Concrete Angel

She walks to school with the lunch she packed

Nobody knows what she's holdin' back

She can feel several stares on her back as she enters the doors to school and ignores mostly everyone to go to her locker and take out her books for the day, hiding her lunch underneath others so it doesn't get stolen.

Wearin' the same dress she wore yesterday

She hides the bruises with linen and lace, oh

Usually, she would put her jacket over it and catch up to El who is standing expectantly at the door to their classroom, but today she wraps it tightly around herself as she walks the short distance towards her, hoping she doesn't notice that today's outfit is literally the same she wore yesterday.

It wasn't her favourite dress, she had prettier stuff of course that wasn't so tacky and "little girl" ish plus she'd rather be wearing jeans, but it hid the marks Neil left on her last night from when he beat her up due to Billy not being home and she had no clean clothes, so it works.

The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask

It's hard to see the pain behind the mask

Her Homeroom teacher notices, however, given her eyes trace Maxine's head all the way to her toes in almost disapproval, but there's a hesitancy and questioning behind her eyes that makes Max's chest feel like it's about to cave in before her eyes are drawn elsewhere in the room and it thankfully subsides so she can move again and not feel frozen to the ground.

Bearing the burden of a secret storm

Sometimes she wishes she was never born

Sitting in her seat is agony and she muffles her groans as she tries to get to work and not be distracted, even if El can see she's off and tries her best to cheer her up, even just a little.

It's so kind of her, but she knows that despite El's gift of literally being a ball of sunshine mixed with a raging hurricane when she wants to be, she can't fix everything.

Especially her.

Through the wind and the rain

She stands hard as a stone

No one can /actually/ fix her, she knows that. Not unless some miracle happens. She thinks of her Dad often, given he's back home, in her real home of California. How he's feeling right now. Sure, he's only able to call once a week and all that, but she wishes she could find it in herself to speak up to him. Brace for the hit, the clamping of hands over her mouth as Neil struggles to shut her up and she screams for him to help her. It's a fleeting dream that leaves her mind as soon as the bell rings and she's off again.

In her world that she can rise above

But her dreams give her wings

Over the day, she runs into the gang, given El can't keep her hands off Mike for two seconds and everyone's allowed to tease them about it and it's here that she feels safe for once, just enjoying /being/ with people that aren't constantly on the verge of hurting her somehow.

And she flies to a place where she's loved

Concrete angel

It ends all too soon though. Days, they always end and she hates it. She doesn't care about the day. She could do nothing in the day and still be satisfied as she's away from the house, from her family, free to run around like she's a 5-year-old without many consequences.

It's sunset that makes the fear seep into her, the bright streaks of fading colour across the sky that tells her she has to go home for dinner, so she can have some more than anything, but also so Neil doesn't lock her out like he does Billy or comes searching. Anything but.