My Guarded Heart

Chapter 5: Bullies

I woke up in someone's arms around me that morning. They were Jay's.

I sat up suddenly and memories flooded my mind. I remembered the hard slap of my dad's hand on my face and when I ran out of the house crying. I remembered the bright light that shone through the doorway and I remembered when I walked up the staircase inside Jay's house. I remembered how gently he had wrapped his arms around me, how protected I felt. I breathed heavily as every sudden memory crashed into my mind.

Suddenly, a cool feeling washed over me. The blanket that someone had put on me last night—probably Jay—had fallen off. I looked around the cold room. It was a white room that had a nightstand with a lamp and a digital clock that read 4:30AM on the right side of the bed. There was also a small trunk at the bottom and a rocking chair on the left side. Other than those things and the bed it was quite bare. I looked at the curtain that covered window and saw that there was no light coming through it. It was still night.

I looked beside me at Jay. He was still asleep, his arm covered the side I had laid on. I got up and walked out of the room. I looked through every door until I had found the bathroom. I walked inside and locked the doors. When I looked in the mirror, I gasped.

The girl I was looking at was disgusting. She had bruises on her face and tear-stained cheeks. Her eyes were puffed up and her hair was a mess. I ran out of the washroom and back to the room where Jay was asleep. I looked around and found my duffel bag on the rocking chair. I grabbed it and ran back to the washroom. I locked the door and emptied all the contents of my bag onto the floor. I looked for my concealer, powder and eye shadow kit. Once I found them, I grabbed one of my make-up brushes and I started to cover up the remnants of last night.

Even though I hated make-up, I was a professional at concealing my wounds. I knew exactly how much concealer to put on and how much powder to use so I didn't look like a pancaked freak. I grabbed a small cloth from my bag and drenched it in hot water. I pulled in close to my puffy eyes and applied it to the puffy area's. I had learned online that applying a hot spoon to your puffy eyes helped bring the swelling down, but I learned through personal experience that a hot towel would do just fine. I held the towel there for about 5 minutes until I was satisfied with how less swelled my eyes looked. I applied concealer and primer then pulled out my eye shadow kit. I applied some dark eye shadow and applied a smoky eye. I hoped this makeup look would distract everyone from the fact that I may or may-not have had bruises on my face.

I grabbed all my stuff off of the floor and opened the door of the bathroom. I walked straight into something hard and tall. I grabbed my head in pain and looked up. I glared at Jay, and he was glaring at me. But his face became less mad when he saw my face. His jaw dropped slightly as I continued to glare.

"Close your mouth," I said and side-stepped him. He shook his head as if to get out of his dazed state, and turned around and looked at me.

"Uh, sorry, I was just surprised to see you awake," he lied. He was a terrible liar.

"You could learn to lie a little better," I said as I packed all my stuff into my duffel bag. "You're quite transparent, and that's not always a good thing."

"Give me one good reason to learn to how to lie," he challenged me and crossed his arms in a gesture that said let's see what you got.

"What if you want to play poker? You need a poker face to play poker," I said.

"I don't gamble," he said simply.

"What if you had to lie to your parents about going out so you could go out with a girl?" I said, challenging him more.

"My parents don't care if I date; they even encourage it," he said. He had a stupid grin on his face.

"What if you had to tell a white-lie to a person, about how amazing and wonderful they were, who—hypothetically—wanted to kill themselves?" I asked, more serious this time.