Jamie was having a nice day today. He got to play on the iPad and his mum thought it would be fun to play tag too.
"I'm coming to get you!" She cried, crawling her fingers as she crept towards him. He started giggling and ran to the corner of the living room.
"Here I come!" She smiled. She got closer and closer, until eventually she was tickling her toddler's tummy. Jamie didn't run away, but more turned away and giggled with the biggest smile.
"Stop! That tickles!" He giggled. His mum picked up the toddler, peppering his neck with kisses. Suddenly a gross smell came and mummy scrunched her nose.
"Jamie, I think you need to use the potty," she said gazing down at him while rocking him in am exaggerated manor.
"But muuuuuuuuuuum-," Jamie sighed, but one swift look changed his attitude. She put him down and he bounced off to the toilet with his stubbly little legs.
When Jamie went back to the living room, he found his dad was there too. "I'm sick of living living in a pigsty, Kelly! All I do is work all day and come home to this shit!" He yelled. Mummy did not look at all impressed.
"Who the fuck do you think you are? I'm so tired and I've been trying to get this house sorted all day, as well as getting his schooling organised! This is the one day off I get all week and I have to spend it cleaning-"
"I DONT BLOODY CARE! Teach the little shit to stop pulling out crap!"
Suddenly mum noticed Jamie, who didn't cry anymore, for this happened a lot. Mummy looked distressed as she faked a smile and walked over to him.
"Why don't you go to your room and play the iPad?" She asked in hopes the little boy would catch on. He had his thumb in his mouth and turned his big doe eyes from his mum, to his dad fuming in the living room, while pacing and muttering "the little shits" over and over.
Jamie ran down the hall to his room and held onto his rabbit teddy and sucking his thumb. He was too scared to go on his iPad and kept hearing he's parents, his dad more, yelling things like "I do everything for this family and I get nothing!" or "fuck you Kelly". Jamie didn't like this and would close his eyes tight as he laid into his pillow.
It must have been ages before they stopped, but he didn't know, for his mum woke him up by petting his hair. His eyes opened immediately and he grabbed onto his mum's neck. He didn't make a sound but squeezed his mum as hard as he could.
"Where's daddy?" He asked eventually. She gave him a weak smile and continued to pat his hair.
"At the pub sweetie," she replied in a broken voice. Mum didn't look like she'd been hurt by daddy, but Jamie could tell her smile said otherwise.
The next day Jamie had daycare. None of the other kids talked to him. He had two friends and one sorta friend, but they never really hung out with him. Jamie was considered the weird kid, the kid parents would tell their kids that he was special and that he had a lot of troubles. That and also his face was funny. Half of it wasn't working lately and he was in a lot of pain for some reason. And he also got these cool red lines on his body his mum liked to show to people.
Since nobody wanted to play with him, he sat at the painting aisles and dipped it in some colours. He first chose purple, because that caught his eye first. He thought it was so cool and relaxing. He blobbed that in areas of the paper and then he chose blue, because it was the same colour as his hospital gown. He drew him at the bottom of the page. Then he chose yellow, because that's what his favourite nurse wore, and drew lots of people in the background. Lastly, he chose black, the same colour as some of the mean people's hair, and he drew a big angry face right in the middle of the paper, hitting the drawing of him.
