*Under Editing*

Chapter Eight - Do I or Don't I?

The week had gone by ever so quickly and it felt as though my parents visited me years ago. We spoke on the phone every day since their departure and conveyed how we felt about being back together and hoped that one day God would bring us together, as a family. They were on another voyage every day in Australia and I got to be the bystander at the tail end of their drama through photographs or Skype calls, although they were blurry it seemed far better in the place I was residing in.

I missed them so much; I had planned my departure from this place because I was never supposed to call this home. If someone would ask me “where do you live?” my reply would be “I’m from England but I’m just here for a little charity work.” Now when someone would ask, I’d give them the area of where I lived as though it was home. Was that some sort of sign?

 I would find it so hard to leave, I can’t stand change so once I established a routine here, I knew I wouldn’t be able to move anywhere else. Moving back to England would bring back a host of challenges for me, finding a place to live – though I was convinced my parents would say “just come and live with us.” Finding a new job, how difficult would that be?

My social life was well and truly back to base one, I had no friends subsiding near me, most of them were now married and a handful of them now had children. I never thought I’d end up this way, I just assumed things would fall into place naturally. It’s not as though I’m committing a crime, I’m helping the poor and needy yet, for some reason I feel as though I’m being punished by losing everything.

I brushed the thought off by remembering the torment I would face by moving back home.

What got my mind of the whole me situation properly was Rico. I still hadn’t answered my own question of why I thought of Rico when my father asked me if I had found someone, surely it could not be him. It was impossible; we were to worlds apart but even more concerning for me was I didn’t even know him. I put these weird tingling thoughts down to me never having any experience with the opposite sex before.

Because deep down inside I was that young teenager who wanted to be uncooperative all the time, have her mum cook her food for her, her dad to buy her everything she wanted. That time had gone, far gone in-fact.

Either that or the fact that he was friendly to me, he spoke the same language as me and made me laugh – none of these things occurred to me for a while and so naturally as a lonesome person I attached myself to him instantly. Hoping that he’d continue keeping me sane and he did, well that’s until I saw those images and had a go at him. I’d completely forgotten about that! What will he be thinking of me, we apologised but then again it wouldn’t have stopped him thinking about what a irate woman I am.

Taking what looked like my last sip of cold coffee, I pushed my head upwards to get a look at the time and it read two thirty pm. I shot up to get to my destination nice and early to avoid any lateness, I despised that. Taking one last look at myself in the mirror I found me staring at myself much longer than I anticipated. It was the first day I had off in two weeks and so I wanted to pamper myself on my day off and with that came applying makeup – which I didn’t do often. I was astonished at what a difference it made to my appearance. I didn’t look too bad, in fact I looked decent.

My hazel eyes popped with the contrasting rich black eyeliner I took my time applying precisely. My skin looked flawless and glowed which looked unusual to me but perfect with foundation. On top I’d applied a rose coloured blush which bought everything together. With my hair done differently to the usual pony tail I felt the confidence shining through me.

No longer did I look as though I had walked out of bed and straight into work, I looked like most girls all prim and polished. I didn’t think I looked bad without make up on, I enjoy my thirty minutes extra in bed but on days like this it makes you feel that extra special and adds a spring in my step.