Atlas Grove, once a dancer with dreams of dancing under the stars, now lives petrified in the shadows of abuse. To escape her living nightmare she must keep her head down and work hard, being her senior year this is her last chance to get out. Altho...
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I shouldn't have gone out last night.
I can still feel the lashes on my back as I roll over, wide awake starting at the early morning sun rising through the thin curtains. The small alarm clock on my bedside table reads four-twenty AM. I sigh but hold my breath immediately as pain travels across my sides.
Deciding there's no point in lying awake for the next hour, I push myself up slowly feeling the pain cascade across my limbs.
It was my fault, I shouldn't have stayed out last night! I should have just got the groceries and come home. I should have at least text to say I'd be home later, not that it would have mattered- dad would have been just as mad, the only difference being when he got the text he would have been a litre of whisky lighter.
I hobble from my wardrobe, dress in hand to the bathroom and start the shower. I let the bathroom steam up before I step past the sliding doors into the stream and collapse on the floor. I sit there. Silent tears dripping from my eyes combing with the shower water, washing down the drain.
Scolding water trickles across the array of black, purple and green-tinged bruises and slides across the cuts that line my body. Tiredness and disappointment weighs heavy on my skin, my wet hair moulded to my ghostly face.
I miss you, momma, I wish you were still here. I wish you could save me from this.
After a longer shower than intended, I wrap a towel around my sore body and wrap my hair up. I throw on the floral summer dress paired over a long-sleeve T-shirt, a pair of tights and chequered vans. If I look slightly peppier than I feel people might believe it.
With that motto in mind, I add a little extra make up to my horrible washed-out face before bolting towards the door, on the way something wraps around my ankle and I nearly trip over myself.
Managing to stable my crazy ass I turn to examine the culprit.
A gold cheer medal from my last state championship.
I carefully pick up the medal, running my fingers over the imprints on it. It must have fallen out of my old dance bag when I pulled the dress out of the wardrobe.
My heart wrings in pain, I want to cheer. I want to dance.
But I can't.
Searching for the bag blindly I find it half-open at the back of all my clothes. Pulling it closer to me I see the various bits of silver and gold, old dance shoes and a picture of... my mom and my baby sister at one of my dance competitions.
I stopped dancing a few years ago... it's just too painful. It reminds me too much of her and what I lost. the guilt cripples me.
Feeling tears pushing on my lashline I push the bag back into the wardrobe and hastily run downstairs, edging towards the kitchen with hopes my parents aren't in there.
