Bruises • Stanley Uris •

prologue

Adeline Finch sat with her swollen and battered legs pulled tightly to her chest. Her arms were wrapped tightly around them, like a boa constrictor squeezing its helpless prey until the life drained from its scared eyes. Her head sat solemnly attop her knees, trying to make herself as small as she felt inside of her scattered thoughts.

The water in the rust stained bathtub had turned cold at this point, but Adeline couldn't find it in herself to unwrap her arm from her legs and reach forward to turn on the hot water. She stared blankly at the tiled wall where a sticker of a neon colored turtle sat. The sides were starting to fold in on themselves and the color was slowly beginning to drain from the image.

Adeline slowly rose her finger to trace over the outline of the sticker, the rough texture coming into contact with her skin. Her already ragged breathing started to furiously shake as a tear rolled down her cheek.

She slowly lowered her hand and let it coil back around her legs. Adeline lifted her head and turned it in the other direction. By the bathroom door sat a worn out jansport backpack and a small suitcase, the two items withholding her past. That thought made her entire body ache, that was all she had left of her old life.

Adeline stood in front of a dirty, body length mirror in her bedroom, staring at her reflection. Addie had never considered herself to be pretty. With her long limbs and crooked teeth she didn't see how anyone could. She got bullied when she was younger for being taller than some of the boys at her school and that put a large damper on her already weak self-esteem.

Adeline sighed and turned away from the mirror, not wanting to think about her appearance anymore. She walked over to her closet and pulled out the black dress her mother had told her to wear, looking down at it with hatred. Not that she hated the dress, just the reason for putting it on.

Addie pulled the scratchy fabric over her head and down her body. She reached her long, skinny fingers behind her back and desperately tried to grasp the zipper, but she couldn't seem to reach. She grunted and brought her arms back down to her sides. “God damn it,” she whispered from in-between her teeth.

“Woah there tiger, better learn to hold your tongue before mommy dreasets hears you.” Her sisters words came from behind her, slipping past her lips like silk. Calista walked up behind her younger sister and started to pull up the zipper.

“I don't get why we have to go to these stupid dinner parties anyway.”  The fact that Adeline and her sisters were forced to dress up and go to these parties had always frustrated the girl. Her parents were never around anyways, always leaving for business trips and only coming back for five or six days before shipping off again. Why should the girls have to go if their parents were never around to tell them what the latest party was about?

"You know the rules Addie, we go to the dinner parties once a month, let mom and dad talk to their doctor friends for a while and then we leave. The only upside to this is that I get to hookup with Will Adams' son in the coat room, the things that boy can do with his tongue." Calista finished with a long far off look and a sigh.

Addie gagged, grabbed her stomach and turned towards her sister, "God I think I'm gonna puke, please don't tell me what you do with weird guys behind closed doors." Addie walked over to her bed and sat down to put on her heels as her sister chuckled. Calista flopped herself down on to the bed, her dress slightly flying up as she landed. The older girl looked at her sister, worriedly biting on her bottom lip.

" Promise me we'll never end up like Mom and aunt Diana, we only ever get to see her like once a year and even then her and mom are fighting. I don't know what I would do if that happened to us."