7 years later:
"Alice, get your lazy ass up!" Uncle Will shook me until I woke up. "Get ready for school." He told me and left. I remembered. Last day of 10th grade. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I brushed my long messy blond hair. I looked at myself in the mirror as a roach crawled across it. I washed my face with the bar of hand soap that I worked hard to get like everything else Uncle Will bus me. I scrubbed my face. I felt the bruise on my cheek, forgetting it was there, and I winced a little. He only does it when he's drunk. He can't control it. I tell myself the same thing over and over. I rinsed my face and towel dried it. I pulled my toothbrush out of the plastic bag it was in (so that no bugs get in it) and brushed my teeth. I went to my closet and pulled out my AC/DC shirt that my friend, Jackie's mom bought me. I put on my ripped jeans and my beat up old converse. "Hurry up, or you'll miss the damn bus!" Uncle Will called out from the couch. He was watching tv. I grabbed my bag and hurried out the door. I caught the bus just as it pulled up. I got on and sat with Jackie. "That shirt again?" She said and rolled her eyes. I shrugged and laughed. "Well, if you would accept all the offers for free shopping trips my mom does, you'd have different shirts to choose from." She said. "You know why I don't do that." I said. I don't like people feeling bad for me. "You know, my mom nearly jumped out of her skin when you accepted the AC/DC shirt." She said. "She already bought the shirt and I didn't want it to go to waste. Plus they are a great band." I said. She rolled her eyes. The bus pulled up to the junior high. We got up. Jackie looked at my face. "Alice, what happened to your face?" She asked me. I lied, "I fell off my bed." She looked at me and nodded suspiciously. "You know, you can tell me anything." She said and we stepped off the bus. I nodded. But I felt like I couldn't tell her. She would go and tell her mom and she would confront Uncle Will and who knows what he'd do to me then. I couldn't tell anyone.
