The next morning, the alarm clock woke me up at six. "I must have slept for a few hours," I thought to myself. I dragged myself out of bed, and looked in the mirror. I almost started crying again, but stopped myself. The cut across my face had a streak of dried blood coming from it, and the redness from yesterday had turned into an ugly purple bruise. I got ready for school, doing the best I could to hide the bruise with makeup, but I knew it was still noticeable. Then, taking a deep breath, I headed downstairs for breakfast.

My mom had already left for work, so it was just my dad and I. I was just going to grab a granola bar, so I could leave quickly, but he stopped me. "Sit down with me, have some cereal," he said, smiling. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Good," I lied. "It was nice to sleep in my own bed." Another lie. I would have given anything to be at Lindsey's house.

"That's good," he said. But then his face turned serious. I shrank back a little, afraid of what he'd do.

"You know Ellie, I only hit you because I had to. If you hadn't said that last night… Well, I only did it for your own good. You understand don't you?"

"Yes dad." I finished up my cereal quickly, grabbed my book bag, and headed out the door.

"Have a good day at school," he called to me.

The second I closed the door, I took off running. I didn't stop running until I was a block away from the school. All I could think about was getting as far away from my dad as quickly as possible. I took a minute to catch my breath, and I walked the last block to school.

Craig saw me, and called to me. "Hey El. Lindsey…" he trailed off, looking at my face.

"Please don't say anything," I prayed to myself, knowing he would.

"What happened to you?" he asked, really concerned.

Heading inside to find Lindsey, I said to him, "I fell."

"You fell?" he asked, clearly not believing me.

I turned around, begging him with my eyes to drop it. "Yeah, I fell. I just fell, okay?"

He gave me a long hard look. He was about to say something when Lindsey and Ash came up to me, full of concern.

"She fell," Craig said. "Yesterday, when she was heading into the bathroom at night. I promised her I'd buy her a nightlight, so she's see the wall next time." Everyone laughed, and I forced out a laugh too. We turned to walk inside, and Craig said, "We'll catch you inside in a minute, I just wanted to ask El her opinion about a photograph I took."

Lindsey and Ash said okay, and headed in. Craig turned to me.

"Don't think I believe a word of that. You're just a bad liar, so I covered. I'll call you after school." He didn't leave any room for argument. We headed inside.

Lindsey caught me, and gave me a hug. "You looked like you needed it," she told me. Craig took Ashley's hand, and Lindsey looked at me. I nodded, and we held hands, heading down the hall. I got a lot of long stares from the people in the halls. When we passed Marco, with Dylan, he looked concerned. Then he whispered something to Dylan, kissed his cheek, and walked with us.

"What…" Marco started to ask.

"She hit the bathroom wall last night," Lindsey said.

"Always the coordinated one, weren't you El?" he said, trying to hold in laughter.

"Shut up," I said. He snorted, and then turned to Lindsey. "You two look cute."

"Yeah, you just want me to say how cute you look with Dylan."

He blushed. "Shut up."

We turned down the hall, and I told Lindsey I had to go to the bathroom. "I'll see you at lunch, okay?" She gave me a quick kiss, and they all headed to their classes, while I turned into the bathroom.

I got a handful of paper towels, and got them wet with cold water. Then I pressed it to my cheek; it was hurting again. Some older girl I had seen around school walked into the bathroom, along with a couple of her friends. Turning my attention back to the mirror, I didn't even see the shove coming.

She shoved me again, until she had me cornered. Her friends were backing her up.

"What do you think you're doing, Lesbo?" And then, for the second time in two days, I got slapped. Then one of her friends punched me in the stomach. Pretty soon, they were all over me, kicking and punching. I didn't even defend myself, hoping they'd stop sooner if I just took it. They hissed insults and me the entire time, until the bell for class rang.

"Don't think we're done with you yet," she warned me, and they all left.

Then again, for the second time in two days, I looked in the mirror with tears in my eyes. They had split my lip, so that was bleeding. Other than that, you could see what else they had done. But I knew that I'd have bruises all along my sides. I tried to clean myself up, and then I headed to class.

I got there right in time for the dismissal bell to ring for homeroom. I went up to Mr. Simpson, ready to apologize for being late. "My God, El. What happened?"

"Our school isn't very tolerant," I replied sadly. "I'm sorry I was late. But I'm going to head to my next class, so I'm not late for that one too."

I headed out, ignoring Mr. Simpson telling me to wait.

The day went slowly. And then lunch. I knew Lindsey was waiting for me, but I couldn't face her. I didn't know what was wrong with me. No one had beaten her up at Degrassi. What was wrong with me, that I got picked on?

Instead, I figured I'd hide in the computer lab. Unfortunately, Mr. Simpson was in there.

"Ellie," he said.

"Please, Mr. Simpson. Just drop it. I'm fine."

"Ellie, I'm just concerned."

"Mr. Simpson, they did it. It's done. Maybe now they'll leave me alone. I'm fine."

"But why?"

"You don't get any gossip as a teacher, do you? I'm a lesbian, and I came out today. I'm also dating Lindsey. I guess some people aren't very happy about that."

"Just tell me who did it, Ellie, and I swear they'll be punished."

"You can't prevent them from doing it again though. I'll be fine. And if its okay, I was hoping I could use a computer to edit a movie I'm working on."

"Sure," he said. "But if you change your mind…"

"I won't."

After that, they day passed by in a haze. I don't think I learned a thing. On my way home, Lindsey caught up to me.

"Where were you at lunch?" she called, trying to get my attention from behind.

"Oh, um, I had to finish some homework I'd forgotten about. Sorry."

She caught up to me, and gasped at the sight of my face. I knew my lip was getting swollen, but I didn't know it looked that bad. She gently stroked my face, and asked, "Who did this to you?"

"Nobody, okay? It doesn't matter."

"El, just tell me. I'll…"

"You can't do anything. No one can." I pulled away from her, and ran home. I pulled open the front door, and my dad was there. He looked at my face, at the new injury, and a smirk came to his face. He turned around, without saying a word to me. I ran upstairs.

I heard the phone ring a minute later, but I ignored it. Instead my dad picked it up. A minute after that, he headed upstairs, stomping.

"Shit," I whimpered. "He's mad."

Suddenly, my door flew open. "So, you thought it would be a good idea to make out with that slut at school? You thought you should make public this whole, this whole…" His face turned bright red. "You damn slut, you thought you could do that in public?" He grabbed my arm, and flung me into my dresser. I whimpered. "You little bitch!" he said, backhanding me. "What did you think you were doing? Are you trying to humiliate me? Don't you care about this family?" He shoved me to the floor, onto the video tapes I had made. Kicking me in the side one last time, he stormed out of the room.

I just stayed there for a while, and the phone rang again. "Please God," I thought to myself, "Don't let it be someone else from school." My dad threw the door open a minute later. "Get up, quit crying. Craig's was on the phone, he wants to know if you can come over. I told him you'd be over in a few minuets. Nothings wrong with you, got it? You're just really clumsy, you understand?"

I nodded, picked myself off the ground, and ran out of the house, to Craig's house.