When I came home, Stephen’s car was in the driveway. I shoved my keys in the keyhole, pushed the door open after a the sound of a click and immediately shouting met my ears. “-O YOU THINK ANYONE CARES ABOUT YOU, CELESTE? NO OF COURSE THEY-“ I slammed the door shut and the shouting stopped, instead I could hear soft sobbing coming from the kitchen. I ran to the kitchen. “What’s going on here?!” I shouted at Stephen who was pacing up and down in front of my mother who was cowering on the floor, hiding her face and sobbing. Stephen walked up to me and grabbed the collar of my T-shirt with his fist. “You,” he hissed “not a word of this to anyone!” he let go of me and stormed out of the room. I went over to Mum and kneeled in front of her. “Mum, are you okay?” I whispered. Her tear stricken face became visible and I saw that her eyes were swollen and red, there was a graze on her cheek. “Did he hit you?” I gasped and held her head to one side. “Mum?” I urged her to answer me, panic and hate directed at Stephen welled up in me. She closed her eyes, her face was still beautiful even when she was crying. I shook her arm in desperation. What could I do if he was hitting her? “Answer me! He did, didn’t he?” my voice quivered. My mother nodded and just like that, my world shattered. “The bastard.” I cursed myself for ever letting that man into my- and my mother’s- life. “No, please don’t do anything stupid honey, please I deserved it.” Rage took over my brain. “No Mum, you could never deserve this.” I jumped up onto my feet. He was going to pay for this. I ran to the front door and roughly opened it. Stephen’s car wasn’t on the drive anymore. He was gone. One part of me was thankful that he’d left, the other was cursing him because I wanted to beat the living daylights out of the monster. I leaned against the doorpost and closed my eyes, breathing in I tried to control my emotions. My first priority was taking care of Mum. I went back inside the house and found the phone book. That man wasn’t coming back in here, no way.
After the phone call I looked for Mum in the kitchen, she wasn’t lying on the floor anymore, she was standing behind the cooker and there was an empty frying pan on the hob. Her hands were shaking as she was trying to pour oil into it. “Mum!” I ran up behind her and grabbed the oil, while simultaneously turning off the heat. I put down the bottle of oil and hugged her. She almost collapsed onto the floor but I kept her standing. My beautiful mother’s shoulders shook as she was crying. “Shhhhhh, it’s okay Mum.” She turned around and hugged me to her. I stroked her soft brown hair, trying to calm her down. After a while I led her to the settee in the living room. “I’m going to take care of you now, okay?” My helpless mother sat down and hugged her chest, tears welled up in her eyes again. She had loved Stephen, her heart was broken and I was here to pick up the pieces. I didn’t really know what to do, I wasn’t hungry and I knew my mother wouldn’t be either but we both needed to eat. I would force-feed her if I needed to, she was not going to let her body suffer more than it needed to because of some scumbag who had just ruined her life. I walked into the kitchen, finding some ingredients wasn’t difficult. Mum loved to cook and that was something I’d inherited from her. But right now, it wasn’t enough to distract me. I longed for someone I could call, someone who could help me like Luna or Niall. But I didn’t have anyone’s phone numbers and I had no idea where they lived. Once the food was ready to eat I put it in bowls, one for me and one for Mum. I took them to the living room where she was curled up in the settee and placed our bowls on the coffee table. “Mum, look what I made.” I waved a bowl of the chicken tikka masala in front of her so the beautiful aromas would tingle her senses. She looked at me with that broken expression that tore me up inside. “Please, just eat.” I said, she did what I hadn’t expected her to do and she took the bowl from my hands along with a fork I was holding and started eating. She hadn’t spoken a lot since Stephen left which was really unnerving because Mum usually talked about her feelings all the time. I smiled slightly as I watched her eat for a few seconds before I started on my own bowl. The taste normally filled me with joy and comfort, but now it could have been stolen from me and I wouldn’t have noticed.
The rest of the evening I had held my mother, stroking her soft hair just being there for her. I wondered if this is how she had been when my father had left her. When I was about three he’d walked out and never came back, I didn’t know the details but honestly I really didn’t want to know. A father that could just walk out on his child and wife wasn’t a father worth having. At around nine pm Mum fell asleep in my arms, I tried to get out from under her gently as to not wake her up. She stirred but fell asleep again almost instantly. I took a blanket from a chair and lay it over her, tucking her in. I really didn’t feel like sleeping or doing anything at all really except for throttling Stephen of course.
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Sorrysorrysorry for not writing D:
