A Bruised Soul

        Megan looked at her black and blue arm in the convenience store bathroom mirror. The shuffling feet she heard outside of the door made her pulse quicken and her heart start to pound. What if it was him? The feet ambled by the bathroom and she was convinced that it couldn't be her boyfriend. There was no way it could be Tony, because he would be beating on the bathroom door, and commanding her to hurry.

She studied her arm again and tried to do it with detachment. Megan stretched it out in front of her and winced in pain. He had really been upset with her last night. Tony had been convinced that she was cheating on him. The idea was completely absurd to her, but not to Tony. She turned her attention from her arm and lifted her shirt to examine the fist-sized bruises all over her chest. It hurt to breathe, and she didn't dare touch her breasts.

Megan clutched the sink, and bit her lip in an effort to contain her sobs. Tony was her first long-term boyfriend. She'd always heard her friends talk about the intensity that comes with first love, but she never expected things to be like this. When he became angry with her, like he had been last night, it hurt, confused, and terrified her.

She never thought that she, Megan Armstrong, senior class Valedictorian, honor student in her freshman year of college, would be an abused woman. She was smart, and she had always assumed that battered women were dumb for staying with abusive men. Now she knew that wasn't the truth.

"Megan, what are you doing in there?" Tony's deep voice shouted at her through the thick bathroom door.

"I'm coming," she replied meekly.

She gave her face a quick once over, hoping that Tony wouldn't notice her tear-stained cheeks. He probably wouldn't. Tony was pretty thick-headed about those types of things. In fact, he never felt that he was doing anything wrong to Megan when he was abusing her. He usually assumed responsibility when she would threaten to leave him. At least, he would eventually.

At first, when she made threats to leave Tony, he became belligerent, following that he would develop into a humble beggar and then he would own up to what he had done to her, and usually apologize profusely and buy her roses or some other type of frivolous gift.

Megan raised a trembling hand to turn the doorknob. She dreaded getting back into the car with him and continuing their trip. Tony was going home for the summer and so was she, but they had decided to take a road trip together since they probably would be spending most of their summer break apart.

As Megan walked out of the restroom, she noticed Tony standing in line at the register. She wished that she had the keys to his pride and joy, his black Mustang convertible. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she would leave him stranded at the gas station if she did. As she walked out to the car in defeat, Megan reflected on what had happened last night.

She had gone out with a couple of her roommates and their friends, to celebrate the end of the semester, and even though Tony had acted as though it didn't bother him that she was going out, it was quite a different story once it had come time for her to actually leave with them. She leaned against the Mustang and recalled the way her boyfriend had acted the night before.

"Why are you fixing up?" Tony said. He stood behind her. Tony kept silent, waiting for her to answer. Despite his accusatory tone, she'd hoped he was in a good mood, but when she glanced his reflection in the bathroom mirror she didn't miss the scowl on his face.

"Hey, when did you get here? I didn't even hear the doorbell ring." She turned around, and was preparing to greet him with a kiss and hug. She opened her arms and he backed away angrily. "What's wrong? Don't you remember me talking to you about this a couple of days ago? I'm going out with the girls to celebrate the end of the semester. I won't be out too late." Seeing the disapproving look on his face, she thought quickly. "I could probably leave a little early and maybe you and I could go to a late movie. Or maybe you could rent a movie and then I could come over to your place, we could make a pizza or something."