Behind closed doors

Make-up over the lies

Waking up on yet another dreary Monday morning, it was the same every week. Get up, get dressed, leave my room carefully just to find out nobody is home anyway. That brings my mood up slightly as I make myself some avocado on toast. Once I've eaten and tidied up my mess quickly I race back down to my bedroom - which just so happens to be in the basement. Sounds cool right? Well it's not. There's no windows, it's freezing and the walls are super dull. It's undecorated, smells slightly of mold and its basically just depressing.

Monday means school. School means I have to look nice, which most days is a struggle. Curling my hair, choosing the perfect outfit and hiding all the imperfections I've gained over the years. Today's outfit choice is black skinny jeans, a simple black singlet covered by a baggy burgundy knitted jumper followed by some cute brown boots and my matching brown bag.

Checking myself in the mirror I sigh, it'll have to do. I race out the door and to the little cafe on the next road which is also where my friends meet me to go to school. None of them know where my house is, and I intend to keep it that way.

"Liv, you look super cute this morning." Arabella expressed. She handed me my usual morning drink of hot chocolate. "Extra cream and marshmallows like always."

I hug Arabella with one arm thanking her. "Where are Sab and Lilly?" I asked, "They're never late." As that was said the two walked in with big smiles on their faces.

"Guess who just scored us a ride to school " They looked at each other and squealed "and invites to a senior party?"

"No way?" Arabella laughed handing the girls their coffees. We all grabbed our things and headed out to our apparent ride. Like Sab said, there waited a senior for us, with his car.

"Liv, looking hot." Noah smirked as I climbed into the back of the car. I rolled my eyes and nudged Lilly who was sitting next to me.

We eventually made it to school, only just on time thanks to Noah's granny driving and constant flirting. "Thanks Noah." All four of us girls smiled in unison before heading our separate ways. By now you may be wondering who Noah is? Well obviously he's a senior, the year above us. He's one of the popular guys in school, but not the most popular. No, that's Ethan. Now he is the most popular guy, not just for looks but every girl secretly loves a bad boy right? Noah and Ethan also happen to be best friends.

Classes flew by pretty quickly and nothing exciting happened so there's really no point me talking about them. Lunch had finally arrived. That meant I got to spend time with my friends at our table, lucky for us, Ethan and Noah also came to sit with us regularly. Well, when they decided to turn up for school anyway.

"Hey girls." Noah winked at Sab as he sat down. "Hey Sabrina, got any food I can have? I'm starved." The table laughed as Sab nodded and threw him her apple, which landed in front of him, after it hit Noah in the head. Ethan didn't say anything as he sat down next to me and started eating his lunch. He kept peeking over at my lunch which was just a plain jam sandwich and an apple.

"Why so little food Olivia?" Noah laughed, wrinkling his nose up. I swallowed the bite of sandwich I had in my mouth and took a deep breath. Lie time.

"It's all I could find in the house, my parents haven't gone shopping yet." I let out a soft little giggle once I finished my sentence. Ethan pushed his packet of crisps my way, offering me some. My eyes met his and I smiled, mumbling a small thank you as I took some.

"Have the rest." Ethan shoved the whole packet to me while my hand was still inside grabbing some. His shove was harder than I thought and the whole packet fell out on my lap. The whole table cracked up laughing. I started picking them up and as I reached down to the ones on the floor I felt a hand just below my shoulder. A place there was an imperfection I had failed to hide. I gasped and quickly pulled my jumper back over it. I dropped all the crisps on the table, grabbed my bag and left.

Nobody questioned my hasty exit, thankfully. I don't even think they noticed. I ended up walking all the way home. Not sure how I managed to get out the gates without being noticed but I did it. As I turned the corner onto my street I saw my parents cars were home. There was no way I could go home now. But as I turned to start walking away I heard someone call my name.

"Olivia? Olivia honey is that you?" Mother. I knew it would be worse if I ignored her, so I spun around again with a smile.

"Hi mum! Glad your home." I walked over to her and we went inside the house. Dad was there too, sitting on the couch with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Mum came and sat beside him, picking up her big glass of wine.

"So Olivia, skipping school now are we?" My dad slurred. How many of those beers has he has? It's only 1:45pm. Then again he probably hasn't stopped drinking since I saw him on Friday.

My hands started shaking as I quickly thought of an excuse. "No dad. I got sent home because.." My brain froze and I kept stuttering, "uh.. um because I got my period." Dad waved his hand, signaling me to come over to him. So I did. The closer I got the more I shook. Finally he held his hand in a stop motion.

"You know what we do to liars in this house Olivia?" He asked me, still not taking his eyes off the tv. I gulped, yes. I do know. And its horrible. I lifted my jumper sleeve up, before he yelled at me for being too slow. He finally took his eyes off the tv and focused on my arm. His hand moved very quickly to grab my arm and hold it still as the other hand pushed the tip of the cigarette onto my arm harder and harder. The more I whined the harder he pushed it. He kept it there until he thought that was enough punishment. "Now go to your room. I don't want to see your ugly disappointment of a face out here again tonight."

I held the new burn and ran to my room, holding back the tears until I was in the safety of my own room. Once I'd closed the door I let the tears fall down my face, one by one they slid passed my cheeks, my nose and my lips onto the floor. I must have been crying for about 5 hours before my mum came down into my room. "Olivia are you okay? You're still crying." I quickly wiped my eyes and tried to make my breathing normal again. Crying gets me in more trouble.

"Your dad wanted me to come down here and show you that skipping class is bad enough, but lying about it makes it so much worse." She started. Mums voice was very mono-tonal, like a robot kind of.

"S-show me?" I stuttered, realising why she was here. There was me thinking maybe, just maybe she came down to comfort her daughter, her only child. But no. Silly me.

"Choose." I heard her say. I took my shirt off and turned my back to her. She took the belt in her hands and started thrashing it against my skin. After about 10 hits my mind started going blank. She eventually stopped and left. I ran to my bathroom to try and stop the bleeding and clean up the wounds I received.

Hopefully they would be easy to hide. But this time i'm not so sure.

***

Thank you guys for reading. This may be kind of a touchy subject but I thought it's one that needs to be made awareness of.

***