RYOT GRL

Chapter 16

I hurry back home after school, breaking into a half run when I get to my street and I start packing, throwing everything into my bag, and packing up the kitchen. By the time my mum comes home I’m almost finished “Dodo why is there boxes by the door?”, I move past her throwing more stuff in boxes. “Dodo what are you doing?”, she takes the ornaments out of my hand. “We’re leaving”, I say, and she frowns. “Leaving? Dodo we can’t leave. We only just moved here”, she says. “Why not? We were going to move in a couple of weeks we’re just going earlier than planned”, I say, and she sighs dropping her bag. “What is this really about? I thought you made friends and that you were enjoying school”, she asks, and I move past her, going up to my room and taking my suitcase downstairs. “Dodo, just stop please so we can talk”, and she pulls me to the chair. “Talk to me”, she whispers, and I stop. “Is this about that party you went to? You haven’t spoken about it and the clothes you put in the wash were all red”, she mutters. I chew at my lip as she peers at in concern. “No. It’s not about that. I don’t like it here. I want to move”, I assure her and she eyes fall down to her lap. “Dodo. This is our home now”, she reiterates, and I stand up annoyed. “Why is it always your choice when we up and leave. It’s about time I get a say when we leave and I say now”, I demand, and she looks crestfallen.

“Dodo. We can’t move”, she stresses, and I can’t hide the fury on my face. “You always choose when we go. Moving me from state to state and now when I finally want to you won’t do it”, I say in fury. “We’ve got the money. Let’s go Mum. Please. I don’t want to stay here”, I beg, hoping she wavers. “Dodo, listen”. She clasps my hands in hers. “There is no money. We haven’t got any left”.

“Stop lying”, I say getting up. She pulls me back down, her eyes piercing through mine. “I’m telling the truth Dodo. We don’t have money left. We can’t go anywhere”, she says, and I desperately search her eyes to see if she’s lying, feeling my heart sink when I see that she’s not. “But how?”, I question, it always seemed like we had an abundance of money, moving every so often. It wasn’t a worry for me. “I was reckless with it. I should have saved it, made sure you had a future. But I was selfish. I’m so sorry”, she says, and I pull away from her. “Is that why you got a job?”, I exclaim, and her eyes widen. “How did.”. “It’s why I was on the boardwalk that day. I wasn’t getting chips I was spying on you”, I say cutting her off.

“I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want you to find out”, she says her voice trembling. “So instead, you lied”, I say, and she looks at me apologetically. I’ve seen that look a million times before when I got settled somewhere and she wanted to move. So, I did, because she was my mum, and I didn’t want to hurt her by making her stay somewhere she didn’t want to. Because as a child, I learnt to put my feelings after hers when it should have been the other way around.

I look around at the boxes and run upstairs. “Dodo wait”, she calls after me, but I slam the door. She knows that I need time to myself. I wish I had Ruben right now, so I could curl up to him and not feel so alone. I would call Georgina or Stella, but they wouldn’t understand and even if I explained it to them, they wouldn’t get it. No one would. I feel alone. I hear a knock at the door, and then silence before the footsteps retreat. I open the door reluctantly seeing a hot bowl of soup at the end of my door. It’s her way of apologising, but no amount of soup can fix the deceit and lies she’s fed me. I slam the door on it, so she can see she can’t bribe me or think she can cook her way out of this. I don’t know what to do now. Castle knows something and its only time before he realises that it’s not that I’m dyslexic, but I don’t know how to read and write. The thought of everyone finding out causes tears to stream down my eyes. I’m so angry I just feel like punching something. But instead, I lay crying in my bed, getting out my sketchbook and throwing it across the room. I look at the fallen book and walk over to it, to see it’s opened on the page of the Castle. The picture I drew of him when I first met him, portraying his mischievous smile and his wild hair. I can’t forget the way I felt when he held my hand as we ran away from the police officer. He made me feel alive that day. I sit looking through my sketchbook. I’ve had it for 5 years, I see it as like a diary only drawing in it when I feel so overwhelmed and overcome with emotion I must draw, or I’ll explode. I flick to the front page, and it’s a picture of a bus driver. The memory of when we took a bus in Manchester, flooding in my mind. I remember I was annoyed with my mum that day because she told me I would have to start school soon and I didn’t want to. So, she bought me the sketchbook to make me happy and it worked. I was overjoyed, so I drew the picture of the bus driver so I wouldn’t forget that day. On the next page, I drew a picture of a sweet shop in Seattle. Mum and I had been around the city and I were complaining my feet hurt. I was so annoyed, I refused to go anywhere but sit on the bench outside of the sweet shop. It was painted pink and red stripes with a plastic lollipop outside and a man handing coupons outside of it. My mum ran in, leaving me sitting there with Ruben and came back with a bag of sweets and chocolates. And we sat on the bench for the next hour discussing what colour we should paint the house. I flick through to see so many forgotten memories and so many things we forget about. I see the picture of Ruben and my heart swells, instantly filling with guilt that I was going to leave without finding him first. I hug my sketchbook to my chest and take the lukewarm bowl of soup from my front door, sipping on it. It’s always better when we’ve had an argument. It doesn’t mean I forgive her, not for a long shot. But I can understand why she kept it front me.