State of Grace (Complete)

Disappearing Grace

Ch 34.

At the end of the week, I have started going to my two remaining classes, and it is okay for the most part. The four boys take turns walking me around the school, and the door of my locker has been fixed. I am starting to do missed assignments from during study hall, and it's actually nice to feel like I am doing something again. For the first few months of school I'm pretty sure my brain atrophied a bit. Chris and Ian take me to counselling again, and Dr. Minders is thrilled that I've been to school all week. This time they wait outside while I have my session and this week is tougher.

"How is your father doing?" she asks. I consider this and have no idea of the answer. He hasn't spoken to me since before the birth of Xavier. I don't know if he even cares that something bad has happened to me.

"I don't really know."

We spend the next hour talking about my dad, our relationship, and his problems with responsibility and women. The whole session is interesting, and when I'm done, I feel kind of like a bit of weight has been lifted from me. My homework for next week is to start a journal, and she even gives me a little paisley book filled with lined paper and a heavy blue pen. "Each page has a writing prompt and you are to write for at least ten minutes, without stopping, about the prompt. It helps to get things out, even if you can't talk about them. Writing helps."

The boys have been fantastic so far, all of them, and I am beginning to feel guilty about all the time they are spending with me. It's not that I'm not grateful, I am, but I don't want them to resent me. At school on Monday, I tell them that they don't have to walk me everywhere, things seem to be going okay. It's been almost three weeks and the bruises are completely gone, so I am ready to try and do a few things for myself. Ian walks me to study hall in the morning, and Chris will meet me at English. I should be fine. The boys will still sit with me at lunch, but we will be in the cafeteria. I still can't stand to be touched, but if I am careful in the hall, it should be fine.

It does go fine, and so does Tuesday, but I know Chad's still in the building, and so are some of his friends. On Wednesday, when I am in study hall during first period, a note gets lobbed onto my table. I can't tell who did it, because there are about fifteen other people there, and no one appears to be paying me any attention. It's a typed piece of paper with the message, 'how did you like it whore?' on the centre of the page. Crumpling it, I toss it on my books and go to Mrs. Simpson for permission to get a drink. I need water, my head is spinning and I am shaking. When I get out to the hall, there is a group of four people late for class walking near me. I know two of them and they seem to be looking at me funny. Tonya, one of the girls who I know was at the party, steps forward.

"We all saw you leave with him, you blonde bitch. You had your tongue down his throat. Where do you get off ruining his life?" her voice is low and lethal, her words cutting into whatever confidence I had, and I don't know how to respond.

"I..I..." I can't say anything. They push by me hard, one of them hitting against my breasts, and I gasp, falling to the ground. Laughing, they walk away, and I pick myself up and run. I leave the building and go. I need to change, be different, be invisible. I'm wearing the most shapeless clothes I have, I have gotten so thin, I've lost my curves, but it's not enough. My looks have always garnered me attention, my golden locks a beacon, and they need to go. I want to lose the instant identification. I thought my looks were power, but really they were a way for people to box me in.

I pick the plainest colour I can find, a mousy brown, and plop my money on the cash, not waiting to be rung in, and I go home. My mom is out, which is odd, except she's actually been up a lot more lately. Either way, I'm happy she's not home. I grab the scissors from the kitchen and go to the bathroom. I take big handfuls of my hair and hack at it. Golden threads fall around me. Inches and inches of hair fall, and with each cut my head feels lighter. My hair was almost at my waist before and now it's at most hitting my shoulders. I don't care what it looks like, I just want it gone. I tear open the box and pour the dye on my hair, rubbing it in dark drops falling in the sink, like gobs of mud.