Letters To My Mate

Chapter Twenty-One

TWENTY-ONE

The next day I woke up with bruised ribs, burns and cuts distributed around my body and it also felt like my right arm may be fractured. My father had been so angry and refused to listen to me – I kept trying to tell him that I suggested leaving to stop him from ruining the meeting with Mr and Mrs Miles… Of course, he blamed the fact that it went bad on me even though he was the one arguing with Mr Miles when I came back from the toilets.

I winced as I stood up from my mattress before I peeled the blood-soaked clothes off of my body. I grimaced as I looked down to see multiple wounds covering my skin. I hated looking at myself as I knew I would always be disgusted by what was staring back at me but this time, I had to look in the mirror to help my injuries.

After many bandages and tablets I got dressed into a clean long sleeved t-shirt and an old pair of jeans and shoved a few textbooks off of my desk into my schoolbag before brushing through my hair and rushing downstairs and out of the door, dreading the school day ahead of me. The walk to school was treacherous as every step I took was followed by endless pain; it was not the worst beating I had received from my father but no one could ever get used to the physical pain, no matter how much they want to.

When I reached the gates of our school I immediately saw Seb stood by the entrance, looking around frantically as if he was looking for someone. The moment his eyes landed on me, his eyes widened and he ran over with relief replacing the panic that was swimming around in his eyes. He held on tightly to my shoulders and gently shook me while taking a small step back and looking me up and down as if he was looking for any signs that I was hurt. Luckily, I had managed to hide the whimper that tried to escape when he held onto a new bruise.

“What’s going on?” I asked, confused as to why he was acting like a mother who had just found her child after they had run away or been taken.

“You’re not hurt?” He seemed to be very confused and dejected as he was sure of himself that I was hurt. A few lines of wrinkles appeared on his forehead as he frowned, deep in thought.

“No, I’m fine.” I lied, “Why would I be hurt?”

“N-No reason…” He stuttered – did he find out about my father? What if they saw or heard what happened last night? No, no. The alleyway was out of hearing range from the entrance to the restaurant and it was probably too dark to see much. Maybe there’s a rumour going around about me; I wouldn’t be surprised in a school like this one.

Seb tried to change the subject by reminding me about Ethan’s return being tomorrow and I forgot about the previous incident and got lost talking about Ethan as we walked to our first class of the day.

In first period I could not pay attention to anything the teacher was saying – I wanted to as whatever they were saying was probably important but all I could think about was the way Seb was acting this morning. Had something happened? He couldn’t have found out about my father, right? He’s like an older protective brother to me and I know he would act on it if he found out. Well, at least I think he would. Maybe he doesn’t even care about me as much as I thought he did.

“Rachel?” I heard a voice shout across the classroom, causing me to sit up straight and look to where I heard the voice come from. The teacher was stood at the front of the room and appeared to be packing away books and equipment into his own bag, “Class is over.” He informed me, causing me to look around the classroom and discover that all of my classmates had already left and were on their way to their next class. I blurted out a quick apology, standing up and thrusting my books and pencils into my bag before rushing out of the door and to my next class – I couldn’t be late and ruin my attendance. However, when I finally reached the classroom and sat down in my chair I struggled to breathe due to my bruised rib and my entire body felt like it was on fire. I tried to ignore the worsening pain and wrapped one arm tightly around my stomach as if it would push all of the pain away as I concentrated on the lesson.