Walking through school was a bit of a struggle; standing straight, breathing, and even taking steps hurt. Even though I wanted to curl in on myself and just lie down to stop the pain, I knew that that wasn't an option; neither was showing any pain in my body language. I passed unnoticed by most people, but if I allowed any pain to show through, it would take just one observant person to come and ask questions for me to fall apart. Normally it was easy to hide behind an emotionless mask after my beatings, but this time for some reason, my mask was cracked and I was barely hanging on it.
Flashback to that morning
I shook as I looked in the mirror; just the sight of the bruises on my body made me wince, and that didn't even account for how much they hurt when I tried to do anything. I had t
