Beauty & Her Bruises

Chapter Three

I waved my hand at the old-aged librarian as I walked in with my nametag on. She waved back and I started making my way towards the back before she stopped me. I stayed still for a moment until she was done with checking someone's books out.

"Hello Zara, how are you today?" she asked. I gave her a thumbs up as I clocked in and then turned around to smile at her. She stared at my face for a moment and then smiled at me. "Who's the boy?" My eyebrows crinkled in confusion and she pointed to my face. "You're wearing makeup, you never do." I smiled a bit and wiped my hand against my cheek, to see some foundation come off.

"It's Liam." I turned around and started for my way to the shelves. "He's taking me over his parents' house and telling them his big secret." The thing is since I don't have any friends, Liam knew that he could trust me with his secret. I've only ever told one person his secret and that was the librarian but she knew how to keep secrets so it was okay.

"This is a big deal. No wonder you're wearing makeup." I nodded my head and shelved the rest of the books from this area. She followed me and I could tell that she wanted to say something that was on her mind. Knowing this, I turned around and politely smiled at her. "Alright, calm yourself." I started chuckling to myself as I went in the back. "Well you know my nephew, Dustin?"

"Not personally but I remember you talking about him."

"Well, he's staying over my house for a couple of months and he's here." I felt my eyebrows rise and I felt like I knew where this was going. "He's going to be working at the library for some money. I was wondering if you could tell him everything about it."

"Yeah, it'll be nice to have someone besides you and me." I smiled at her and the crinkles near her eyes rose too. "So where is he?"

"He's probably in the bathroom, doesn't like the library much." I nodded my head and understood. I didn't feel like this but I knew many people my age didn't like the library. "I'll go get him."

I nodded my head again and got myself a bottle of water from the fridge. Thankfully, Ruth didn't really care if I took any of the water because she got most of her money from overdue library books. She even goes to people's houses if they don't return them after a month and she'll hound them until they give her the money.

I personally love the library though. I feel like I'm in my own little world when I'm here because almost nobody from my school comes here. And if there is someone, they usually don't bully or harass me. They smile at me and give me a nod as they're leaving the store. Aside from the neglect of abuse, once I'm done with my work to do, I usually read some of the books.

I love mystery books and usually find myself thinking about them when I'm working. There's something about understanding and finding out why someone did something that brings me to loving the book. It eats me away when I don't know who did it but I never cheat and look at the back to see who did it. That'll just ruin the book. Besides I usually always guess right but sometimes the plot twist is so epic that I'm left dumbfounded and brokenhearted that it was over.

I'm emotionally unstable until I learn to accept the author's decisions.

Sitting down at the table in the break room, I slowly descend my thoughts into my world instead of the books. I have plenty of mysteries to solve myself but I know that it's much harder to solve a mystery in real life than in books.

Why does my dad hit me?

What happened to my mom?

Why does Meg pretend to be something she's not?

Why does Serenity hate me?

Why does Ashton hate me?

Why is Liam my friend?