Suddenly a boy knocks into her, making her fall and the hood of her sweater came off. Students who were around gasp. Her cheeks, forehead and neck were covered with scratches and gashes.
The boy who knocked her down mumbled a quick sorry before heading off quickly, obviously afraid of her minorly mutilated face. She quickly pulls her hood back on, and runs to the girl's room.
She dodged and ran, ignoring whispers of the student body. "I heard that her dad is a drunk and hit her till she got injured badly. That was why she was absent last week." One said. Another said, "I heard her house got broken into when she was asleep alone in the house. The intruders hit her when she refused to tell them where the money was. Her dad did not make a police report because he did not want his image ruined."
She ran into a bathroom stall and sat there. Hands in her face, she sobbed and sobbed. She tried to pull herself together but she could not. She cursed herself for letting this happen to her, for being so useless and powerless. She cursed herself for not preventing this from happening. She sat there and cried, oblivious about the people who heard her crying, nor did she care.
***
