[closed starter - @fkc-aiden ]
How long had it been? Five minutes? 30? Rowan didn’t know. Because she didn’t own a watch and her phone’s screen had water damage right on the clock. And its fair share of cracks.
All she knew was that she couldn’t stop shaking, curled as tightly as she could against one of the outside corners of the school building. Because she could come back any second. The brunette could feel her eye socket swelling, the entire left side of her face throbbing and a few droplets of blood on the corner of her mouth. There was also the itch from the bobolink, the residue of its poor little body smeared across Rowan’s injured face. She kept hearing the crunch it made under the book and her nausea kept intensifying. Why was she such a wimp? Why couldn’t she just get up, go to the nearest bathroom, clean herself and go back to class?
Even if she found the courage, what was she supposed to say? Not that she ever had any doubt that the blonde cheerleader could actually kill her, but now more than ever she just had to hide. She couldn’t go to the nurse, or a teacher. She was alone. Her terror was making her think that she should just stay huddled in her hiding spot until the school was closed and maybe bike home sheltered by the night. But what if her dad saw her face? Would he even realize that he hadn’t been the one to cause the damage? He was probably going to celebrate it. Rowan didn’t know what to do. Plus, her library book was still stuck in the roof, right where Imogen had tossed it. A tear of despair escaped Rowan’s bruised eye. Why couldn’t things ever be okay?
She heard footsteps approaching and just tried to shrink herself even further against the concrete wall, wishing that she could just disappear.