Fake Me To Church

Twelve Years Ago

Part Six

The first thing Lane noticed when she awakened was the throbbing. As if the skin had been scraped from her inner thigh and flayed away until just above her shins, the vicious aches erupted and snaked wildly, unforgivingly.

Trying to bend her knees ever so slightly seemed at once to send blazes of pain up the middle of her legs, so much so that she might've screamed or cried for help had her voice not been so dry and desiccated from a night spent wailing between coarse flesh and the chafed protrusions of carpeted floors.

Amid shrill moans and the rebounding burn of her raw nerves, Lane finally managed to drag and crawl her way out of bed, nearly toppling to the icy floor as she took her first tentative step toward the tiny desk where she'd set her makeup the previous morning.

After gripping her cosmetics bag in her left hand, she trembled to her room's only door and cracked it open. A flush of goosebumps exploded along her upper arms and legs as she peered down the hall, terrified that some tall man, some hefty and imposing figure, might be staring back at her—would he steal her away again, and in broad daylight no less?

Would she scream?

Could she scream?

As Lane pushed the door further, the hallway's crisply chilled wind sailed into her room, at once stroking through her hair and watering her eyes.

She blinked twice, then narrowed her gaze.

Down the tiled and dingy hall, she spotted the bathroom; its door hung open, allowing the artificial glow of incandescent bulbs to light a triangle against the ceramic flooring. She crept forward on tiptoes until she arrived at the entrance, then locked the door behind her once she made it inside.

Lane looked up into the mirror, that ragged and flushed reflection of her own face staring back from behind the smudged glass.

But that wasn't her.

It couldn't be her.

Who was this girl with cheeks so red as to match her eyes? What were those dark purple, finger-shaped stains that appeared to encircle her throat as if in a chokehold? And why did a similarly dark circle blemish her left temple? Why did reddish streaks smear across her cheekbones, and what was that tiny collection of scabs that she now spotted above her shoulder—carpet burn?

Fingers quaking, Lane launched both hands into the partially unzipped makeup bag that she'd set on the counter. She shut her eyes as squirts of Lizöella perfumed the bathroom air, then coated her lips with glittering lemony gloss. She felt around in her bag for the fluffed edges of a bronzer brush, then a powder—but wait, why bronzer first?

Cover it! I just have to cover it all up! her brain screamed, but her hands gripped instead a stippling brush. The bristled edges could help her lay a glorious foundation of milky apricot! Or maybe she should start with a rouge champagne as a base? Would the rubicund striations that marred her jaw then cease to appear?

Reopening her eyes at last, Lane spotted herself again in the mirror, this time feeling a surge of fresh hot tears. She released her hold on the brushes and polishers, and her palms shot up instantly to grip her crèmed blond hair. But rather than stroke and caress, Lane found herself pulling it to wrap the sides of her face like a golden vanilla scarf.

"Th—that's it," she whispered to her reflection. "Look...look at that. They're all gone now...the bruises are gone. They're gone! They're not here anymore; they...they're—" Low breaths slipped between her lips, punctuated by higher-pitched ones that escaped as gasps. "Y-y-you're so pretty," she told herself. "You're gorgeous...you are...you're soooo gorgeous, Lane."