“Hi, Paige.” Maddison’s mum opens the door. “What's going on with your parents? Aren’t they home?”
“Ah, no. They had to go out, and I forgot my key. It was really silly of me. I knew they wouldn’t be there, though. I just had a bit of a brain malfunction,” I tell her, my nerves tightening my guts.
Her eyes search my face as I hold my breath, praying she’ll stop there. I don’t know how much longer I can pretend to be OK. “All right,” she says finally. “Just make sure you give them a call to let them know where you are.”
“Thanks, Mrs Bier. I’ll do that,” I say, as she moves to the side and grants me entry.
“Mum. Give her a break.” Maddison emerges from the mouth of the hallways and walks towards me. “She just needs a place to crash so she doesn’t have to wait around in the cold all night.” Grabbing me by the hand, she pulls me down the hall and away from her mother. “Sorry about her. She’s a bit pissy ‘cause I asked for a sleepover on a school night.”
“It’s cool. I don’t mind,” I say as she clicks the door of her bedroom shut behind us and leans against it.
“So, what's really going on with your parents?”
“Nothing, I really did forget my keys,” I assure her.
Her left eye narrows as she looks at me. “Come on, Pay. I’ve known you since kindergarten. You have a look on your face that tells me that something else is going on.”
“Mads, I’m fine OK. I’m just tired, and I want to crash. I'll go home in the morning. I won’t be in your hair for too long.”
“Paige, don’t be like that. If I had my way, we’d be sisters. I’m only trying to talk to you. You seem upset. Did you and your mum have another fight or something?”
“She doesn’t talk to me long enough to fight these days. Listen, I’m sorry to be such a drag, but I really just want to go to sleep. Is that OK?”
Her brow narrows as she pushes herself back off the door and nods her head. “I’ll go get you some blankets.” She exits her room then returns with some spare bedding and a camping mattress, which I relieve her of immediately and help her set up my temporary bed.
“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” she asks, holding the remote for her TV in her hand as she watches me collapse on the bed and fold my arms across my chest.
“I just want to sleep.”
“OK.” She flicks on the TV and sits on her own bed while I pretend to sleep. I don’t want to talk. I don't want to re-live any part of this night. I want to sleep and wake up and have this all be some stupid dream.
* * *
“Mum! Dad!” I shout through a crowd of people. They’re blocking my way, and I can’t get through. I dig my elbows into ribs, shoving and pushing people aside. I manage to make it within an arm's length. “Mum!” I reach out to touch her.
Hearing my voice, she looks over her shoulder and frowns before tapping my father on the shoulder to let him know I’m there.
“Dad.” I stretch my fingers towards him but there’s nothing recognisable in his eyes. He looks at me like I’m something you’d pick out of your shoe with a stick.
“Go away. We don’t want you.”
I stop walking. My heart clenching, tugging at my throat as the crowd engulfs me, a sea of people moving in different directions. They knock against me and swear because I’m in their way.
No one wants me.
I can’t move. I’m stuck, plastered to this spot, watching my parents move farther and farther away. My eyes burn and I can’t breathe. How could they do this to me?
The heaving of my own sobs wake me up. I sit upright, breathing heavily as I look around the room to get my bearings. Maddison is still sleeping soundly. She’s always been hard to wake up once she was out. Thank God.
Sitting in the quiet dark, I can’t escape my thoughts. I lie back down with my pillow over my head and let my sorrow wash over me. What am I supposed to do now? I can’t have infinite sleepovers. Where do kids even go when they don’t have homes?
By 6am, my tears have dried up, and I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself. Throwing my covers back, I get up and move over to the desk, writing a note for Maddison that says I'm going home to get ready for school. Its only a partial lie.
After I slip quietly out of the house, I retrieve my bag from the bushes and really do head home. I figure my parents will still be home at this hour, and I want to try to talk to them. Surely, they can’t be serious. Isn’t it illegal to throw your kid to the streets?
When I arrive, the lights are all out and it looks like no one is there. I walk around the perimeter of the house and try all the windows. I even try my keys again. When that doesn’t get me inside, I search under mats and pot plants, hunt around the garden for a fake rock or something, hoping to happen upon a key I didn’t know existed. But there’s nothing.
Eventually, the frustration gets too much for me. I pick up a rock from the garden and throw it through the window. The loud smash of the glass echoes through the quiet of the morning, even louder still is the wailing of the alarm.
An alarm we didn’t have 24 hours ago.
Do they really want me gone that much? My blood goes cold with disbelief as I hitch my bag on my shoulder and get the hell out of there. Soon after, a car from the security company is driving up our street, so I keep walking and keep my head down. I don’t want to risk being arrested right now. I’m pretty sure my parents wouldn’t bother coming to get me if I was.
For the rest of the day, I walk. There’s nowhere else to go. I can’t visit a friend because they’re all at school, there are no relatives close by—no one who’d give me the time of day, anyway. So, I end up sitting in a park, rocking back and forth on a swing.
It’s when it finally hits me.
I’m homeless.
Four
Six months earlier
“What do you mean you can’t trust me?” My mother’s raised voice floats through to the family room. “Haven’t I proven myself enough for you?”
They’re fighting again. I stiffen in my seat, hugging a couch cushion to my chest as though it will somehow act as a shield.
“You ruined that trust years ago, Susan!” Dad bellows back.
Shallowing my breath, I try to keep very quiet. If I try to go upstairs and hide, they’ll see me, and I’ll get dragged into this fight too. I don’t know why she does it. But when she’s angry at Dad, she’s angry at me too.
Adam and Sophie meet my eyes. “I don’t think they can see you,” my brother whispers. They know it happens, but they don’t try to save me. They don’t try to stop her. No one does. And I can’t really blame them. They’re probably scared of going against her and becoming a target like me. If I was in their situation, I’d probably keep my mouth shut too.
Trying to ignore the racing of my heart as their yells grow louder, I focus on the television. I can see the characters moving. However, I can’t hear anything besides noise in our home and my short quick breaths.
When the door bursts open, I stop breathing completely. Adam and Sophie keep their focus on the television, not daring to look my way.
“You’re an arsehole, Oliver. I'm sick and tired of this,” my mother yells before coming to a stop beside me. I think she actually came looking for me this time. Dad mustn’t be fighting hard enough. “And you,” she says, pointing her finger in my face, her lip curled in a snarl. “You’re no better.”
“I haven’t done anything. I’ve just been sitting here. I wasn’t even listening,” I ramble, trying to get her to realise how unreasonable she’s being before this gets out of hand. When my mother gets into these moods, her tirades can go on for hours. It doesn’t matter how hard I cry, or plead, or beg for her to stop. She yells until she’s run out of steam, or until she’s satisfied I’m sorry enough. But she’s never really satisfied. It’s like living with a ticking time bomb. Please don’t do this, I beg her internally. Not again.
Her hand draws back, and my brother and sister take it as their c
ue to leave the room. Then her hand connects with my face, a loud slap filling the room.
Tears sting my eyes as heat radiates off my face, but I refuse to cry. For a while, I actually fight back, trying to convince her that I haven’t done anything. That she doesn’t need to keep yelling at me.
But she doesn’t listen, and I run out of fight.
Eventually, I have nothing left to do but cry and listen as she tells me every single thing she finds wrong or insulting about me. It’s an endless list because I’m an ungrateful child who can’t stop getting in the way.
As I look at her twisted, angry face, I can only imagine she hates me. I don’t know why. Although I wish I did. I could fix it if I knew. I could be a better daughter. A better person. I keep trying. But it’s never enough….
Hours later, her voice grows hoarse. She’s repeated herself at least ten times, I’ve apologised at least a hundred. Her shoulders slump and she touches her head. “You’re grounded,” she says. Then she walks away, and all I feel is cold.
Five
“Where were you at school today?” Maddison asks over the phone. “Your note said you were going home to get ready. What happened?”
I’m sitting on the front step of my house, waiting to see if a member of my family is going to come home. They must be here somewhere. The window I broke earlier is already fixed, so they can’t be far.
I figure that if I can just make them talk to me, they’ll have to let me back in. I don’t care if they ignore me. I just want somewhere to live until I’m old enough to go to university. I know that if they let me, then I can stay out of their way. I can make it work.
The thought of having to survive on my own scares the living shit out of me. I don’t want to be a homeless teen. I don’t know how to be a homeless teen.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” I lie as I keep my eyes focused on the street and watch for some sign of their return.
She tries to move on with the conversation by telling me about how one of our friends was trying to get the attention of a boy two years ahead of us. I’m only half listening. I’ve got bigger things to worry about.
“Listen, Mads?” I interrupt. “Do you think your mum would let me stay over again tonight?”
“Um… I doubt it. We were lucky she said yes last night. But I can ask. Why? What’s going on?”
“Nothing really. I’m just locked out again.”
“Pay. Something’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”
My phone signals a low battery. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” I say, and end the call.
Diligently, I wait until the sky grows dark over my head, and the street lights turn on. I decide to make another phone call, this time to Ramona. I use the same story I used last night—I forgot my keys, can I stay over since my parents won’t be home until late; Yes, they know I’m here; No, it won’t happen again.
I use this as the excuse until I run out of friends. Then I go back to the beginning and make up a new one. Each night, I’m afraid they won’t believe me. I don’t know how long I can do this before they start comparing stories. Or worse, saying ‘no’.
Six
As time moves on, I spend a lot of it reflecting on my life so far. Looking back, I can’t really think of a time when both of my parents seemed happy to have me around.
Mum did for a time. But it all stopped when I was old enough to go to school. Since then, I've lived on tenterhooks, a constant source of annoyance. Things my siblings were allowed to do compared to me became a vast divide, a glaring beacon of injustice, a giant sign on the wall that said, "Nobody likes you." Sometimes I wonder if the memories of my mother hugging me are actually a fabrication of my desperate and lonely mind. They feel real but I wonder if I created them after witnessing her care for my siblings and wishing it was me they treated like that.
My father was no better. Our interactions were practically non-existent. I stayed out of his way because if he complained to my mother about me, I’d be subjected to one of her tirades in his honour. When he did speak to me, it was only when absolutely necessary, and then it was mainly grunts and barked orders. Where is my dry cleaning? Why isn’t the car clean? Why are you here if you aren’t pulling your weight?
Adam and Sophie didn’t have to pull their weight. They were also sent to fancy city private schools while I was in the public system. I was the only child who seemed a heavy burden on the Larsen family.
When I questioned the difference in treatment during one of my bolder moments, I was told it was because I didn’t do as well at school or sports. But I’ve never been allowed to do a sport, and I had so many chores it was hard to study. How was I ever going to fix that? They set their standards for me impossibly high.
No matter what I did, I could never fit in. I mean, I don’t even look like them. I used to think that perhaps I was adopted. I hoped I was living in some real life Cinderella situation. But that was just wishful thinking, I’ve seen photos from when my mum gave birth to me. She and dad were both looking down at a tiny baby with masses of dark hair.
They were smiling in that photo too. So they must have loved me once.
Maybe it’s my personality they don’t like?
Maybe it’s the way I look? My entire family are fair haired, blue eyed, and fair skinned. My looks are more Mediterranean. I have olive skin, hazel eyes and dark curly hair. Mum reckons my colouring comes from her great-grandfather. So I’m some weird genetic throwback everyone wishes didn’t exist.
Perhaps that’s why it all started. Perhaps they treated me differently because I don’t look like them. I suppose it was embarrassing when people actually questioned my parentage. My insanely curly hair was always a source of interest.
With the obvious divide in our house, it was easy for my brother and sister to use me as their scapegoat. They would point their fingers and claim that I was the one who broke the vase, or dropped the mobile phone in the sink full of water. It didn’t matter how much I protested, I was always in the wrong.
Since I was forever grounded, I’d often get home from school to find the house empty because hey’d all gone to some dinner or family event without me. While it upset me, I eventually got used to it. I learned to revel in the quiet freedom their absence gave me.
I did try to fit in. I did everything I could to be a part of the family. Once, I even had my hair bleached to try to fit in more. But all that did was earn me a month’s grounding, another trip to the hair dresser and a very short haircut that caused my already curly hair to look like a frizzy ball of darkness surrounding my head.
I followed the rules, worked as hard as I could at school. I went above and beyond, hoping that somehow, my parents would notice me. That somehow, I could make them love me. A hope that crumpled the day I placed first in my art class.
I remember feeling worthy. For this fleeting moment, I thought I was finally good enough. On the day I was to receive my award at school, I actually thought my parents would attend the special assembly put on to honour the best students in my grade. When I looked out into the sea of delighted smiling faces, no one was there smiling for me. No one cared enough to be proud along with me.
After that, I stopped trying. I stopped caring. It didn’t matter if I came first or last. I wasn’t going to get a smile. I wasn’t going to get a kind word. I got what I always got—nothing.
Seven
Three months after the note
In that first two weeks, I tried to maintain a façade of normalcy. I went to school, I stayed with friends, and I sat on the doorstep of my family home, hoping to catch them on their way to or from work and school. I wanted to have them look me in the eye and realise this was just a terrible mistake. Some ridiculous joke gone awry. But it was never a joke. They were never there, and on the last day I visited, a ‘For Sale’ sign had been erected.
I smashed every window on the ground floor, watching my last shreds of hope shattering before my eyes. Then I ran as fast and as far
as I could, needing to escape my pain as much as I needed to run from those sirens. What kind of family kicks their fifteen year old daughter to the street then leaves town?
It took about a month before the school called me into the office.
“It’s come to our attention that you might be having some trouble at home,” the principal said, her expression soft and empathetic. I raced through my recent conversations with friends and interactions with their parents. Someone turned me in. “I want you to know that we’re here for you if you need to talk. We can help.”
I sat with my arms folded across my chest, not trusting myself to speak. I’d either cry, or blab about everything. And then I’d be in shit. The way I saw it, if my parents had gone to that much effort to get rid of me, having me returned to them by social services would just make my life with them even worse. And I didn’t think I could trust myself to fall in line anymore. I was too hurt. Too furious and angry at everyone and everything around me. Someone turned me in. Even my friends couldn’t be trusted.
“I’ve been trying to contact your parents, Paige. I heard a rumour they moved and you aren’t living with them anymore. Is that true?”
Angry tears burned like fire behind my eyes.
“I’m staying with my aunt,” I forced out.
“OK. I was worried you didn’t have anywhere because you’ve been having a lot of sleepovers.”
“My aunt lets me.”
“That’s great.” She smiled. “I just need her number so we can get some details from her. Do you know it?”
“Not by heart,” I said, my chest getting tight because I knew she wasn’t buying it. “But I can bring it to you tomorrow.”
She gave me a nod. “I’d really appreciate that. Especially if you can get her to contact me. I’ll be in the office until five.”
Beautiful Boxset: Beautiful Series, books 1-4 Page 70
