Girl Unnoticed

Girl Unnoticed [4]

Four

I woke up in the morning relieved that the impending cold had gone away and was able to function normally. My parents had already left once again before I had woken up. Grabbing my bag, I set out to make the tedious walk to school. I kept my head down but I still had my guard up for whatever was to come my way. Casey had never specified when the abusing would begin; she had only mentioned that it would be when I least expected it.

When I reached my locker I saw that it had been vandalized with the word Harlot spray-painted on the door. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who had done it but I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I had dealt with worse things and one little word wasn’t going to bring me down anytime soon. I grabbed my books and sat down on the farthest desk in homeroom. Luckily for me I didn’t have to get out of the classroom since my first class was held there.

The first class began immediately after all the students that weren’t in the class left and I spotted Casey’s friend casually sauntering into the classroom. I hadn’t noticed her being in my English class but it maybe was because the times before I wasn’t attentive enough. She grimaced as she saw me staring at her and sat down on the desk at the front. Another girl sat beside her and they immersed into deep conversation, one that couldn’t be heard from where I was. They would sneak glances at me and whisper to each other.

I sighed in relief when the lunch bell had rung and nothing disastrous had happened to me. I went out into the patio and sat down on the steel bench that was empty, the one I was in before. Eating my sandwich quietly, I remembered that it was Rhys’ bench when he furiously stomped his way over to stand in front of me. I didn’t want to seem too weak but I recoiled at the sight of him.

He crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his lip piercing into his mouth, casually stroking the silver ring with his tongue. “I thought I told you this was my bench,” he said in a throaty voice. I nodded but made no attempt to move out from the bench. “Are you going to get out?” he asked.

When I shook my head I thought that I would get a beating for sure. Rhys proved me wrong when he sighed; letting his shoulders fall and sat down by my side. He took out a sandwich from a brown paper bag and bit roughly into the bread. He smirked when he saw the look of disgust on my face and took another bite, showing me the contents of his mouth as he did so.

I took out my notebook from the bag that I had placed by my side and wrote that he was disgusting on the blank page. He chuckled and shook his head as he took the last bite of what was left of his sandwich. There were at least fifteen minutes left of lunch, which left me with spare time on my hands. I wasn’t sure what to do but I went into the building to my locker. I opened it, staring numbly at the books inside and fidgeting with a loose thread on my jeans.

The clicking of heels echoed in the empty hallway, and I all too quickly shut the door to my locker and hid behind a wall. Casey’s voice was distinguishable in the crowd of three girls walking by. I touched my lip, the one that had a slight cut from when Casey pushed me against the lockers. I dared take a look from the hidden spot I was in and saw Casey’s nose bandaged. It was probably broken and she would need to have some sort of surgery done on it but otherwise she was still standing in one piece.

“When I get my hands on her she’ll regret the day she was ever born. She broke my nose Amanda, now daddy has to pay for me to get it fix next week,” Casey whined.

“So what are we going to do about it? You’re not just going to let her go safe today will you?” Amanda rushed all her questions out.

Casey shook her head, lowering her head so she could whisper to her friend. “She won’t be leaving the school until I allow her to.” They both giggled as they continued their way down the hallway and finally disappearing at a turn.