Don't Judge Me (Being Edited)

37_ Words

I guess I should just go straight into it, right? Well I'm sorry. I'm just scared again. I'm scared to write it down. And I know, as I said when I began, that writing is meant to be a form of relief that it's meant to be therapeutic. And I know when you write things down they feel better, it's all out there. All your feelings finally on a page and you can look at them and realise that everything is ok because with all the words in all the world that have been written down your words have probably been written down by someone else who feels just as you do; and even if those words aren't written in the exact same way and thus don't mean the same thing as your words there are only 26 letters in our alphabet and these letters that combine to make your words have made up some of the most beautiful words in history. They've made up the words of Jane Austin and Patrick Ness, the words of Shakespeare and JK Rowling; they've made up words that have soothed me, that have taught me: words I must be grateful for. Words, though yours (mine in this case) may hurt, much more than sticks and stones, can be rearranged, have been rearranged to make the words that inspire and lead to recreation, words that make others laugh and actually feel good about themselves. That's why writing things down are good. When you look at a word, though a sentence, a paragraph, a book, may hurt so much you can break it down into those 26 little letters, you can break it down so they don't mean anything, so they mean everything, so they mean whatever you want.

Sorry, rambling again.

I guess my real point is that words are all-powerful, thus they can take away the power of things- the power of memories in my case. And even if they don't, words are still beautiful, more beautiful than anything, I believe so anyway. So, with the words that come, please don't be offended, words are beautiful though my story isn't, take comfort in the words, not the message.

Anyway: the night my dad came home. That night was weird to begin with I guess. The 'emergency' money had been beginning to run out. It was into January and bills littered the welcome mat. I had thought of paying the bills, of course, but, well, I didn't know how to. So eventually the cable went off, and so did the phone line and the internet. The lights, not yet, though there'd been warnings, the water too.

Not that any of that actually matters. It doesn't really add to the story.

I had been staring out of the window watching the remains of Christmas be packed away for the better part of the night. People in my neighbourhood rarely put up extravagant decorations, but there was one house across the road that always went above and beyond. It would have made Ebenezer Scrooge puke- pre-haunting of course. In that house, I think I can say, lived a family called the Thompsons. They were the archetypal new family, a young mum and dad, twins, a boy and a girl. Every holiday seemed devoted to the other and to their kids, as though love was what fuelled them. Callum and I had gone to the Thompsons once before, when they first moved in when we were about 9 and bought them some flowers and cookies that we had made along with Hayley- she'd been at her friend's birthday party that day I think. Their house had been nice, I think, I can't quite remember. I wasn't that bothered with how people's houses looked back then, really, I was more interested in how these people were. I remember noting that they were very nice. Callum and I had gone there a few times afterwards, but then Mrs Thompson got pregnant and Mr Thompson said we shouldn't come over as much, we might stress her out and I think they'd had problems getting pregnant before. I also don't think they liked me that much. With Callum they were so open and kind, when they asked me about my house and, because they were nice people, I told them that I liked to stay at Callum's instead because my parents weren't that nice, they looked kind of concerned. They'd invited Callum over without me a few times. Callum had told me that he'd heard them talking about me before, not bad things, just worried things. He said he wanted to stop going because he didn't like the way they spoke about my parents. I didn't really understand that, but I did what Callum said because he was my best friend.