Pretty When She Cries (TeacherxStudent)

Chapter One: Scars of the Past

Hello everyone, this is the first chapter of my new book.  This is going to be a teacher x student story, and will be a darker piece.  I would NOT recommend this story to younger readers, as it contains adult content, allusions to domestic violence, sexual assault, graphic scenes, sexual content, and violence.  PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION.

With all that said and done, please enjoy!

Chapter One: Scars of the Past

She rubbed carefully at the pink, puckered skin at her abdomen, gently massaging the cream in.  The two scars were bold, standing out against her unblemished skin staunchly.  Her eyes naturally found the scars, tracing down their lengths and jagged edges.  Her eyes always found the marks, always.  She knew them in their entirety so intimately that she would sooner recognize them than her own face.

They were fading, excruciatingly slowly, but they were fading still.  She knew those scars, knew them like the back of her hand.  They were what defined her, they were what made her who she was.  She hated looking them, hated always knowing that they were there, hated the person they had sculpted her into, but above all, she hated how they had changed her life.  All happiness, all love, all humanity, all hope had vanished from her life the moment they had appeared.

They were not so ugly, she had foolishly decided many months ago.  And she was right, the scars themselves were far from grotesque, they were small, barely discernible to the foreign eye, but what they represented was the most hideous thing she had ever experienced.  When she looked at them, she saw death, she saw destruction, she saw betrayal.

She looked at herself in her vanity mirror.  The black of her basic bra provided vivid contrast to her pale sickly skin, but it paled so incredibly in comparison to the scars.  She quickly looked away, refusing to look at herself for a moment more.  She pulled a camisole over her head, hiding the scars from view, but she could still see them, could still feel them, still knew that they were there.

"Hey Em," a voice said from the door.  She felt her body tense and recoil, her heart pumping as fear saturated her veins.  Her head snapped to the side and saw that it wasn't him.  Jeremy stood in the door frame, a sheepish smile on his face as he looked at her with concern.  "Sorry, I knocked, but I guess you didn't hear.  Are you putting the special scar stuff on?"

"Yeah, I am," she said, her heart still hammering in her chest, the fear slowly dissipating but never completely disappearing.

"You want me to do the ones on your back?" he asked, attempting a smile, but it never reached his eyes.  He walked further into the room and she had to keep reminding herself that it was just Jeremy, that he wasn't going to hurt her, that he wasn't him.

"Alright," she said, her face grim as she handed him the medicated balm.

"I'll do the ones on your lower back first, okay?", he asked, moving toward her slowly as if she were a skittish animal ready to bolt at any second.  She took a breath and turned her back towards him, watching his movements in the mirror intently, readying herself to run.  He was her cousin, her only friend, her blood, but she knew from experience that anyone can turn on you at any time.

She watched as he lifted up her camisole, saw the look on his face as he looked at the scars on her back.  He looked so broken, so forlorn, so sorry.  She didn't want to see him like this, it ripped her apart inside to see that look in his eyes, especially when she knew that she was the cause, but she couldn't look away.

He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the work ahead of him.  When he opened them, that look was gone, replaced with a charade of muted excitement and a opportune smile.  The eyes of their reflections met, and she immediately saw the lie on his face.  Not even her dear cousin could bluff himself out of this, not even he could make her think that her scars and the memories they brought forth were meaningless.