as you looked at the spot where your head had hit, that there was no blood. You clearly remember blood streaming down the side of your face. He must have cleaned it up this morning…like always.

Turning around and looking back at your living room from your place at the door way you notice, it looks innocent. You close the door behind you, reminding yourself that you’ll be finding yourself in the same situation tonight, possibly for the rest of your life. Taking in the fresh air, you slowly walk to school, ready for the constant stares and mumbles from your peers.

-

The bruises and scars go unnoticed. For weeks.

No one noticed the bruise forming over your eye. No one saw the newly formed cut on your lip. No one saw anything. No one saw you. You go unnoticed just like ever day. After the first day, you though yourself stupid. Why would anyone take notice to you now? You’ve been invisible since you started school.

Only the lunch lady saw, but she just gave you a small look of concern before moving to serve the next person in line. Then there was your art teacher, Ms. Michaels. She saw, she frowned, she said nothing. She just kept on looking at you when you came in every day. She still didn’t stop asking you how you were after every day though. Why should she care so much?

-

You sit in your homeroom class, alone and in the back. Oddly enough your homeroom is also your art class. You see Ms. Michaels every morning and every afternoon. Today was no different than the rest. You have twenty minutes in this class before the real classes begin. The table at the back was, as always, reserved for you. You didn’t even think that any one sat here in any of the other classes.

Everyone ignored you as you sit, tapping your pencil lightly on the notepad in front of you. You had no idea why you took notes during homeroom. The only thing that happened was, you sit here, get ignored, they make the announcements, and then herd you into your next class. Maybe it was sort of a journal, taking down the horrendous lunch menu as a log of how many days you sit here. You started a new notebook this year. After the lunch announcements, you draw or sketch whatever comes to mind in the homeroom. If not, you close your book and wait for tomorrow.

For the past two weeks, since you started to remember, there has been nothing in your book. Today would be no different as the bell rings, signaling the start of the twenty minute “class”. The teacher walks in, smile on her face apparently. You wouldn’t know. You’re still looking down waiting for something to come to your mind.

“Alright everyone.” Michaels starts. “We have a surprise today.”

You can hear the smile in her voice, but you still don’t look up. A surprise, oh joy. The other students seem excited, but you’re not fooled. The last ‘surprise’ she gave to the class was a book you’re all supposed to be reading. No one touched it, except for you. You needed something to do after school in the park other than just sitting blankly on the swings.

The class fidgets as she continues.

“I want you to welcome a new student.” Oh joy, another person to ignore you completely. By the way the class is reacting they must be another athletic hero to help your school on its way to physical domination of the district.

You heard the mumbling and shifting of the seats as you continued to play a silent tune with you eraser. What’s the point of looking up? Making eye contact would just make the situation of them ignoring you a little longer, them thinking you were actually someone they wanted to talk to. You hear silent giggles and whispering coming from all around.

“Alright. Just come into my office and we’ll get your schedule sorted.” Ms. Michaels says politely.

As soon you hear the door close, the class automatically breaks out into whispers and giggles. Are they really that bored that they have a fit over a new student. You know that when you showed up they didn’t pay you this much attention. The whispers cease suddenly as the door slowly opens.

“Okay Mr. Way. Go ahead and take a seat anywhere you like.” Michaels tells this boy. You distinctly hear seats silently scooting over to make room for the newcomer at other tables. You sit silently, still attempting to think of something to draw. You figured he sat down already, your table still as empty as ever.

“Umm…can I sit here?” a voice speaks softly. He must be asking to sit at one of the other tables, so you don’t look up.

“Hello?” You see a hand wave in front of your face this time, finally causing you to look up.

Startled you finally look up, being met with a shy smile and the brightest pair of eyes you have ever seen. Your mouth hangs open dumbly as he glances at you shyly. You nod your head slowly, shocked and captivated all in the same. They were so bright that you were caught like a deer in the headlights. He slowly moves to sit, automatically looking down at the floor as he lightly pulls out the chair. He sits himself in the chair nervously and looks around the room, stopping on you. It’s then that you realize the blush now coloring his cheeks.

He must not like everyone staring, and with the way you are looking at him isn’t helping. You look away from him as he provides you a small smile. Glancing around the room, you spot many pairs of eyes on him, several of them daring to even glance back and forth between you and him. As soon as they met your dumbfounded gaze though, they quickly look back down. You blush as you notice many pairs of eyes in your direction. You turn your head away again quickly as you spot some of the other glances. The other guys look surprised as they stare at him. The other girls look shocked, but there’s something else hidden there…anger maybe?

You look back down at the blank sketch pad before you, with the previous lunch menus drawn in neat boxes in the middle of the page. You look up around the class once again, most of the class turned back to their previous conversations, but some still glance back as they whisper to the people beside them. You glance at him. He’s staring down at the graffiti covered table. How is it you always get the one covered in graffiti? You can still see the blush coloring his cheeks and you wonder if he has the same problem like everyone else.

Glancing up repeatedly, you notice he fancies dark colors just as much as you do. You don’t feel so stand-outish now that you see someone else in anything but primary colors. His hair is dark as it falls messily around his pale face. He had someone of a tan, but it seemed to be fading away now. His eyes, you noticed before were exceptionally bright, but now you see the color, hazel-green. You blush again as you catch his eye on one of the glances, immediately looking down again. His mouth was open, as if to speak?

“Okay students the lunch menu for today will be...” You immediately draw another box in the middle of your page, outlining the date and the main course. You notice him looking and feel slightly silly all of a sudden. You’ve never had to worry about anyone seeing what you were doing before, so you blush to yourself as you finish copying the menu.

You tune out the droning voice again as you begin to stare blankly at the wall. Then suddenly, it clicks. You have an idea for a sketch to do in your book. You go to the next page, having filled up four straight pages with lunch menus. On this fresh piece of paper, you begin with an outline.

Slowly you draw your graphite pencil across the bottom of the page in a light curve, bending slightly as you get to the tip. Above it, you connect the oval with another large curve, meeting and pointing the ends. Drawing a large circle in the center, you fill in all the other details. Slowly you can see your own work coming to life before you. You had no idea that what you were going to draw was going to come out so intricate. You lean lamely on your elbow as your hand begins to move of it’s own accord, filling in details and adding shadow.

You drop your pencil after it stops moving. In less time it takes for the principal to drone on about the daily announcements, you have drawn a lifelike portrait of an eye. You’ve never drawn this before. This sudden burst of inspiration taking over your drawing hand. There is no color, but the shading is enough for it to look as if someone took a close-up black and white photo. You can see it in your head, the colors. Olive-pale skin surrounding the eye, a small beauty mark or mole underneath the lower eyelid.

The colors flash before you. First the eye is a pale blue, then a bright green that slowly fades into an almond hazel. You can’t decide on a color. You’ve seen this eye somewhere before, could it be the boy’s. You’ve drawn him before, but have you ever drawn him with his eyes open? You can vividly see his smile, but the eyes seem lost and hollow every time. You eventually get frustrated. You rip out the drawing and crumble it up into a ball, tossing it on the table.

It lands only several inches away from the new boy—hardly a boy—and he seems to be pulled from watching something interesting outside the window. You quickly look away and pretend your not watching him as he begins to glance around the room, looking for whoever threw it. He moves to pick it up. You can feel your heart racing as he has been pulled from his blank stare out the window now to slowly unroll your drawing. The heat floods to your face as you see the eye on the page then see it mirrored on his face. Could you have drawn his eye? As he smoothes the paper out on the table in front of him, he looks at it appraisingly.

Just curl it up and throw it into the bin. You tell him in your head. He doesn’t, he tilts his head to the side, sticking out his tongue at the edge of his mouth. He pulls out an unseen pencil from his ear and makes a few more strokes on the page. He darkens the edges slightly, turning the paper around and shading in certain areas. It looks so real now if it were glossy someone would mistake it for a photo.

He pulls his tongue back into his mouth and you can hear the principal signing off, meaning that the change of class is coming up in less than two minutes. He looks back around, you close your notebook quickly and shove it inside your bag. Your hoping he’s naïve enough to not compare the frayed edge of the paper from where it was ripped out, with the spiral patterns on your book. You sit quietly, leaning back in your chair as you stare blankly at the table in front of you, hoping he doesn’t notice the extreme change of color in your cheeks.

Why did you draw it? You should have just left it in there, so that way no one will see it. Hopefully he doesn’t notice you like everyone else, just so that he can assume it was someone else in the class who threw it. Fat chance dumb ass.

You watch the clock, every second he keeps it open is another chance for someone to see it. If someone else does see it, they might think it’s his. Then again he might be one of those people that are nice and tell them that its not his and say its yours. That’s not something you want. But if he isn’t one of those nice people, he could just say that it is his and go off to talk to whoever complimented him. No one has ever seen your drawings in here other than the teacher, who would ever believe him if he said it was you.

You begin to relax as the time for the bell to ring is coming closer and closer. After this, you will have seven minutes to get down the hall to your next class. No locker, don’t need one. Just before the bell rings, and just as everyone begins to stand and collect their things, you watch in horror as he slides the paper back slowly towards you.

“This is really good.” He compliments.

Your cheeks redden and you don’t look him in the eye. You can’t even force a smile on your face, your not good at fake smiling. You simply nod your head and look down in shame as you slowly slide the paper towards you. You silently fold it, not concentrating on anything else but everyone leaving you alone. You shove it into your messenger bag and sling the strap over your shoulder, avoiding looking at everything but your present task.

All you want to do is leave as soon as possible.