Beauty & Her Bruises

Chapter Two

Kicking my shoes at the house, I ran up the stairs to the porch and took a look around to make sure that father wasn't home. The car was gone so that was a good sign that he wouldn't be home today for a while.

Wrapping all of the unbroken makeup supplies in my long fingers, I opened the door and ran up to my room. I locked my bedroom door and went towards my pile of clean clothes. I scrambled through them until I found my work shirt and pants.

I threw them on and went to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that I needed to attempt makeup today.

Concealer, foundation, primer, bronzer, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, soothing cream, stick concealer, and under eye concealer.

There were so many that I didn't even know what any of them were. I quickly read the instructions on the ones that had them and realized that I was more confused than ever.

I quickly washed any makeup I had put on and realized that I looked like a clown. I would just ask someone at my work if they could help me with it. They hated when I showed my bruises but I always told them I was very clumsy. I purposely fell every day so that they would believe me.

"Zara!" I jumped at the boom of his voice and hurried to push the makeup in my work bag. I heard him stomp up the stairs and I felt myself begin to panic.

He didn't know I had a job. I quickly unlocked the bathroom and heard him turn the knob on my regular door. I grabbed my bag and started opening the window.

"Open the door, slut!" he yelled. I winced and popped the screen out of it. By the time I was on the roof, he had broken the lock on my door and he saw me leaving. "Zara!"

Loosing my balance, I fell down the roof and plopped onto the grass. My breath was knocked out of me for a few minutes but no matter how much pain I was in, I got up and managed to run when father began running out of the house towards me.

Since father was fat, I managed to get away from him and since he didn't know where I was going, he quickly stopped chasing after me.

"Deborah!" I yelled. She jumped at my voice but smiled politely at me while I walked towards her. "Can you help me with something?"

She quickly looked at our surroundings and nodded her head with ease. She let herself go from the cash register and walked with me towards the customer's bathroom. I took the makeup out of my bag and she looked intently at me.

When I took a look at her, she was smiling a bit and it was obvious that she was attempting to hide it. I smiled a bit too and watched her pick up piece by piece of makeup. Explaining what each of them did, she slowly began to put them on my bruises and the surrounding areas of my face.

When the finish product rolled around, I stared at the mirror in surprise. I was gorgeous with my hair falling past my shoulders and no bruises on my face. I bit my lip in anticipation and Deborah smiled towards me and hugged me. A split second later, she returned to her manager ways and barked at me to go back to work. That didn't matter though because my smile didn't fade at all.

The whole time I worked, my smile was completely real the entire time and it didn't falter at one point. My father could be mean sometimes but he can never take this safety away from me at my workplace. I didn't feel like customers were judging me at all when I gave them their order. Instead I felt like a completely normal person.

Something that only lasted in two places; work and the library.