Don't Tell by Mercy Amare

 
     
     
    ONE
    Normal
     
     
     
    Lucy
    I could be surrounded by a million people, but I would still feel alone. I smile on the outside, but inside I feel like I’m slowly dying. I cry out for help, but nobody sees me, at least not the real me. They see a façade, a mask that I put on to hide the pain.
    I pretend that I’m normal, but really, what is normal? Maybe what I’m feeling is normal. The hurt, the disappointment, the loneliness… it could be all just be a part of life. Maybe I will never know what normal is.
    I put on long sleeves and makeup to hide the bruises, but they only mask the outside. What happens when I can’t carry my burden alone any longer? What would happen if I told somebody the truth?
     
    I heard a knock on my window, making me jump. My heart accelerated, but I took a deep breath to relax. I put down my journal and walked over to the window slowly.
    He’s already passed out, I told myself . He’s not going to hurt you… at least not this morning .
    I opened my window quietly. My friend, Tess Robbins, was waiting on the other side. We have been best friends since kindergarten.
    She held up a Red Bull and I accepted it with a smile. Tess knows the way to my heart is through caffeinated beverages.
    “ Are you ready for school?” she asked in a whisper.
    I’ve never spoken a word to her about Charles, my dad, but she knows it upsets him when she knocks on the door. She’s been sneaking in my window since the tenth grade... Ever since my mom died.
    “ Yep,” I said, grabbing my backpack off the bed. I climbed out the window and followed Tess to her car that was parked on the curb. She drives a slightly used yellow jeep. She hates it, but I envy it. She waited until we were a block away from my house before she turned up the radio.
    Tess is usually not a morning person, but that morning she was bouncing in her seat as she sung along with the radio. She saw me laughing at her, so she turned down the volume. “Are you laughing at my mad dance skills?”
    “ How much Red Bull have you consumed this morning?” I asked between laughs.
    She thought for a couple seconds before answering, “Two.” She held out the Red Bull in her hand, “and a half.”
    I grabbed the half full energy drink from her hand. “I’m cutting you off.”
    She stuck out her lower lip and pretended to wipe a tear. “I only got 3 hours of sleep.”
    I pulled at my sleeve, remembering the fresh bruise that still stung. I only got 2 hours of sleep, but I didn’t say anything. “If you wouldn’t stay on the phone all night, maybe you’d get some sleep.” I handed her drink back and she downed the rest in one gulp. I was still sipping mine.
    “ Maybe if you had a boyfriend, you would be less cranky in the mornings.”
    I took another sip of my drink and ignored her comment. The last thing I wanted was a boyfriend... It would just be one more person I would have to lie to. The less people I allowed to be apart of my life, the better.
    Tess didn’t let my non response go unnoticed. “Seriously, Lucy, you’re a senior and you’ve never had a boyfriend.”
    “ I’m ok with that,” I defended myself.
    “ Don’t you want to know what it’s like to fall in love? Maybe you could even kiss a boy,” she wiggled her eyebrows, “or more…”
    I cut her off. “Ewe. I’m not having this conversation with you.”
    “ If not with your best friend, then with who?” As we pulled into our parking spot at school, she put it her jeep in park and turned to me. “All I’m saying is keep an open heart. I hear falling in love is magical.”
    When she said it like that, it didn’t sound so bad. But I knew better than to believe in love, magic, or fairy tales. Good fortune tended to stay away from people like me. If I put my heart out there, it would most likely get broken.
    She pulled 2 dry cleaning bags out of the back of her jeep. “I got your uniform dry-cleaned.”
    “ If somebody wouldn’t have spilled their