Fuck the monsters.
“Fuck you, fuck you,” I screamed as his hand wrapped in my hair, and he dragged me to my feet before bringing his elbow down hard on the side of my temple.
I was out before I could fall to the ground.
And when I came to, in the bathtub of all places, I wished I was still unconscious.
Because Hazard was cutting into my face with his knife.
When he noticed my eyes and the scream building behind the tape over my mouth, he grinned.
“No one will want you when you’re this ugly,” he said almost conversationally as he dragged the knife in a line of fire from my ear to the corner of my taped mouth. “No one but me, Faithy. You got real pretty over the years, so I figured I should bring all that ugly inside you back to the surface.”
I passed out before he could do the other side.
BLUE
When I came to again,I was still in the bathtub, but my mouth was free of tape, and only Aunt Rita was in the room with me. She sat on the closed toilet lid right beside the tub, gauze and medical scissors in her hands, fingertips wet with blood.
“I’m so sorry, Faith,” she whispered softly, her age-creased face crumpled and damp like a used napkin with tears and snot.
She’d been crying for me, then.
My entire head hurt, face to neck, and my left hand was one fire where it lay limp across my chest, but the rest of my body had been spared. It seemed Hazard only wanted to make his point by scaring me.
“How bad is it?” I croaked.
It hurt badly enough to think it had to be grotesque, one side of my face suddenly made into a bloody mockery of the Joker’s smile.
Aunt Rita’s fingers trembled as they fluttered ineloquently. “Oh, it’ll heal.”
Shame burned through me, brighter than the actual pain.
“Help me up?” I asked quietly, trying to adjust so I could stand, but my good hand slipped on the blood from my wound that stained the side of the porcelain.
I must have struggled when he cut into me.
Aunt Rita stood to offer me her hand. She was old but as strong as an ox, pulling me easy to my feet. My head swam, vision popping with bursts of colour and darkness. I closed my eyes to settle myself for a moment and then carefully, hand still in my aunt’s, stepped over the rim so I could stand in front of the little stained mirror above the sink.
I didn’t open my lids until my right hand was curled over the edge of the sink because I knew when I looked at my reflection, I wouldn’t like what I saw. Sucking in a deep breath, I told myself that no matter what I looked like, Aaron would still want me because his feelings for me were bone-deep and not superficial.
It didn’t help as much as I wanted it to.
Because the truth was, I’d fought hard to find myself beautiful, to emphasize my assets and forgive my flaws. I’d learned everything about cosmetology so I could make others feel as pretty as I’d learned to make myself believe I was.
The idea of being scarred across the face was the exact right way to pierce the heart of the confidence I’d built in Rooster and Hazard’s absence.
My ‘husband’ had been back for less than a day, and he had already reduced me to rubble.
“Even before you left,” Aunt Rita spoke softly into my ear as she gripped my shoulders comfortingly. “Even at your unhappiest, you only had to smile at someone to become the loveliest girl in the room.”
A sob bubbled up my throat and stuck there.
“I am a selfish old lady stuck in this life and its ways, but I always hoped you would find happiness somewhere else. Happiness that brought that smile out every day instead of once or twice a year.” She paused while I sucked in a shivery breath. “I think you’ve found that now, outside of these walls?”
I nodded even though it made my head pound to do so.
“Well, then, whoever is on the other end of your happiness will still love the shape of that smile, even if it’s a little scarred.”
