Chapter 8 – That’s Gonna Leave A Mark I pulled away. Jesse looked at me angrily. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor, with the left side of my face burning. Jesse looked down at me; his arm still raised. He lowered it slowly and walked away. I stood up and leaned against the wall for a few minutes to regain my composure. What the hell was that? I wondered. I could barely see out of my left eye; everything was blurry. I walked into the nearest bathroom and looked into the mirror. Shit, I thought. I could already see bruises coming up, and they didn’t look too good. I wasn’t sure what to do. So I did what any girl would do if she wanted to hide something: I covered it up. I did a pretty good job too, but I knew if the bruises got any darker, I would have some explaining to do. I came out of the bathroom and ran to algebra, just barely making it on time. Nobody in there noticed the bruises, so I guess that’s a good thing. Something kinda funny happened though. I started talking to a girl in that class named Kaira, and she’s really cool. Its weird though, because she’s been (literally) sitting right in front of me all year, and I never noticed it but… She’s just like me. And truthfully, that scares me a little bit, because its like, she knows me, even though I’ve never really talked to her before now. But at the same time, it’s good to know that someone understands me. We look nothing alike though, which sucks. She has long, reddish-brown hair, and intense brown eyes that, even when she laughs, have a serious look in them. She’s also tall, thin, and very pretty. So basically, she’s everything I’m not. Lucky bitch. By the time I got to science, my last class of the day, I knew the bruises were too dark to hide anymore. I still had no clue what to do, so I went to Haley about it. I knew she would tell me exactly what she thought, and she would keep her mouth shut around everyone else. I walked over to her desk. “Haley, can I talk to you for a sec?” “Sure.” She said, looking at me curiously. I led her over to a corner of the room where we wouldn’t be overheard. “What going on?” She asked. I didn’t answer her; I just rubbed off what was left of the covering and looked up at her. “Shit Lily! What the hell happened to you?” “Thanks Haley, that makes me feel so much better.” “I’m sorry, its just… that looks really bad. Seriously Lil, what happened?” “Jesse… He hit me.” “What? Jesse? As in, your Jesse?” “No, Jesse as in Karen’s Jesse.” “What?!” Obviously, she didn’t know about that yet. I told her everything, what had happened at her party, the kiss, and the look on his face after he hit me. I didn’t tell her about Nathan, of course. “Whoa…” was all she said. “Well?” I asked after a few minutes. “What should I do?” “I… I don’t know, Lily. I think you should tell somebody.” “ I was afraid you’d say that.” We sat there for a minute. “I’m sorry, Lily.” “For what? You didn’t do anything but tell me what you thought.” The Bell rang, signaling the end of another very long day. I got up and walked out, leaving Haley standing there.