Beneath the Lights

Nickname

It had been a few days since I had returned to my place. I considered that highly unusual due to the fact that I went up there at least once a day. I found a strange discomfort in the fact that my place wasn't just my place anymore. It had become a space for another person to share their emotion and too look out into the night sky only to come to the realization that things have a way of working themselves out and everything will be okay. Sometimes you just have to take a step back to realize the true serenity of some situations. 

I had been hiding out in my room all day since I got home from school trying to avoid my family. I received a few knocks and a few reassuring questions through the crack of my door, but I only responded with simple, undetailed answers. When I glanced up from my book I had been reading for english class, I noticed my door knob beginnning to slowly turn. A drunk mumbling stepdad appeared in the doorway, sweat beading on his forehead accompanied by glossy eyes. I acknowledged his presence with a roll of the eyes and a deep sigh. 

"Yes, Dick?" I said, not even glancing up to look at him.

"What did you just say?" he muttered.

"Oh I'm sorry, Richard..is there something you wanted?"

"Now you listen here Brie--"

"Please, save me the irrational drunken bullshit about how my mother is the greatest woman you've ever met blah blah blah," I spat.

"Brie, I love your mother very much and we are thinking about getting married and it would be the greatest thing if you would support us," he spoke, barely getting his words out. I stood from my bed to give myself the capability of getting my message across clearly.

"Please, let's not ignore the fact that you want to marry my mother because she is financially stable and everyone knows you're an unsuccessful alcohol who's been divorced twice and has a restraining order from his own children. So do us both a favor, and find some trashy bitch that you actually deserve." 

My words must have hit him pretty hard, but that pain was nothing compared to the throbbing numbness radiating from my cheek. Richard had never been aggressive ever since him and my mom got together about six years ago. However, Richard obviously had a tad too much to drink and my words caused him to backhand me so hard it brought me to my knees. As if that weren't enough, he proceeded to clasp his large hand around my neck and pin me against my white fuzzy carpet that once provided comfort, or so I thought. His face was inches from mine, making the alcohol easier to detect. He began to speak through clenched teeth giving himself the capability of getting his message across loudly & clearly.

"Now, maybe you'll learn to keep your bitchy mouth shut and if you say anything to your mom, I will know and this will happen repeatedly until you get the picture. The beauty of it is if you do say anything, no one will believe you because you my dear, are just a naive teenager stuck in the bitchy phase of girlhood permanently."

As he spit his venomous words I fought back the moisture becoming prominent in my eyes. 

"Do we have an understanding?" He asked applying more pressure to my neck. I blinked my eyes a few times to rid them of the tears and simply nodded my head once. He released his hand, rose from the ground, and walked out of the room shutting the door behind him as if nothing ever happened. I sat for a few minutes in silence staring at the door assuming he'd come back. After what seemed like an hour, I used the little energy my body had left to pull myself off the ground and run down the stairs to escape through the front door. 

Some people say verbal abuse hurts twice as actually being hit. Well, they were lying. There is nothing like the force of a hand coming at you from a middle aged man that drank six Miller Lite's in the last hour. Don't get me wrong, a lot of teenage girls probably get it ten times worse from their crazy step father but they probably cry. I will never cry because of irrational behavior from a neanderthal I couldn't give less of a shit about. Crying is a weakness, and I don't consider myself weak. When I came close to weakness, I went to the only place where I felt that I had strength and power. Sure I walk around like I'm some tough bitch that can take on the world, but no one has the mental capacity to realize that you need to see what's really beneath. 

The car came to a stop and I quickly hopped out to approach the all too familiar railing. I never thought about jumping off of it or anything, I'm not that crazy. Suicide is all sorts of weakness leading up to a grand finale, and that would be selfish because like I said other people have it way worse. It's always the same. The cold metal of the railing calms me down, the breeze clears my senses, and the view clears my head which is exaclty what you need when your cheek is throbbing. However my senses and my head wasn't what needed attention, it was my anger. So I thought of the only logical thing to rid my anger.  The sounds of my scream filled the empy air. It didn't matter that no one could hear me, I could hear me and frankly that's all that mattered. 

"You need to work on your technique," a voice came from beside me. I snapped my head to see a boy standing next to me, well about seven feet away from me, but still next to me. I stared at him in complete confusion.

"What?"

"I can hear the hesitation in your voice. You're scared to let anyone hear you. You really gotta pull it from deep down inside of you," He followed his statement with a deep, solid scream. I recognized him now. It was the mysterious guy from the other night. The guy who came to my place and now he's interrupting my coping mechanism. I continued to just stare at him. His lips curved up into a sarcastic grin when he realized he was just pissing me off more. 

"No? Okay..Well I'm Calum..." he held out his hand as if he expected me to return his handshake. I looked at his hand and back up to his eyes. He immediately lifted his hand behind his head, causing me to flinch before I realized he was just awkwardly moving his fingers through his hair. He bit the inside of his cheek as if he was thinking about something. His eyes shuffled downward and then back up again. 

"No name, alright. Well I guess I'll just call you Scar. See ya around Scar," he spoke with a certain enthusiam before he shuffled to his car with his hands in his pockets, ruffling his hair once more and getting in to drive off. Scar? Out of any odd name he would want to identify me with, why did he choose Scar? Before hurting myself from overthinking I returned to my car to drive home. Before focusing on the road I glanced into the mirror, curious of how rough I looked. Needless to say my cheek was swollen and had a tint of blue to it and then the realization had hit me. I had a small cut pointing diagonally upward on the right corner of my mouth obviously appearing from Richard's oversized ridiculous graduation rings. Come on, no one even wears that graduation ring. 

The cut was deep enough to eventually leave a scar. Of course. Only I would be so unfortunate to be given a scar that would cause a permanent smile and provides the illusion that I am cheerful all the time. It's called an illusion for a reason.