The Scars She Hides

Part 1 - The Tutor

CHARLOTTE

My sweat shirt was clinging to my back. It must have been 100 degrees out, not a cloud in the sky. Of course this was the day that the P.E. The teacher decided to take to the track. I wiped the beaded sweat from my upper lip, and continued to jog just behind the group of girls in front of me. As I ran in circles aimlessly during that hour of P.E. my thoughts kept wandering to the Uni buildings across the road.

After the incident, I moved across the country to live with my grandparents. They were retired doctors in Arizona, who happened to have nothing better to do than raise and dote on their one and only grandchild after . . . well, after. As soon as Grams knew I was coming, she called in some favours and enrolled me in Atteberry Preparatory Academy. A top tier private school that almost guaranteed graduates admittance to the even more prestigious Atteberry University. Which happened to be down the road within eyesight.

I had to share a dorm room, which was unfortunate. But my grandmother got permission for me to leave campus and stay with them on the weekends. I say "got permission" lightly. Really she got a signed note from my therapist saying it would be "most beneficial for me to spend time around those I was familiar with..."after my accident.

Every Friday after class I had a mandatory check in with the good ol' quack. He would go over the routine questions, talk to me about any residual feelings about what had happened last summer, and assign me some homework for the upcoming week. It was all very ... "healthy". I would much rather keep it all to myself, and bury it in the deepest darkest, dustiest corners of my mind... But then again, that's the point of therapy isn't it? To deal with trauma in a healthy way?

Wiping my face again, I gave the buildings a sad press of my lips. The old Charlotte would have screamed at the thought of her life planned out like that. The old Charlotte would have wanted to move away from her house of horrors and live a life free of commitments and responsibility. . . Not practically committing herself to another 6 years of schooling and crazy requirements. The old Charlotte was gone and dead now. HE saw to that.

When we had finally completed our required laps, the PE teacher gathered us at the locker room doors. Sweaty, hungry, and boiling in the Arizona sun, we were all actually dying to get inside. I was hardly listening when the teacher said something that got my attention.

"Next week is the swimming portion of the semester. Since the pool is indoors, we will be continuing this session until fall break." She might have continued speaking, but all I could focus on was my breathing. I couldn't swim. I mean I could swim, I knew how to. But I couldn't strip down in front of that many people. They would see everything. All of the evidence of last summer written across my body like a bloody horror story. I tugged on my sweatshirt sleeve, covering my hands more fully. I couldn't just say - 'I'm sorry Mrs. PE teacher, I can't go swimming. I'm too emotionally and physically damaged to show that much skin in front of other people.'... I mean... maybe I could, you never know what would fly these days. But I would rather just keep the whole 'damaged goods' thing to myself. I was going to have to come up with something before next monday. And I could only fake being sick for so many days. Claiming to be on my period would only buy me a week at most. It was going to have to be something more serious than a tummy ache or cramps.

Later that day:

"Miss Brown-"

"Allen." I corrected it quietly, automatically. "I go by Allen please." I amended to be more polite. The Maths teacher gave me a slow nod, and studied me for a moment.

"Miss Allen," He begun again. "Your last test score was disturbingly low for someone who has gotten nearly 100's on the previous chapter..." He raised his eyebrow at me, waiting for an explanation. I fiddled with my sweater, my nerves making the next words come out of my mouth a little wobbly.