➕ Beauty ➕

Answers

Gemma and I order a Calippo popsicle, and a small tub of rocky road ice-cream from the cafeteria. We take them outside to our bench, with a few little tastes along the way. The greens of the valleys, and the blossoming lime colours of the trees across the horizon labeled with the sweetness of spring. The bench sat brown, with a green plaque ingrained with the names of the schools founders laying on the top plank.

Gemma, unsure and uneasy as she's holding the sleeve of her Calippo up to her mouth; Softly picking the edges of the foundation covered bruise on her right eye.

Pulling off the Calippo, she took the seat and says softly, "It's only been here for a few days, so it's just turning purple now." She slowly takes a breath, "If I try to rub it off with wipes it stings really bad."

I sit there looking at her, trying to think of a way to reassure her. "I'm sorry about that, but how did it happen?"

"Ha... I remember I flipped out on you for just asking me that last year." She says, I sit there silent. "But I feel like I can trust you now, you know."

"Is it cause I gave you that cd?" I laugh a little.

"No, I mean after so many months of me not allowing myself to actually sit next to someone for more than ten minutes. I caught myself being trapped in a pit of misery. The only person I COULD sit next to was my brother, he actually let me stay in his fuckin' flat for the time being... that I was away...

"Dang that sounded so deep, I feel like breaking down a little. Ha, I feel so stupid..." she pressed her own hand's palm with her ring finger, "but, yeah."

I scooped a few chunks of my ice-cream, "Is that why you weren't here for three weeks? Just like last year?"

"Not exactly, hun." Hun? Huh, I guess I have a pet name now. "I have a family thing around every spring. It happened since I was seven... you know, after my parents split.

"My dad would always take me to his gang thing. Us and his friends would ride all around... well everywhere. We always reach places like the desert or just somewhere so far from towns or cities... really anywhere away from other people. We go in these two run down vans that I guess they own. They were very rude to each other, and I guess they liked it. From a young age they just started swearing, drinking, smoking you know, all that. It's lucky I didn't get lung cancer, but their words sure did stick around me. I didn't go with them this year though.

"They were planning to go sometime after my birthday. But I told them I didn't want to, so he kicked me out of the house for the time being, said he didn't trust me to stay home alone, as I might fuck the place up. Like he knew how to take care of it; he did this once before, with my brother, it's one of the reasons why my mom left. I called the school to know my assignments as I'm "on holiday", but I guess it would have had made more sense to go with you huh?"

She smiles. I say, "Yeah, my parents would have definitely allowed you to stay in our house."

"Anyway, I had to stay at my brother Josh's apartment because my dad wouldn't be back in a couple of weeks." She took a sigh, "I didn't necessarily not want to see my brother, but the timing was just so inconvenient. My brother told me that I needed to tell someone about what's been happening to me otherwise it's just going to keep going and going, he also said  that he could become my legal caretaker, but I didn't know what to say, it's a thirty minute drive to directly get there from school, and he was the only person with a car but also a constant day job making going to school much harder than I thought.

"I probably haven't told you this yet but, my mom moved to another city (three hours away from here) with this fancy top-notch lawyer guy that can probably take better care of me in five minutes, than a year with my dad. She moved there after my brother graduated, but she always found me the trouble child. Damn, I frickin hate her. I bet if I was an orphan and adopted by her she would want to give me back as if I'm some sort of "gift" that turned defective." She looks a mix of infuriated and agitated, I notice she was clenching her heart a second ago, but she changed position after she felt a waterfall come up. She was in the form of the fatal position, just sitting.

Getting up, she drank the melted juice in her tub. I stir around the leftover cream in my tub scooping it to my mouth. She didn't look very good, "You okay Gemma?" I ask, trying to be gentle.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." She swallows taking a cough. "It's just I- I-... well, this is just the first time I've told anyone about this.

"Right, umm. Well, after my dad came back, my brother dropped me off back at the house, my dad interrogated me if I have come back into the house after he said I couldn't. He-... he-... took my bag. My brother is the only person I talked to you about... talked to anyone about. So when my dad opened my bag, he found the EP you gave me, I hid it between two of my books so nobody can steal it. But when he took it out of my bag he snapped, he kept asking me questions about how I obtained it, I came clean. I mean, I had to. He got super suspicious. I told him it was expensive, he said that I probably stole it... fuck, I hate him.

"Then he blamed me for "his chance of happiness" to leave us. You know that lady you saw next to my dad when you did that speech last year... yeah, that's the one. She was with my dad for a good ten months. She actually thought I wasn't that bad a person. My dad was always so different around her, he acted so suave... then he slowly became his usual self whenever he was around me. I think she saw him yell at me for a while, and he hit me on the head... I even forgot what it was about, it just happened so much. He acted like he had no choice. She left and that was that.

"So when he took your gift, I told him it was his fault for being such a dick. We- we just started screaming at each other about which one of us is worse, it was horrible, I guarantee it. I tried so much to get it back, frantically hitting his hand. I told him how you've been treating me, but he kept looking at me like I was crazy, or I was talking bullshit so he would leave me alone. He totally raged, hitting me in the eye. It really hurt, but he didn't hit me in my temples so that was good. I punched him in the gut, and tried to run away. He looked unfazed, was definitely disorientated. Of course, I had to get the gift so I snatched it of his hands, he almost snapped it, but I fuckin took it. After that, he grabbed my arm. And well, I guess I escaped somehow, it was really blurry. Ha Yeah..."

I look at her wondering if she would say anymore, "This happened last year too?"

She nodded her head pretending to act nonchalant, "Yeah, yeah."

I started to sweat over my empty container of ice-cream. "We have to tell someone about this."

Gemma turned to me with a sorrow in her eyes, inside she cramped frantically.

"Your sixteen, you need to tell someone else, you have to tell an adult." I say.

A non-distinct look on her face shun up, it was something totally unrelated to the light I usually put her in. "Oh god, I know." Gemma was hunched on her lap, so when she flattened back, she breathed through her nose. "You know that Georgia chick? The one we used to joke about with the squirrels and stuff.

"Yeah, She did that really creepy speech sometime before me, she was really nice."

"A huh, well when she did that speech I felt like I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was scary, but not the way others may have heard it. I got scared when she said that last line, you know the one, "Are you really willing to have someone take it from you?" - or something like that, about the milk and innocence, and jeez it felt so relatable.

"I looked over at my dad, with the lady whose head tucked under my dads neck. My dad had this look of ... I don't know... of death(?) in his eyes. I just knew, no matter how much he never mentioned it at all, he never had that milk.

"So I guess why I brought that up, is because I just wanted to thank you for sharing with me some of your milk... god that sounds dumb, but it's true."