ROMEO (book 1)

67. DELILAH

This little girl keeps looking at me.

I push the pram gently as Romeo and Jeongho take a walk to the ice cream store.

But this girl keeps looking at me.

She's all of 5, has blonde hair and every other second turns her head to face me.

I keep rocking the pram back and forth, Annabeth sleeps a lot. I didn't realise how much babies sleep.

The girl stands up, she walks over to me this time and pushes herself on the bench. "Why do you have cuts on your arms?" She asks.

I was taken aback.

I awkwardly look at her, then feel my chest start to raise.

Romeo kissed my scars again, I was bathing and he read me a book as he leant against the bathtub, then kissed up my arms and told me how beautiful I was.

So I wore short sleeves.

I deeply regret that.

I shouldn't have.

I didn't consider children at all. They shouldn't have to see my mess.

"Uh..." I look around, "I... fell."

She pulls my arm and I was too scared to move it away. I just froze as she touched my scars.

"They're pretty." She keeps poking them.

I didn't know what to say.

Then a woman walks over and gasps, "Charlotte!" She shakes her head but then her eyes turn shcoked as she looked at my arms. "That is horrible, put those away."

I was frozen. I couldn't.

"Stop parading them! Bad influence for little girls." She pulls her daughter off the seat. I couldn't move.

"Mommy they're pretty."

"No they are not. There's somethjng wrong with that girl, Charlotte. Don't ever do that." She lifts her daughter up.

I feel tears run down my cheek and couldn't even open my mouth to apologise.

"Why are you still showing them!" She forcefully turns my arms around. "Disgraceful!"

I couldn't open my mouth.

She walks away and I jsut sit there silent sobbing as my body tensed drastically.

A couple of minutes later, a group of girls a little younger than me start approaching. I've been approached by too many of these girls, the converse and leggings and extremely dark fake tan girls.

I look down.

One girl throws her milkshake at me for showing her little sister my scars.

I just sit there.

I'm so used to these girls. In school, it was just these girls that would pick on Hafsa, B and I. Even in college, these were the group of girls who gave me a dirty look for simply existing.

They don't have a reason to do what they do but they do it anyway and that's a good enough reason for them.

I need Romeo.

I can't move.

Somebody could kidnap Annabeth right now and I wouldn't even be able to do anything.

They laugh and call me fat, blow out their cheeks and pinch their stomach.

I don't deserve this.

I'm so tired.

"You better fucking walk away before I kill all of you." I hear Romeo. I've never seen a group of girls face drop so fast.