Mommy ✓

six

C H A P T E R   S I X

☆☆☆

“Darren is just so great. So, so great. You know when you meet someone and then you start to get to know them and then you just know that they're special? God I feel that way every time I'm around him,” Manda rambled as we changed out of the clothes we'd worn to Darren's.

It was a relief to slip back into my sweatpants and tee shirt, a first step in banishing the effects of this entire day. When I got home, I would take a nice long three hour shower with the water on its hottest temperature and maybe then I would finally feel clean again. 

I made a non-committal sound to her comment and she took that as her cue to continue on. I was laying on her bed with my legs stretched out while I pretended to do something serious on my phone.

She changed into an outfit similar to mine though instead of a shirt she wore a sports bra. She plopped down on the bed and laid her head in my lap.

It was a position she assumed often whenever I slept over and I'd never minded. Sometimes I'd stroke her hair while she spoke to me, but today I kept my hands wrapped tightly around my iPhone 6.

“He's so special, so funny. He does this really cute thing where he half smiles at me whenever he talks to me and ugh, it's the best. He's the best. Today was perfect,” she continued to say.

“You know, how we talked about getting intimate with someone and how both you and I wanted it to be with someone special, someone who an hour, a week, a month from now would still be in our lives? Because let's face it, we're not the most sentimental girls out there but we wanted it to count for something?” Manda asked me.

The intensity in her eyes actually made me uncomfortable but I licked my lips and nodded anyway.

“He was the one. He touched me today and it felt so right. I really like him Paiten, I really do. I hope he asks me to be his girlfriend.”

Amanda continued to go on and on about that boy and my thoughts wandered on to other happier things. I looked down at her.

Her straightened hair was splayed across my lap and her full lips moved swiftly as they formed words. Sometimes, they'd give way to the smile always sported when she was undeniably happy. I'd lost count on how many hours I'd spent simply staring at her.

I thought back to the day I had met her eight years ago: my dad thought it would be wise to remove me from the laërskool I'd attended since grade R to a former model c school. It would do my future wonders if could write and speak English well and he saw it fit to move me to an English-medium school.

I cared little for his reasons, I was just glad to be out of that Afrikaans school. Although my entire family were Afrikaners and I could speak the language well, although half of my identity belonged to that racial group – I'd had a hard time fitting in with all of the other white children at school.

It had nothing to do with a language barrier and I was certain it had nothing to do with my race: there were children of colour in that school.

It had everything to do with me and how uncomfortable I felt in that space. I wasn't happy there, so when I transferred to the former model c school two kilometres away within the third month of grade three, it was a chance for a new beginning.

The first few weeks in the new school were much like the years I'd spent at the old school, much to my utter disappointment. I still had no friends and didn't know how to fit in with the other girls. New school had a lot of black people and very few white and everyone spoke English, yet no one spoke to me or tried to make friends with me.