Elizabeth Gallagher - Shameless US

Death

I was in my English class today when Nila came in late. I was shocked, Nila's never late and it was already 2nd period. She handed a note to the teacher and sat down at her desk next to me. I leant over to her.

"Where were you?" I whispered.

"At the doctors," she replied. I got the message that she didn't really want to talk about it so I didn't say anything else

"Why?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter," she replied.

"Is there a problem? Miss Gallagher? Miss Simons?" The teacher, Mrs Grocher said. "Anything you two would like to share.

"No," I replied.

Later, when I was waiting outside Jo's office, Nila came up to me.

"Hey, um, I need to talk to you about something," she said.

"Well, I've got my counselling session right now, but come to my house after school," I replied. She nodded and walked away. I got called into the office.

"Hi Ellie, how are you today?" Jo asked.

"Yeah I'm okay," I replied.

"I heard your father got a liver transplant and he's going to live, that's great!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah...great...that's the word," I said sarcastically. I guess I meant it though, I didn't want my dad to die, then I'd basically be an orphan...kind of, and nobody wants to be an orphan.

"Ellie, today I wanted to do something different," Jo stood up and placed a chair in front of me. "You told me that your mom abandoned you and your siblings a while ago, am I right?"

"Yeah,"

"Ellie I want you to pretend that your mother is sitting in this chair. I want you to say everything that you've ever wanted to say to her. You can swear, you can be explicit, you can use whatever kind of language you want  I just want you to say evything you've ever wanted to say," she told me.

"Everything?"

"Everything," she confirmed. I thought this was pretty stupid, I mean, there's nothing I want to say to Monica, and I felt pretty stupid talking to a chair.

"Um...okay...Monica, I...I feel like...you don't care about me. Actually, I know you don't care about me. You never did. But that doesn't bother me. And it never will. Because I don't care about you either. So thank you, thank you for leaving us and making me realise what a heinous bitch you are," Jo didn't say anything and gestured for me to keep going.

"You only have yourself now and that's all you've ever wanted. So thank you. Thank you for leaving and never coming back! It doesn't matter what I think anymore, it never did. I never mattered go you. Never. But that's wasn't my fault. That was you! All fucking you!  You had seven kids and then decided that you only want to look out for yourself so you left. It was never my fault. You got what you wanted. You live in a bubble, your own little world with no one else in it, it's just Monica, Monica, Monica. Well congratulations, I'm happy your dreams came true," I finished.

Jo didn't say anything, she just stood there, observing what I had said. I know that she expecting me to start expressing my 'feelings' or whatever, but that's never going to happen.

...

After school, I was trying to tame seven kids and keep the from trashing the house. Carl's girlfriend brought her seven younger siblings to stay at the house, and I was having to deal with them.

"Hey! Give me that! Stop-no! Lip!!" I yelled out. Lip came and saw all the kids.

"Who the hell are they?!" He asked.