The Evolution of a Drowning Butterfly

Chapter Five

Inside the house, Stephen was waiting for me, arms crossed and speech prepared.

"You, young lady, disrespected your mother. You should not have hung up on her-" he said, and I interrupted him.

"She was being stubborn and she wasn't thinking and-."

And then a raised hand accompanied a flash of rage.

He slapped me across the face. Hard.

I stood there silent, mouth wide open, gaping at the cruelty of the man standing before me. Running to my room, I shoved past my mother. She asked what happened, but I just slammed the door closed. My pillow cushions masked the pain I felt, inside and out.

I heard arguing in the kitchen, and then a timid knock at my door.

"Sweetie, can I come in?" my mom spoke quietly, her voice muffled by the door.

"I can hear you just fine from there," I said, stroking the quilt on my bed, finding the softness calming and comforting

"Look, Stephen didn't mean to," she started in, "He feels extremely bad. It's just that his first instincts are to protect me, and he just got so worked up. He's just not that used to kids."

"Then why did you marry him?" I interrupted. Anger began to flood my pores.

"Because I love him," she stated plainly.

"More than your own children?" I asked incredulously.

She sighed, and I heard the pressure on my door release. I won.

Suddenly, I found myself waking up, tear stained and still clutching my soft blanker. I started to rub my face, but stopped quickly as a sharp pain spread across my cheek. I ran to the mirror, and looked up, afraid of, but knowing, what I would see. A bruise bloomed across my cheek.

"Great. One more thing to make me a freak," I thought. And I didn't even have concealer to cover it.

I repeated my morning routine, sent the kids off, and got on my bus.

I could feel the prying eyes of my peer prickling my skin and hear the whispers I could make out certain words; abusive relationship, ouch, slut.

"Great. Now I'm a freak and a slut," I thought.

I slid further to the window, squishing myself to the side of the bus, and started to cry, willing the bus torment to be over quickly. Luckily it was. Unluckily, I had a whole day to be surrounded judgmental people.

As the bus creaked to a stop, I stared at the grey building of criticism. I waited for everyone else to get off before I braved the outside.

I hurried to English class and sat in the back alone like usual. Someone slid into the seat next to me out of the corner of my eye. I took a sharp breath, awaiting a hurtful comment or snicker, and then realized that the bruise was on the right, they were on my left. They wouldn't see it. Relieved, I relaxed.

"Rose, Rose, Rose. Still ignoring me, I see. I was thinking this morning that maybe I should try sitting by you. Maybe that would force you to talk to me. Then, I realized something even better. You are going to have to talk to me. Do you know why?" the a teasing voice asked.

"No," I responded with a roll of my eyes. I then realized that, firstly, I had talked, secondly, the voice belonged to Jay, and thirdly, group assignment. At this final realization, I let out groan of deep dissatisfaction.

"Oh, come on. You were gonna have to have a partner anyway. Might as well be someone you know. Well, sort of know at least," he said in his usual chipper manner.

I didn't say a word.

"Not even gonna look at me, huh? Well, that hurts. That hurts bad," he through an obvious smile as the bell rang.

He was silent after the bell, a class rule, but I could feel him looking at me. I just hoped I would be able to remain faced away from him and keep my secret. Despite his preppy nature, it was a nice change to have someone talk to me. It made me feel semi-normal. I didn't want him seeing my bruise and getting bad ideas about me and my life. I had already seen what his powers of deduction were like, and I didn't want them being used on this.

"Group projects," the Mr. Martin said whilst slamming packets down on his desk, "You will choose a character, explain the significance...." He droned on as I zoned out.

I zoned back in as he began assigning partners.

I was stuck with the one known as Jay.

"Well, at least it can't get any worse," I thought.

I thought wrong.

"The majority of this project will have to be done outside of school, so don't procrastinate. Get together with your partners soon!"

This caused a contagious to rapidly spread across the room.

"I know. I know. I'm sorry, but I have to get my lessons in, too," Mr. Martin said in response to the widespread annoyance.

I could feel Jay smiling at me, and I tried not to feel glad that I was being noticed. I didn't want to get my hopes up that someone would actually care for once.

"Now, I will give you today and today only, to plan your projects. Get started!"

His statement struck fear in my heart, not because I only had a day to plan, but because I would have to face Jay. He was going to see the bruise, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

Jay turned his desk to the side, so that we could face on another. I sat, still as a stone.

"Um, Rose," he chuckled, "You gonna turn?"

I responded with silence.

"Here let me help." He reached to move my desk.

My heart pounded, attempting to leap from my chest, and I immediately put my hand over my bruise to shield it from his prying eyes.

"Okay. Which character are we going to do our presentation on?" he said.

I kept my eyes forward, hand over my face. I didn't move or speak, afraid of what would happen if I did.

"Earth to Rose," Jay said, and tried to move my hand, "You okay?"

I let him move it. It was obvious he wasn't going to stop pestering until he figured out what was happening.

"Woah, what happened?" he asked, worried.

"It's none of your concern," I said and began to pull my English binder from my backpack.

"Well, that's not okay. Whatever happened is not okay!" he said, as close to yelling as a whisper can get.

His intensity was surprising, but I didn't want it to continue.

"Just drop it."

To my astonishment, he did.

Our conversation from there on remained on the topic of English, but awkwardness hung in the air. Jay glanced at my bruised cheek every few minutes like it would just vanish. By the time I began to feel uncomfortable, the bell rang. I was quite thankful. I shoved a piece of paper in his hand.

"My phone number," I said.

He looked up giddily.

"For the project," I added.

"Oh, right," he nodded, "See ya, Rose."

I went about the next three periods dwelling on the English debacle.

I was actually glad that my lonely lunch period had come that day. It meant that I didn't need to focus. I had all the time I needed to let my mind wander.