Scars
'Summer' wonderful; 'the beach' never a good thing.
"COME ON, MURIA!"
"Yeah, come on in! The water's fine!"
"No thanks, I am good here!"
"Death to ya then for not enjoying summer when you can! Before ya know it school will start again and then we won't have the chance to have fun like this!" A chorus of agreements followed the statement.
Sighing Muria tugged her long-sleeved cotton shirt closer around her body. The water was tantalizingly close but the questions that would be asked if she went down would be too much.
"You're wearing a swim suit, right?" Muria jumped Olivia had snuck up on her with her trademark strawberry lollipop in her mouth.
"Yeah, why?"
"Why don't you join us then?"
"Ummm…Cause I don't like swimming?"
"Hmm" Olivia grimaced "Yeah right, but whatever…" she trotted off back to the water's cool depts.
They were at Olivia's Grandmother's beach house for the whole first month of summer and it was sure to turn out badly; what with the 'scary' dares, late night parties and pranks that were sure to happen, eventually if not immediately.
"DINNER!" came the faint call from the old colonial style house up the hill from the small private beach.
"Dinner guys! If you want it, I heard it would be Ms. Vargas's famous pasta tonight!" That was apparently the right thing to say because the group of adolescence literally thundered out of the water, scooped their towels and clothes up quickly and charged up the hill
From her lead near the middle of the hill Olivia called out "LAST ONE IN GETS TO DO THE DISHES WITH GRANDMA!"
Already committed to her fate to clean the dishes Muria finished picking up the beach stuff and began up the hill.
~SMALLTIMEPASSES~
"Muria you get to wash the dishes!"
"Ja, I know, believe it or not…" they were at the large cedar wood table that inhabited Ms. Vargas' dinning room, having her famous pasta, as expected.
Ms. Vargas said that she got the recipe from her great-great-great-grandfather who had been full Italian and that he was married to a German man who had given her all her German recipes.
"Still…sucks to be you." Marcus, Olivia's boyfriend, chimed in "We're gonna go and hang down on the beach and do fire works!"
"Oh…well I can just watch out the window, while I do the dishes."
"But it isn't that fun if you can't watch them up close and personal…" Camilla whined; she was like a small annoying dog- one that followed them everywhere.
"No, not for me I like being able to see the whole thing from some distance away…" She wanted to get to bed early anyway, so missing the fireworks wasn't bad.
"You just don't want to see your best friend getting snogged by Marcus!" one of the twins (there were two sets: a set of girls and a set of boys) teased.
"And if I don't want to see that? Is it such a problem?" Muria replied tersely. Turning to Olivia she amended "It isn't that I don't want to see your romantic kiss at the firework show… buuuuut…" she stuttered off into silence under Olivia's icy glare. The room was an awkward silence and Muria stared at her bare toes. Never had that floor looked so pretty.
"AHHHHHHH!" Muria screamed as she was glomp/tackled by someone. The room was suddenly filled with laughter and Muria blushed tomato red as she stared into Olivia's grinning face.
"S'okay, girl! I don't really care! I'll just have one of the twins," she gestured vaguely to the four teens who where still laughing happily behind her, "take pictures for you, and then we can share them with you later!" She got up grinning from ear to ear. Her head reeling slightly Muria stood up. The room got quiet, "Wellllll…Ok then…" Muria embarrassed slightly by the sudden silence looked down and noticed with horror that her shirt had fallen off one of her shoulders to reveal skin that was crisscrossed with scars and fading bruises.
"Oh…shit…" Muria's eyes began to water and she blushed a deep red. "I…I…" As fast as she could she ran out of the large kitchen and up the stairs to her small room at the top of the house. Up two flights of stair and into the single room, it over looked the beach at the bottom of the hill. After slamming the door closed and ramming the dead bolt home she threw herself onto the bed, tears streaming down her face.
The house was silent after a few seconds of yelling after her and confusion. Mrs. Vargas probably telling them what she knew- which wasn't much but she had guessed more than most and been correct, too.
A set of quiet footsteps echoed up the stairs and after a moment of silence a knock on the door, "Muria? Please come out…It's me, Olivia…"
Sobbing she threw a pillow at the door, "Go away!" the pillow hit the door with a dull plunk.
"Muria, I'm not gonna hurt you. Please come out."
"NO! JUST, JUST, JUST GO AWAY!" She broke into a fresh bout of sobs; Olivia sighed and walked back down the stairs.
~SCENECHANGE XD~
Mrs. Vargas calmly finished drying the dishes and putting them away, totally ignoring the six teen sitting at her kitchen table or on the ground around it.
"Grandma…you know something. What is it?" Olivia was back from trying to coax Muria out of her room.
"Me? I know nothing." Mrs. Vargas' back was to them but they knew after many summers of playing at her beach house that she was in fact hiding her knowledge.
"No. You know something. Tell us…"
"I will not tell you anything as all my knowledge is correct guessing; if you want to know ask Muria herself…Give her the evening to become at peace with the knowledge that you now know; she may feel like telling you tomorrow…"
~SCENECHANGEAGAIN!~
The pillow was pressed firmly over her face making her world blessedly dark, but also restricting her breathing slightly. May I be swallowed up by the floor? Or this pillow or something like that…please…? I don't want to tell them about my home life! I love being the one who is kind of reclusive. But since her pillow didn't eat her and neither did the hardwood floors, Muria looked up at the radio clock on the bed side table to check the time. 4 in the morning…I doubt they are all still up; I am hungry, maybe there are leftovers in the fridge.
The door was quietly unlocked and Muria padded down the hall; the house was dark, none of the lights were on in the others rooms. The downstairs was dark too, nothing moved in any of the dark rooms, but as Muria opened a cabinet and grabbed a small can of Nutella a small noise alerted her of someone's-or in this case multiple someone's- presence. Whirling around holding the Nutella and a spoon Muria was graced with the pale faces of the other seven teens in the house.
"Oh…um…hey guys. What has you up at this time of the morning?" Muria began scooting towards the door but the set of boy twins were already covering it and the girls had the other door My exits are blocked…I don't want to talk about this yet…But…they have me cornered…What to do? What to do?
"Tell us everything, please, Muria…We only want to help you…" Olivia spoke up from the back of the group.
"W-Why are you still around me? The last time this happened everyone left…I got told that they just didn't want to hang out with me," Tears pricked her eyes at the memory of the people from her last school "but I know that they didn't want to be with the 'emo girl'…" Tears now fell freely from her eyes now. "It started in the 5th grade when my parents divorced. My father was always a heavy drinker but mother finally got fed up and she just left…Father was out drinking again, and when he got back he began telling me it was my fault…" she trailed off.
"Then what happened, Muria?" Olivia walked over to the girl and began rubbing circles on her trembling back; Muria was still crying and when next she spoke her words were broken by both hiccups and sobs.
"It was horrible…" the small girl sobbed even harder and sat down on the floor, pulling her knees up, she buried her face in them.
"It's okay Muria, we won't shun you. Plus it is not good to hold things in…"
Muria looked up at Olivia, Marcus sighed in the background,
"Not again Olivia."
"Yes, again, Marcus. It is because secrets eat your soul and make you have trust problems…" Muria suddenly burst into a round hiccuppy, wet laughter. "What? It is true!"
"Yes, Olivia; you just keep telling yourself that…" Muria sobered up quickly and looked down, "He did it with a piece of metal piping, you know. Where he found it I don't know, but he sudden walked back to where I was washing dishes and started…with the pipe…scars on my back are those ones…horrible…" Muria trailed off again.
"And it just got worse from there didn't it." Olivia finished the thought; Muria nodded mutely.
"So there's the story…I-we- will do all we can to make your life easier, 'kay honey?"
"Okay…" With that Muria fell asleep. The room was quiet for a second
~TIMECHANGE-EPILOUGE~
"Muria come over here! I need help with this Science project!" Olivia called out, waving me over to the table.
"Like hell I will, little girly!" I responded with playful venom. We both laughed and I walked over to help Olivia with the project.
I find it hard to believe sometimes that I now live with my ex-best friend, now sister! I couldn't believe it when the whole lot of them, the twins and Olivia and Marcus, and a couple of police barged into the house during one of my father's drunken rages and took him away. I was too far gone at the time to care but when told the whole story later I laughed and cried and couldn't thank them enough. Here is what I heard: They all 'just happened to be' passing by my house when my father started beating me; The twins- they didn't specify which ones-went to get the police and the others started beating on the door, this I remember faintly Father didn't hear it somehow or he was ignoring it. The police arrived after a bit and they broke down the door; they ran in along with the group and pinned Father up against the wall with their guns as he still had the very dangerous pipe in his hands- he really did like his pipe… The group looked was kind of startled when they saw me against the wall but were thrown into frenzied activity when I supposedly passed out. Then I was taken to the hospital cause I was all cut and bloody and they didn't want anything too serious to have happened.
After a forty-two and half hours I woke up and the next day they released me to the Adoption Agency. Well, obviously Olivia begged her grandmother and her parents to adopt me. And they did…after much deliberation…NOT! Her parents always liked me as did her grandmother. My scars will fade rather quickly I am told, but when they thought I had left the room I heard them talking about how they think that I might never fully come to trust anyone, particularly men…I hope to forget-or push to the back of mind- my last six and a half years; I am looking forward and enjoying the prospect of a new start on life.
