Love Hurts.

Chapter 9

I woke on Monday morning happily snuggled in my own bed, well squashed against  the wall as Daisy spread her lithe limbs over my bed; I smiled at her cute face. She immediately came over with Amber when I was home on Sunday and hadn’t left me since, Amber left at 8ish but Daisy made herself at home; I wasn’t fussed she was just like another member of the family.

I kept to my original story, I couldn’t tell anyone, not yet anyway. I’d promised myself that. If he tried anything again then I would go to the police and tell them everything, and I meant everything. My tummy clenched at the thought, I would have to tell them every sordid detail…

I made myself calm down, knowing how easily I could have a panic attack now I knew he could be watching me, at any time. I thought about going back to school, I almost changed my mind, mum said I didn’t have to go, there would be lots of rumours circulating at how I got my battered face, but that’s all they would be, rumours, nobody except me knew the true story; besides I needed to see Connor again, he was like a drug to me, and right now I was having some serious withdrawal symptoms from him.

My alarm went off and Daisy groaned as she opened an eye to glare at me.

“I hate mornings, we should bunk off” she suggested.

“I gotta face the music at some point, I’d rather just get it over with.” I replied butterflies consuming my stomach.

“Meeeh” she grumbled, “Okay then” she squealed as she stretched her arms above her head before jumping out of bed to try and wake herself up.

I slowly followed suit, we got dressed into our uniforms,  I sat in front of my mirror whilst Daisy sat on my bed behind me, she did my hair carefully to cover the small bald patch where…he…had pulled on it, ripping out some hair.

Then there was my face.

All the left hand side of my face was a mixture of colours, yellow pink, purple and black. There was no way I could hide this. I put my make up on as usual and inspected it again.

“Fucking great” I moaned, the make-up had barely taken the edge off of it. It was still clearly there.

“Babe, don’t worry about it, apparently that Stacey girl is pregnant, so I can tell you now, you might get a few looks but you won’t be the hot topic of conversation.” She gave me a reassuring smile.

Seeing Connor would be worth it, then I twigged, it was Monday I didn’t even have a lesson with him today! My day immediately looked even bleaker than before, if that was possible.

I took a deep breath and went downstairs.

We walked into school for form and Daisy linked my arm and started babbling about some nonsense but I couldn’t even hear her, all I could see was all the eyes glaring at my face, some people clearly had no shame.

“Don’t even look at them” she suddenly said sternly.

“Okay” I mumbled and looked at the floor instead, pretending to listen to what Daisy was saying as we entered form and I prepared myself.

 A deep intake of breath from my form tutor as I walked through the door; I had chosen not to tell school what had happened, I didn’t want any pity. I just wanted to get on with it.

We sat down with the rest of our group – they were all aware of what had happened, well the cover up of what had happened – they gave me a sympathetic look, Aiden and Zach gave anyone glares that looked like they were going to ask me what had happened, they all thought better of it.

“Um…Sarah, can I see you outside for a moment please.” Mrs Stot asked, even though I knew I actually didn’t have a choice.

I nodded and reluctantly up from my seat, and wandered over to the door she held open to me.