Scars

Alice brushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes, hunching over her desk. She studied the room, the sound of laughter and gossip echoing in her ears. They were all talking, familiar with one another. Heart beating faster she thumbed through her blue notebook finding the tab she had labeled for English. Bits of conversation flew past her. It was a typical highschool classroom.
  A girl with blonde hair carrying a large pink bag sat down next to Alice, giggling to her friend across the room. The girl was beautiful, her frothy blonde locks shining. Alice shook her black hair over her face, wishing she could pull it over her completely like a shield.

Mr. Alden began droning about the class. Alice shrunk in her seat as he walked towards her.

 
   Not even looking up from the attendance clip-board, he asked her, “Will you pass these out to the class please?" Handing her a stack of rubrics he walked back to the board, not giving her a chance to protest. Alice swallowed hard. She would have rather faced a legion of tanks and machine guns than hand out those rubrics. What choice do I have?

  Panicking inwardly, she stood. Taking the first paper, she offered it, with a shaking hand, to the blonde girl. She looked up at Alice's face, the smile falling from her lips, replaced by the look Alice had come to dread. Shock, revulsion, embarrassment. They flashed across the girl's pretty face in an instant.

She stammered a thank you and quickly looked down. Hate and self-loathing burned in Alice's chest. She handed papers to several others. One boy looked at her openly, smirking.

 
  "What happened to you?" He whispered cruelly. The teacher shuffled distractedly through a pile of papers as he explained the rubric. Alice practically threw the papers at the last few students before falling into her seat again, tears stinging her eyes. She heard nothing more the whole class. As the bell rang and the students exploded out into the hallway, she ran for the bathroom, unable to stop the hot rush of tears that flooded her cheeks. Sobbing, Alice threw back her hood, staring at her reflection.

Ice blue eyes framed by thick black strands of hair, contrasted strongly to her pale face. She tried to imagine what her face would look like without the crude scars that ran from her forehead across her nose and down her right cheek. They severed her face like a slash of black soot across a watercolor painting.

    Straining for some way to cover up her face, Alice yanked her hoodie up again, pulling her hair across her eyes. It was useless. No point in being blinded by her hair as well as scarred and disfigured. Stifling her sobs, Alice inhaled shakily, forcing herself back out into the world. A world that hated her.