Beauty & Her Bruises

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Thank you, Ruth," I said as I went into the bathroom. She just lent me some of her clothes although she knew they would be very baggy on me. I closed the door behind me and started peeling off my clothes. In the reflection, I couldn't help but stare at my bony and bruised self. There were scars from months ago that were barely visible on my skin and then there were gashes that I could feel. I wanted to cry but I didn't because I'm safe now.

The police were going to arrest my father that night. I would never have to see him again except for in court. Then he would go to jail. Hopefully, he would stay there forever too.

As I pulled the shorts over my body and a shirt over my bra, a knock was at the door. Dustin poked his head in a second later and once he saw that it was safe, he emerged himself in the bathroom. He closed the door behind me and sat on the edge of the bathtub. He stared at me as I stared in the mirror.

"I don't need my ribs fixed," I said. I turned around and stared at Dustin. "I'm just so used to it now and everything has grown around it." Dustin opened his arms and I sat next to him and leaned my head on his shoulders.

"But it'll be hard for you to breathe," he said. I didn't feel any different except when I was actually getting beaten. After that, I got used to the pain so quickly that I just accepted it the way it was. No complaining or whining about my abuse. "And Ruth said you could live here until you go to college. If you're not dorming, you'll just have to pay rent."

I nodded my head and looked over at Dustin. "Are you moving back with your parents any time?" I wrapped my arms around him.

"I don't know when they want me back," he said. "But I hope I don't leave for a long time." He looked at me and kissed me on the lips when I turned to look at him. When we pulled apart, the kiss felt exactly like it had the first time.

Special and tender.

When Dustin got off of the tub, he held his hand for me to place mine in his. My hand was sweaty so I didn't want to but after a while, I did. Dustin was shocked but in the end, he didn't care. He lead me from the bathroom and down the stairs. I joined everybody in the seats of the living room.

Ruth's house wasn't expensive but it was definitely better than my old one. There was heat in every room and every room had electricity. Their living room was beige with carpeting blue. It sounded ugly when I first heard about it but it looked good together. The couches were beige too and all of the wood was the same color.

I didn't take in account much of anything else because I'll be spending most of my time in the living room. It was my new bedroom until Ruth could clean out the spare bedroom. That bedroom currently had junk all over the bedsheets and she had to change everything so I would like it. I protested but she didn't mind having to redo it. She was actually really excited because she always thought that room was ugly but had no reason to redo it.

"So are you guys dating?" Malcolm asked. He came over when Liam, Dustin, Ruth, and I went to the police station. Liam called Malcolm and Malcolm drove the jeep to the station. Liam always walked to the library since it wasn't that far away. Ruth invited them over to her house because she was having a dinner with all of us. She wanted to thank them for looking over me when she was oblivious to the signs of my abuse.

The police were almost immediate when I said I was abused. They were disgusted but they knew that once father was in jail, they would probably say he was in jail for murder. Prisoners are said to gang up and kill rapists and child abusers. Mostly because most of them have children.

I looked at Dustin and he looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders but Dustin blushed when he said yes to them. Malcolm was the one who go excited about it. I'm sure he was even more excited about our relationship than him and Liam's.

"You guys are so cute together! Remember Zara, I called it!" I nodded my head and Liam put his hand on Malcolm's arm. It calmed him down but I loved seeing Malcolm getting excited about everything.

"I'm glad you guys are together," Liam finally said. Then he turned to Dustin and had the most serious face he could manage on. "But if you touch her, you better move back with you parents because I will literally kill you." Dustin nodded his head and knew it.

I knew Dustin would never raise his hand to anyone though. If he had, he probably would've hit me a couple of times because I've been so stubborn with telling him information on anything in my life. When I did, I'm sure he felt the weight come off of his shoulders. I don't usually trust people but it felt good for me to trust someone too.

"I'm going to tell Ruth that that was a good dinner," Liam said. He grabbed his dirty plate and walked out. He was the slowest eater of all of us because I felt him staring at me the whole time. By the end of the meal though, I'm sure he knew I wasn't anorexic. I was just too poor to buy food and father would never share his.

"Malcolm, I have a question for you," I said. I sat up in the couch and escaped from Dustin's clutch. He didn't seem to mind but instead, he just adjusted himself on the couch too. "There was a point in my life where you stopped talking to me. I actually thought Liam was brainwashing you into thinking that I was the enemy."

"Oh," Malcolm said. "No Liam never said anything like that." He sat up too and I knew he was going to explain his side of the story. "It was actually because Liam told me what he saw that one day." I nodded my head and knew what he was talking about. The only one left in the dark was Dustin but he will never know the torture in details of what I went through. "We've been trying really hard to figure out how to get you away safely." Malcolm smiled a bit at a memory. "You could've told us that we lived next to you."

"I couldn't."

"Yeah, but after all of those times in the bakery I was bashing on my neighbors. Saying their lawn looked ghetto and trashy."

"It was."

Malcolm only smiled and shook his head at me. "Well, I'm gonna tell Liam that we have to get going."

"Be careful," I immediately started out.

"We'll be fine." Malcolm began getting up and pointed towards Dustin. "Treat little Zar-Zar right." Dustin smiled wide and nodded his head. As soon as he was out of the room, Dustin turned to me and I knew that he was going to pick on me for the name that I was given.

"Zar-Zar?" he asked.

"Shut up. I'm sure I could come up with a gross name with Dustin." He immediately challenged me to and it took me two minutes before I said my response. "Disgusting Dustin?"

"That was terrible." I knew it was but I didn't need to hear that it was.

"Oh, hey, where did Ruth want those clothes that I left upstairs?" I asked. Dustin shrugged his shoulders and I rolled my eyes. "Well I'm going to pick them up."

He nodded his head and I slowly walked up the stairs. There was no need for me to rush so I wasn't going to. I just hope that Liam and Malcolm didn't leave before I came back down. I wanted to say thanks to them and tell them goodbye.

I grabbed the clothes on the bathroom floor and when I came back to the living room, Dustin was no longer in there. Since I knew where Ruth was, I went in there with a smile on my face. It was immediately wiped off when I saw all of the boys and Ruth sitting there with a slight worried expression on their face.

Ruth was staring at the phone on the coffee table and I immediately got frightened for her. Dustin was clutching his mother's shoulder and wouldn't stop staring at me. Liam and Malcolm were sitting down and were holding hands next to each other. When they noticed that I was there, Ruth wiped away a little snot from her nose. She wasn't crying but I knew that what she was going to tell me was a little saddening.

"Zara, your father is dead. They diagnosed it as alcohol poisoning." Everybody looked at me to see what my reaction was. The only thing I did was shrug my shoulders and accidentally say out loud what I was supposed to keep in my mind.

"Good, I hope he rots in hell."