Runaway Rewrite 1

I stood at the bathroom sink watching the running water swirl down the drain, mustering the courage to look up into the mirror. From the way the right side of my face throbbed and stung, I knew it wouldn't be pretty. Well, it's now or never, I said to myself. Taking a deep breath and looking up, I realized it was worse than I thought.

Dark purple and blue blended with puffy green and yellow, from a swollen eyelid to my chin, brushing the matching blotches that ran from my shoulder to the skin under my turtleneck. Matching gashes of flesh flanked the top and bottom of my cheekbone and a knot, oddly in the shape of Greenland above my right temple.

Seeing the bruises and cuts covering my reflection made me flinch. They were bad this time. Not that they hadn't been bad other times. I was used to bad, but this was on a whole different level. I was used to seeing bruises, usually in places I could cover easily; shoulders, stomach, arms, legs. Places easily hidden by a sweater and a pair of jeans. Not on my face, never on my face. Even after wiping off the blood that had been caught trickling down my face underneath my eye and feeling the sharp pain of the fresh bruises as I brushed them, I still couldn't believe the poor girl's face on the other end of the mirror was really mine.

I sighed. How was I going to cover this up?



This is the rewrite of the first runaway entry . . . .hopefully it is more understandable. Thanks!