Shirbert in the Modern Era

Chapter Ten: A Bloody Nose

Anne knew something was wrong immediately. She shakily brought her hand up to her nose and felt the warm blood gushing out.

Her eyes widened and she shot up from her seat like a rocket. People around who had seen her get hit with the ball were all asking her if she was okay. Urgent whispers rippled through the bleachers. She ignored them.

Anne had to get out of the gym before people started laughing.

She started to speed walk towards the exit, tears threatening to spill down her face.

"Anne wait!" Gilbert said following her.

Anne ignored him, red hair swishing behind her as she escaped the gym.

She slowed to a walk in the linoleum hallway, relieved she could no longer hear the shouting of her peers.

Her relief was short lived though, because she soon heard Gilbert calling after her.

"Anne," He said, catching up to her, "are you okay? That looked pretty bad."

Anne fumed. "I am well aware of how bad it looked, Gilbert. That's why I left quickly so that I could fix it." She glared at him, "Alone."

Gilbert was hurt, but he tried not to let it show.
"What are we going to do?"

"I," She said pointedly "am going to go to the nurse. You should go back to the gym."

"Anne, I'm not going to leave you all by yourself when you're bleeding all over the place!"

"I am not-" Anne started, but stopped when she saw her hands. They were covered in blood, she looked like a murderer. She supposed her face wasn't faring much better.

"Goddamit," she thought, "I look disgusting, hideous probably. Gilbert must think I'm atrocious."

Blood filled her cheeks, she felt her face heat up. Her lips quivered as she felt tears of pain and frustration pooling in her eyes. She remembered to a particularly nasty foster family she used to live with, one she tried hard to forget.

Her foster sister, a mousy girl named Janine, used to punch her arms hard for their entire bus ride to school. She would kick Anne under the table during dinner, and she particular loved thrusting her palm at Anne's nose to see if it would bleed. Anne went to bed every night with a host of new bruises and scratches.

When she told her foster parents, they laughed jovially and told her to walk it off and ignore Janine.

It got to the point where Anne was wincing whenever she tried to move, and she stayed away from Janine as much as possible for fear of another beating. She couldn't hit Janine back because then she would go crying to her parents, and Anne would get sent away and branded a violent, evil orphan.

Snapping back to the present, Anne turned on her heel and ran the rest of the way to the nurse, tears jolting silently down her face.

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A/N
- yahoo I updated
-sorry this is shortish but I wanted to get it out
-I'm thinking of doing shorter but more frequent updates(?)
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