Feeling

Chapter 7 - Step mum

 Vincent and Mary took care of me for around 4 days before my dad showed up saying he had been worried sick about me. He probably hadn’t noticed until the day before that I was even missing. And Natalie wouldn’t have said anything. Vincent and Mary often asked me about University, and listened to me when I talked about mum. Every night at their house I would get out mum’s ashes and explain to her what’s been happening.

When dad came to get me I refused to go home with him. I told him I would rather stay with our neighbours than go back to a house that had Natalie in it. He didn’t understand why I had such a disliking for her. And I didn’t want to explain what she said to me, cos every time I thought about it I got a pang in my heart, and my stomach tightened with fear.

The night after my dad tried to get me back was the night I had the worst nightmares. One of them was about my birthday, which was in two weeks from that day. Me and mum and dad were all sat having a meal, I wasn’t in my wheelchair, and of course mum was there. It was just like every birthday I've ever had. Ordered Chinese food, and watch old video tapes of me as a baby. They were always so funny. however the dream was different. Before we finished our meal, someone knocked on the door.

I opened it to find Natalie and a strange man. The man was my 'real' Dad, and Natalie was my 'birth mum'. They told me as soon as they opened the door. Unwillingly I went with them, leaving my mum and dad behind. I kept sneaking back to my parent’s house to look through the window, always to find that mum was sat silently in her wheelchair, in the cold and dark spare room, where it was left empty of any possession; I always found my dad sat in the kitchen, with empty bottles of wine on the table, and him swirling a glass in his hand.

The dream seemed to be never ending, I went back to their house every day to find the same thing, and my birth parents dragging me back home every day. It was weird in the dream, I felt about 12 years old. I remember being 12 so clearly. I got my first boyfriend when I was 12, and I had my first kiss. School was so easy having just started secondary school, and without even trying I was the smartest one there.

When I was 12 I used to go to pottery classes with my mum. Every week I would make a bowl, and she would try her best but end up with the same misshapen lump she started with, and her hands covered in paint and clay. Those were the best times with my mum. At the young age I had only just started to learn about my mums condition, and I always looked into how to cure it. I was never successful, being something she had from birth made it easy for her to be at terms with it.

Once I hit 13 so many people at school were making fun of my mum I was angry for about 2 years, until I realised they only make fun because she is different. Well, was. I got over people making fun of it. When I was 14 I told one of my friends about how I was adopted, and turns out, she wasn’t really my friend. The news spread round the school like wild fire, and I was called ‘unwanted’ and ‘orphan’ until I left for college.

Back to the story. My nightmares about my horrible real life parents caused me to wake up in the night screaming and crying, Mary hobbled swiftly into my room and sat down on the side of my bed, I was so shaken up by the dream that I sat up and spun my body to the side and tried to stand up.

Mary caught me as my legs crumbled like paper onto the soft carpet, and she helped me into my chair. “You need to go home” she said. She spoke slowly, like you would expect a tortoise to speak, gently and calmly. Without another word she packed my things for me, and wheeled me home.

I snuck into the house silently, pulled myself into my bed, and tried to go back to sleep.

The following week was all a blur. My dad and Natalie went out together every day, and every morning Dad invited me to go with them. I wanted to go too, but the look Natalie gave me basically said that she’d rather see me die than go with them.

I spent every morning at home, on the house computer reading about other people who are in wheelchairs and how they deal with it. In the afternoons I worked at the card shop down the road, constantly listening to the cashier girl talk about how miserable her high school life is, and how horrible it is having to pick between her 3 boyfriends.

I don’t hate her because I’m jealous of her 3 boyfriends. I just hate her because she thinks her problems are so massive, when compared to my past year, her problems are miniscule.

Her talking about her boyfriend issues made me think about Ben, and how kind and caring he was. Always understanding me and trying to make me feel better. I missed him, but not in the way he probably wanted me to… It wouldn’t have been fair to start things up with him again, if I knew it would have ended badly. I stopped myself from thinking about him.

After the Easter break it was a lot easier to concentrate at University. Knowing dad was happy, despite Natalie being his partner, I didn’t have to worry about him. Natalie was still picking me up every day from Uni, but it was gonna be my birthday in a about week, and I couldn’t help but feel excited. It felt like things were finally working out.

**I've been thinking a lot about things to add to the story and it has caused me some bad dreams...will write more soon but may be around a week or so before i upload any more. especially with exams to revise for ;)**