Bruised and Scarred

When I first met Jason, I thought he was the most sweet, perfect man on the planet. He bought me gifts, and treated me like a princess. That is, until the subject of sex came up. I was nineteen, and a virgin. I wasn't planning on giving it up as easily as he wanted me too. This was when we started having problems. We would argue for hours. He would throw things at the walls, and I would cower as I watched them shatter into a million pieces. I was afraid of his fury, his power over me. The next day after he would leave my apartment, I would find a vase of fresh flowers on the dining room table with an apology card in them, which would make me smile. We would make up and act happy for another week or so, until he wanted sex again.

I would deny him, but he would only get angrier. Soon it would go from throwing and breaking things, to slapping me across the face. He would send even more flowers, along with a box of my favorite chocolates. I would accept them every time, but I would feel guilty. Why couldn't I find it in myself to gived him what he wanted the most? My sacred virginity? But every time, we would find and his anger would escalate. He would punch and kick me until I was on the floor, curled up in a ball crying. No one knew my secret, of how scared I was of my long term boyfriend. I would hide the bruises with my clothing, long sleeves and pants, even in the hottest of weather. But fortunately for me no one questioned it.

After graduation from university, we moved in together. He said it was because he wanted to make sure I was his only priorety, and that I wasn't whoring around with other men. Like that was a possibility. He picked out where I could work to give us money, and even though I had a degree in Child and Adolescent Psychology, his favorite career choice for me was waitressing at Hooters. And just to my luck, I got the job. I worked every night, except on wet tee shirt nights. Because he didn't want other men staring at my tits. Or as he put it, "I don't want other men looking at my tits." Like they were his in the first place. Yeah, right.

It was a chilly saturday night in Tallasee, it was 63 degrees outside and my shift was about to end, but it was getting extra busy since it was a Saturday night and people were wanting to see some girls with their fake tits degrading themselves by competing in a wet teeshirt contest. All the men were drunk, and I thankfully had one last table to serve. My boss said to remain calm considering we had some hometown celebrities that I would be serving. I rolled my eyes, having no particular interest in serving celebrities. I pulled down my tight hooters shirt, and readjusting my small orange hooters booty shorts and got out my order pad and black ink pen and walked over to the table with a small, welcoming smile on my face.

"Hello, my name is Emmeline and I'll be your waitress for tonight. Can I get your drink orders?"

"Emmeline? Is that really you?" A familiar voice asked. I hadn't bothered to look at whom I was serving, but when I looked at the person who talked to me, I grew wide eyed.

"Derek?" I asked with a laugh.

"Yeah! Oh my God, how long has it been?" He asked me.

"Too long obviously!" My boss passed by me and discreetly tapped the watch on his wrist and I recomposed myself and cleared my throat.

"Mr. Sanders, what would you like to drink tonight?" He frowned, but had a clear understanding that tonight I was his waitress, not his old buddy.

"Just a coca-cola." I quickly and effortlessly wrote down all their drink orders, and asked if they were ready to order their food. They were, so I wrote down their food orders and told them I would have it out as quickly as possibly. I went over to the kitchen, and put the order in the computer for the chef and hung up the ticket for the chef and started helping the bus boys clean up the extra messes since I had nothing else to do.

Once the drinks were ready, I put them on a big platter and with one hand walked back to the booth Derek and his band was at and served them their designated drinks and told them their food should be ready in under thirty minutes. I had to try to remind myself that I couldn't stand around and talk with Derek as much as I wanted too.

Derek and I went back twenty years, we met eachother when we started kindergarden, and had been friends ever since. When he started his band, I was so excited for him. Especially when he was getting alot of attention. But when he was off making albums with his band, I was going to college and dealing with Jason. Our lives had changed drastically, and we had stopped talking as much as we both hated it.

I forced myself to busy myself to doing other work around the restaurant until their food was ready. But when the chef called out their order I quickly put all the hot food on another platter, and once again with one hand went back to their booth, and served them.

I went back to doing other work, checking on them occasionally making sure their food was cooked occordingly to how they wanted it, and once they were all satisfied and finished eating their food I handed them their check. After they had paid Derek handed me the biggest tip I had recieved in a month, leaving me dumbstruck.

"You deserve it," He said with a smile.

"Thanks Derek," He hugged me softly and told me to give him a call sometime, then left. And finally, my shift was over. I went into the back to where the lockers were, and undressed and grabbed my street clothes out of my duffle, and redressed into my sleevless light colored floral bowtie neck top, light gray skinny jeans, my my sueded oxfoded ankle heels, and shrugged into my military style belted jacket. I took down my brown hair from its high bun and took off the burgandy double headband, and shook out my hair which was left in waves from being up all day. I looked at myself in the mirror, and noticed the bruising hand mark that was on my left cheek was coming back into view, so I applied more concealer and foundation on it, despite of how sore it was.

I grabbed my cellphone out of my locker and grabbed everything I needed and shut it and locked it and quickly checked my phone. I had sixteen missed calls from Jason, and twenty text messages. He was angry with how late I was, so I was hoping for my sake that he was already asleep despite his anger towards me and my late shift. I rushed out of the back door and to the employees parking lot, unlocked the car and got inside, started the engine, buckled up and sped out of the drive way, ignoring the speed limits and rushing home to my apartment.

Thankfully I made it home a little past midnight, and quietly went inside and relocked the door, locking it with the chain. I crept into the bedroom, quietly opened the drawers and changed into my pajamas, noticing that Jason was sleeping. I put my clothes and uniform in the dirty clothes hamper, and was about to go brush my teeth when I heard the bed creak. I covered my mouth, trying to keep my anxious breathing to a minimum volume. But that didn't help, because the lights switched on. I was fucked.

"Where the hell have you been?" He asked, anger in his voice. I turned around, and looked at him in the face.

"I was at work, working a late shift. I tried to get out of it, but we got busy." I told him honestly. He stood up, wearing only his boxer briefs and walked quickly towards me and slapped me across the face, causing me to stumble. I didn't cry or yelp, because I knew that only brought him joy in knowing he was hurting me.

"Liar! You were out whoring around weren't you!" I held my hand to my face where he had hit me, where it was throbbing horribly. I shook my head, holding back tears.

"No, I swear I wasn't." He grabbed ahold of my neck, and pushed me up against the wall, and brought my face barely an inch away from his.

"Liar!" He shook me and I struggled not to cry. But it felt like he was crushing my windpipes.

"Jason, I swear I was at work. Just call my boss and ask, please? He'll tell you." He let go of my neck, but shoved me against the wall, and he walked off into another room with his cellphone to call my boss. Once he was out of the room, I fell to the floor, and quietly sobbed. I was afraid of the man I loved so much, the only man who ever loved me, and I was afraid he was going to kill me. What was I going to do?

By the time he had come back in the bedroom, I had brushed my teeth and took off all my make up, revealing my secret bruises. He looked at me, worry and concern in his eyes.

"Did I do all that?" I looked at him, and nodded. It was then he started sobbing, something he did every night. I hugged him tightly, letting him cry into the crook of my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, I never meant to hurt you. You just make me so angry," It was always my fault, always. He never took responsibility for his own actions. I just went along with it, and he looked up at me, and touched my face and my neck, causing me to flinch from the sensitivity of the bruises.

"It hurts doesn't it?" I nodded.

"Yeah, it does." He kissed every bruise, every hand mark, and sighed.

"I promise I won't do it again, Emmeline." I nodded.

"Okay."

"Will you ever forgive me?" I nodded.

"Always." He sobbed again, and went back to sleep, as if it was all okay again. But before I could go to sleep, I went back into the bathroom, and opened up the cabinets underneath the sink and found a small trinket box with a little lock. I ran my fingers underneath the top of the cabinets, and felt cold metal being held by tape. I peeled off the tape, and held the key to the trinket box in my hand. I quickly unlocked the trinket box, and revealed my only escape. Razors, cool, silver razors. Some more sharp than others, some more used than the rest.

Now it came to the point where I had to choose which one to use. It wasn't very hard, tonight I wanted the sharpest one. I picked up my favorite little razor blade, lifted up my tank top, revealing my belly which was covered in scars and healing cuts, and that's when I did what I always did to heal the pain I felt from Jason, the pain I felt from everything. I slashed my stomach, cutting over and over again. Tiny little cuts, some bigger than others, some smaller. I sighed in relief, rinsed off the razor blade, but it back in the trinket, locked it, hid the key and put the trinket back underneath the sink. I stood up, and saw the cuts oozing blood, and I smiled to myself.

I grabbed some pieces of toilet paper, folded them up and applied pressure to the cuts to keep the from bleeding too much, and bleeding through my shirt. I didn't want Jason to know, because God knows what he would do to me then. He was the only one allowed to inflict pain upon me. He was the only one allowed to do anything to me. He was in control of me, that's how it's always been. I checked my phone before plugging it in, and noticed I had a text message.

Hey, its Derek Sanders, just txting u to give u my #. Txt me ltr :) I saved the number to my contacts, but gave him a code name. I decided Deana Sanders, and quickly deleted the evidence. I set my alarm, plugged in my phone and was ready to fall asleep when I felt Jason's arm wrap around me, and pull me into him in a forced cuddle. I held back the much needed tears, and fell asleep anyways. It was the same shit, just another night.