by Nikki Morgan
‘Go home, make the appointment, and we’ll see you back here in a week’s time.’
I nodded and quickly escaped. Escaped from the sterility, from the kindness, from her.
I don’t remember much of the journey home; I spent most of it with my head down looking at the frayed thread of my hoodie, too ashamed to look up in case someone saw through me, saw what I'd become.
My head felt like it was going to implode as I thought about all these crazy scenarios. My mother? What would happen to me if she died? What would happen to me if she died whilst on holiday? What would happen if she got married to Dan then died? Crazy, stupid questions, but I couldn’t help thinking about them, and the more I thought about them, the more confused I became, The more confused I became the more I felt crazy and out of control, like I was hurtling towards a wall, in a train travelling at one-hundred miles-per-hour.
I was out of control.
I stumbled through the front door and dropped my bag down on the floor and ran upstairs for a hot, hot shower. I cranked the shower up. Maybe, just maybe, I could purge myself of the madness.
I crawled out of the shower, my skin red-raw. Even that didn't make me feel any better now. Still wet, I crawled into bed and waited for the demons to come. And they came, laughing and pointing their fingers at me, old faces laughing with the new demons I seemed to be collecting.
Sleep took its time, but I still woke really early the next day, at six in the morning, alert and unable to sleep despite the fact my body was still stone-tired. But I didn’t get out of bed. Instead, I just lay there, under the duvet, trying to pretend that life was not happening. I don’t know how long I just lay there, thinking about the knives in the kitchen and how I might hurt myself with one without knowing. My body was broken, my mind shattered.
There was a banging of doors downstairs. My heart jumped in my chest, I stopped breathing, but I couldn't move.
And then Aunt Celia was at my bedroom door, her face like thunder. 'Come on get up!' she said, putting her hand across her face as if to protect herself from some kind of bad smell. 'Get up!' she screeched, 'I need you downstairs. NOW!' She turned around, sweeping from the room. I heard her footsteps pounding down the stairs.
Somehow, I really don't know how, I managed to get my legs to work and stumbled down the stairs after her.
I entered the living room just as she threw open the curtains, the light was blinding, stinging my eyes.
‘You haven’t been skulking around here all week long have you? Why aren't you at school? Your face is like a wet weekend,’ she said, turning to face me, her mouth curled in a sneer of disgust. ‘You need to pull yourself together!’
Reminds me of that crap joke: Doctor, Doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains and the doctor replies ‘Come on man, pull yourself together. ’I mean, what does “pull yourself together” even mean?
Still, she continued to rant. ‘Do you want your mom to get into trouble?’
‘No.’ I sounded sulky, like a petulant child.
‘Good,’ get this place tidied up, ‘she’s coming home tomorrow. It’s been a tough few years for her Evelyn, she doesn’t need you going off on one too.’
I looked at Celia’s face, her red hair scraped back in a ponytail, her horsey mouth, her big white teeth dazzling against her orange fake tan and she made me want to puke.
‘Okay?’ I hear her finish. I nodded my head dutifully.
‘What time does her plane land?’ I ask, not because I care, but because I know this is what's expected of me.
Celia gave me a you should already know this type of look. ‘Six. Make sure this place is tidied up and Evelyn -‘
‘Yeah?’
‘It would be good if you could stop thinking of yourself for one moment and be pleased for her. Losing your dad like that, and then your Gran, you know.'
I nodded my head. Maybe it was my fault dad died. Everything was my fault.
‘It might be good to get her an engagement card, that is, if you can manage to get yourself out of the house.’
‘Okay.’ So he had asked her to marry him then.
And as quick as she had arrived, she had left. Like a tornado. And I was stuck in the calm after the storm, the memory of it lingering in the air.
I dumped myself on the sofa. Everyone seemed to be happy apart from me. Why could I not be happy? What was wrong with me? Was I such a terrible daughter?
Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic! I hit the side of my head hard, trying to knock out the despair. But it didn’t work.
I looked out of the window at the clouds floating by peacefully, untroubled by nothing but the wind. What it must be like to be free. Sometimes I wished I could be a cloud floating in the sky, not having to worry about being a freak, about not feeling anything. Or a bird. To be able to fly away, to fly high above the clouds.
I felt a wave of sadness wash over me, my heart was like lead in my chest. But I could sense a change in myself.
I was at a crossroads. But I didn't know which road to take.
Evie
I sat in the dark, the blackness punctuated now and again by the streak of headlights from passing cars. Cassie's voice cut through the silence as the answering machine clicked on.
'Hi Hun, just gone to Celia's to show her the ring. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow; I've got so many ideas that I don't know where to start. I won't be back until late, so don't wait up.'
I couldn't believe that she'd gone and done it again, and put me at the bottom of her list. But then, I was only her daughter.
If she'd abandoned me - left my life for good - it would be different, but instead she'd abandoned me but was still here, present but absent at the same time.
I was torn between missing her so much that my heart felt like it was going to break, to feeling like I could quite happily never see her again.
But tonight, tonight the house felt so big and empty and quiet. I wanted my mom. Here. With me.
I wanted to tell her that I was down, like really low - okay, not as low as I had been at the beginning of the year - but still, not far off rock-bottom. I wanted her to put her arms around me, to tell me it was alright, that I didn't need the anti-depressant tablets that I was holding, because she would make it go away, she would make it better.
But who was I trying to kid? She couldn't look after herself, let alone me and all my crap. To be honest, she never really had looked after me, not since I was about six, the time my father was diagnosed with cancer. Cancer robbed me of my dad, it also stole my mom.
She couldn't cope. My Gran lived with us anyway, and she watched me whilst Cassie looked after my father, and then, when he died, well, mom's love for me died too. It wasn't so bad then though; it hurt, don't get me wrong, but at least I had Gran to tend to my cuts, to give me magic cream, to go to Parent's Evenings, to look after me when I was sick.
Now I had no one.
I popped an anti-depressant from the foil. A happy pill. If only it was, if only it took it all away. But, I knew it wouldn't. The doctor I'd seen earlier in the evening told me it would sort out the chemical imbalance in my brain, just take the edge off what I was feeling, and make me feel more able to cope with dealing with my problems. He then booked me in to see a Counsellor.
I didn't want a counsellor.
I just wanted to see her, to speak to my mom, really speak like a normal family. But I knew it wouldn't happen, so I went to bed, like she'd told me.
In the morning, the alarm shocked me awake at seven, after another night of unsettled sleep. I could hear clattering downstairs and I remembered Cassie was back. My heart seemed to fall right into the pit of my stomach.
I crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. After a quick soak in the shower I grabbed a pair of red jeans and a black top and got dressed before heading downstairs.
I stopped outside the living room door, took a deep breath, making sure I'd glued my fake "I'm okay, everything is totally normal" smile onto my face, before entering. Maybe I sh
ould've super-glued it on because, sometimes, it made my jaw physically ache to hold it in place.
'Hi!' I said, as enthusiastically as I could, as I walked through to the kitchen. To my own ears it sounded phoney but it seemed to pass right over her head.
'Oh, hi Hun!' she said, uncurling herself from around a shirtless Dan who frying bacon on the hob. It made me uncomfortable, liked I'd interrupted an intimate moment.
'Hi,' said Dan, looking up from the bacon.
I smiled weakly at him as I was swept up in Cassie's arms.
'I've missed you,' she said, clinging on to me for a few seconds. And another beautiful lie was born. She let me go and held out her hand to reveal a platinum engagement ring with a single heart-shaped diamond. 'Do you like it?'
Diamonds make me feel sick, all that blood spilt for the vanity of others. 'Yes, it's beautiful,' I lied. I couldn't face arguing with her already, not when I'd only just got her back. 'Congratulations!'
'Do you want some breakfast?' asked Dan. 'We've got sausage, bacon, or I could do you some toast?'
'No, it's alright thanks. I'm running late, I'll get some at school.'
'Evelyn, Hun, you need to look after yourself, you're looking tired. Stay, have some breakfast, celebrate with us today,' said Cassie, draping herself around Dan again. 'I can write you a note if you want the day off?'
Cassie's bathrobe had fallen off her shoulder, revealing her newly bronzed skin. She kissed Dan on the neck and I wanted to retch. The thought of staying here, with them. No, I couldn't even think about it.
'No.' I said, quickly adding, 'thanks though. I've got to keep up with my work, A-levels are quite demanding.'
Cassie looked at me for a moment, like she wanted to say something but thought better of it. Finally she said, 'Okay, just a thought.'
'Anyway, better go,' I said, grabbing my school bag off the chair, 'or I'll miss my bus.'
'Dan could take you?' said Cassie.
'Nah, it's okay. You two look like you need some alone time.' Shivers of disgust ran down my spine as the words formed in my mouth. I couldn't look at them again, if I did, I thought I might actually be sick. 'See yah!' I said, turning quickly and bolting for the door.
I stepped out into the cold grey morning, unintentionally slamming the front door shut behind me. There was a sprinkling of frost on the floor and the air was cold and crisp, a stark contrast to how stuffy and suffocating it had been in Cassie and Dan's presence.
Cassie. My mom.
Maybe I'd been adopted, or switched at birth.
The idea of Cassie being my mom felt so wrong, so foreign to me, like running naked down the street. We were connected by blood. That was it. But blood doesn't necessarily make family.
The doctor had told me to take a week off, a break from the pressure of studying, but it wasn't the studying that was bothering me. I walked to the bus stop and waited, keeping up the pretence of going to school because I couldn't stay at home, not with them all over each other, but I couldn't go to school, not with the nurse telling me to take the time off too.
The bus journey was uneventful, pulling into Oakwood station just after eight. I stumbled off, swept along in the sea of people hurrying along. They had a purpose, somewhere to be, lives full of families and friends.
I had nothing.
I couldn't go to Sofia's, where I usually went for coffee, as people from school would probably be in there, so I stopped off at Bella's Coffee Shop, and downed a large latte, hoping that the caffeine hit would wake me up. I spent the rest of the day at the library working on assignments or pretending to work as I mainly doodled in my note pad. The hours both dragged and sped by, depending on how I was feeling and what I was doing. It got worse as soon as the clock started ticking towards home-time. I knew I had nowhere else to go; the library would shut soon and I would be forced to go back to them. My stomach churned at the thought, my heart rolled erratically in my chest.
And then I was back home again, sticking on my "Happy" face before I let myself in. There hadn't been any point though, the repetitive banging of a headboard upstairs told me I wouldn't be seeing Cassie and Dan just yet, but I didn't know what was worse; seeing them or hearing what they were up to.
I shuddered. My mind was telling me to run, to get out of there, but where else was I supposed to go?
This was my home. Wasn't it?
I sloped off to the kitchen and flicked on the radio, turning it up loud to drown out their crap. I popped a pod in the coffee machine. At the side of it sat a huge pile of wedding magazines, I closed my eyes and sighed, not sure I had the strength in me to deal with it all.
'Hi Hun, how was your day?' asked Cassie, appearing in the doorway behind me, her lithe body draped in a black silk kimono, her blazing red hair tied up in an untidy ponytail. She still looked gorgeous, like she'd just walked off a Pre-Raphaelite painting with her bright emerald eyes and porcelain skin.
What could I say? Mom, I've got depression. I feel crap. You make me feel like crap. 'Oh, okay. You know. How about you?' I could imagine, and I didn't really want to know.
'It's been,' said Cassie, a dreamy smile on her face, 'really good.'
'Great.' I felt sick inside.
'Yeah, we popped out to get some magazines,' said Cassie pointing to the pile by the coffee machine, 'you'll have to have a flick through so we can see what dress you'd like. There are some gorgeous ones.'
'A dress?'
'Of course. Do you think I wouldn't have my only daughter as a bridesmaid? Was thinking of asking Celia too, what d'ya think?'
'It's your day,' I said, grabbing my coffee tightly in one hand whilst piling loads of sugar into it with the other.
'Yeah, I think Celia would like that. Oh, by the way, Celia's invited us over tonight for dinner so you'll have to make your own tea. Is that ok?'
I nodded. What did she want? Permission? As if she'd change her plans for me anyway. 'Yeah, I've got to go to Sam's in a minute anyway. We're working on an art assignment together, so I've already arranged to eat with him,' I lied. Why was it so easy to lie to my own mother?
'Okay Hun,' said Cassie. She swept over to me and took a handful of my hair. It made me cringe as she ran her fingers through it. 'We'll have to do something with your hair.' No one had touched my hair like that, not since my Gran had died. I instinctively pulled away from her touch. She didn't even notice. 'Oh, there's a pressie there for you, hope you like it.' She pointed to a small pink gift bag on the counter.
I picked it up and fetched out the gift; a bottle of Opium perfume (I hate strong perfumes), some face cream (I never use the stuff) and a Chick-lit novel, called Dreaming of You, the yellow price sticker still stuck on its cover (a bargain at two pounds). 'Thanks,' I said carefully putting them back into the bag. I'd stuff the face cream and perfume in the bathroom cupboard (with the other unopened bottles) later, and find a space on the bookshelf for the book, next to all the other un-read novels she'd bought me (all Chick-lit, which she knew I couldn't stand. I didn't believe in love).
Her gifts only served to show me how far apart we had drifted, a reminder of how little she knew me. Or how little she wanted to know me.
I was a complete alien to my mother; in the same room, but so many worlds apart.
'I only came back for my art folder, so I better go else I'm going to be late,' I said, leaving my gift bag and untouched coffee on the counter.
I headed upstairs and bumped into Dan coming out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, low enough to show the scar from where he'd had his appendix removed.
'Hi,' he said, standing in the doorway, brushing his hair away from his face like he was some sort of Adonis.
'Hi,' I replied, looking away. My skin was crawling like a whole colony of ants were scuttling over me, burrowing into my skin. Why couldn't they just leave me alone? Why did they have to make me feel so uncomfortable in my own home?
I dived into my room and grabbed my art folder, before racing downst
airs and fleeing the house. 'See ya!' I shouted, to no one in particular.
Outside, darkness was beginning to tumble down like leaves in the autumn and frost was smearing his sticky white fingers over every surface. And I was cold, alone, and miserable.
I'd got nowhere to go, so I just walked, and walked, until I knew it would be safe to go back home.
The house was shrouded in darkness when I finally returned. I ran upstairs for a shower but found Dan's clothes all over the floor like an infestation of parasites. I gave up and went to bed to read, only to be disturbed again by Cassie and Dan stumbling back in late. Soon after the headboard started banging. I shut out the noise with music on my headphones.
I don't know at what time I managed to fall to sleep, but when I finally did drift off I had a strange dream; a figure emerged from the depths of my mind, taking my hand firmly in theirs and sweeping me up into their arms. I couldn't see their face and yet I knew it was a man, I could feel it in my heart as his cold hands grasped me tightly. My body stirred under his touch and then, when I felt the touch of his cold lips on mine, my whole body came to light, as if a fire had ignited inside me. My whole body ached for him, wanted to be part of him. I wanted to stay there forever, locked in his embrace.
My eyes flew open, a thump, thump, thump of a headboard on the bedroom wall brought me right back to harsh reality.
My first dream in what had seemed like an eternity, and they had to go and spoil it. I mean, how old was Cassie anyway? Did they really have to be at it like rabbits?
I lay in my bed, clasping my stomach, trying to hold onto the feeling that had burned so brightly inside me in my dream. I wanted the feeling back, so I closed my eyes and tried hard to remember every detail, tried to piece together the fragments that were left in my head. But it was no good, the banging of the bed beat the thoughts from my head.
I had to get out of the house, I couldn't stand it.
