No More Lies, I Promise - The Watty Awards 2011

No More Lies, I Promise - Chapter 4

I sighed, examining my pitiful face in the bathroom mirror.

The bruise on my cheek was still brown and sore, and now I had another on my jaw bone. Great. And lifting up my shirt revealed, as I had suspected, more bruising.

My hair, face, clothing and hands were coated in dried mud and leaves.

But worst of all, there was a great patch of singed hair. Just looking at it  brought back all of it.

A mixture of pain and hate surged around inside me.

I'd known they were evil, but I'm never thought Jessica was that bad. Did she know how terrified I'd been? Did she care? Probably not.

After she found out about my dad and her mum, she seemed to take it upon herself to make life hell for me. She told everyone, the whole school. While my mum had been so upset about her betrayal, I had the rumours spread around school. After that, people avoided me like the plague. They had started with the truth. The fact my dad had had an affair with Jessica's mum. But then they had escalated into lies. Accusations. They had turned whole groups against me and made my life worse and worse. Jessica had friends in pretty much every group in our year. The rumours spead through them all, and they all hated me to keep their friendship with Jessica. To be cool. If they didn't hate me then, they did after Jessica and her gang began to pick on me and anyone I hung around with. She turned me into an outcast; the girl no one wanted to be with.

There was only a few exceptions. Lizzie, for one. I thought back to her dark complection, those pitying brown eyes. And, now, Finn. That little boy excepted me, even in my awful state. I could still picture his cute blue eyes. I smiled at the memory, but it faded with the image of his slashed skin.

Poor boy.

I switched the shower on and, when the water was hot, pulled off my school uniform and stepped into the flow of water and shut the shower curtain behind me. I thought nothing more of the day, only the hear-and-now, the rush of hot water over my dirty skin.

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I settled myself into the armchair and felt my body relax for the first time today. My pyjama's were warm from being on the radiator, and they soothed my tense muscles. It was comforting to know that while the rain battered the windows and the dark night closed in I was safe and warm inside my own house, and I didn't have to worry about anything until tomorrow morning.

Bring! Bring, Bring!

Damn. The phone. I sighed and dragged myself from the chair and searched for the telephone, my search getting more and more desperate at the annoying ringing tone carried throughout the quiet house.

I found the telephone in my mum's study as the answer phone cut in. I picked it up before they could leave a message.

"Hello?"

"Hey sweetie, it's me," my mum sighed, her normally cheery voice sounded tired and worn. I could hear undefinable sounds in the background. "I'm sorry darling, but I'm stuck in a stupid tail-back. There's been some sort of accident further up and I can't get through. The time police have estimated it to be clear is around 6 hours."

I glanced at the clock. 9:19. She would be back at around 2 in the morning.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, darling, sorry. But you can make your own tea, right? Or you can go into my office and borrow some money for chips or something."

"Sure," I replied.

"So how was your day? Learn much?" She was just making conversation

"It was fine," I lied. I hadn't had a fine day, and I hadn't learnt anything either.