For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1

Scene 5: Long Sleeves
(Age: 10)

Kara was well aware of the funny looks she was getting and they weren't doing anything to make her more comfortable, not by a long shot. Yes, she knew that wearing long sleeves on one of the warmest days of the year was weird --and it wasn't exactly the most pleasant thing either-- but she also knew she didn't really have much of a choice. Explaining the occasional bruise on her face was hard enough as it was but trying to come up with an explanation for the hand-shaped ones currently peppering her arms would have been almost impossible and she knew it... especially because this time around she had a teacher who kept asking questions no matter what she said. That was a new problem, one she had never really had before and the truth was that it was driving her crazy.

Kara couldn't help but think that after twenty or thirty times her teacher should have gotten the message that 'NO', there wasn't anything she wanted to tell her and given up but apparently the woman just didn't know how to take a hint. She kept throwing her looks that were full of pity, she kept pretending that she cared and that was getting on Kara's nerves... especially because she knew she didn't, not really. No one did.

Besides, Kara couldn't really understand what the big deal was supposed to be. So what if she had a couple of bruises every now and then? It wasn't like that was something new or anything like that. She was used to it and she didn't need anyone's help. She didn't need anyone's pity, she didn't want to be anyone's charity case and she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She had been doing it for almost three years... or maybe even longer.

Sure, things had taken a major turn for the worse after her dad had left but even before that he hadn't always been around, not that that had been his fault. Her dad had had a job to do and because of that he hadn't always been there to take care of her but ever since he'd left... okay that really didn't bear thinking about.

The point was that, even though things sometimes got kind of rough, Kara knew there was nothing her teacher could do about any of it. After all, it wasn't like asking her mom not to drink or not to beat her was likely to do much good. In fact something like that would only serve to make her mom mad and matters worse, Kara was well aware of that. She may not have been the brightest kid around but that was one lesson she had learned well: she knew she had to keep her mouth shut because --even though things were far from perfect-- in the end her mom was all she had. Sure, Kara knew her mom only took care of her because she didn't have a choice, she knew she only put up with her because it was her duty, but the bottom line was that her mom was willing to put up with her and that was still a lot better than nothing.

Nothing, that was exactly what Kara knew she would have without her mom. She knew no one would ever like her and that brought her back to the other thing she couldn't quite figure out: why should her teacher care about what happened to her anyway? It wasn't like it was her problem. None of her other teachers had ever cared what happened to her so what did her current one hope to gain by pretending to give a damn? That was something Kara couldn't quite figure out. She had tried to make some sort of sense out of it, to figure out what her teacher's game was but no matter how hard she tried she just didn't understand.

All Kara wanted was to be left alone. She didn't need her teacher's pity, she didn't need her teacher's 'help'... as far as she was concerned her life was nobody's business but her own. Now if only she could get said teacher to understand that...