Sometimes I Lie(43)

I knew she was coming home today, but I guess I forgot. So when she was standing at the top of the stairs when I got back from school, it sort of made me jump and I felt scared. She didn’t say anything at first, just stood there looking down at me in her big white nightie, like a ghost. Her eyes had even darker circles underneath them than before and she looked really skinny, like she’d forgotten to eat while she was at the hospital.

I didn’t know what to say, so I went into the lounge to watch the big TV. The remote doesn’t work any more, so you have to push a button beneath the screen and then wait a little while for the picture to blink itself alive. A cartoon I don’t like came on, but I was already sitting on the sofa so I watched it anyway. I was still wearing my hat and gloves because it is always cold in our house since the radiators stopped working. We’ve got a fireplace and we have a real fire on Sundays, but I’m never allowed too close and today isn’t Sunday.

I could hear her coming down the stairs really slowly, like Grandad used to do when his hip had gone somewhere. A bit of me wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to run to. I went to bite my nails but the gloves got in the way, so I sat on my hands and swung my legs instead, as though I was on a swing instead of the sofa.

She stood in the doorway and asked me if I had anything to say to her. I shook my head and carried on looking at the TV. The cat in the cartoon chased the mouse but it got away again, clever mouse. I laughed, even though it wasn’t very funny.

‘It’s happening again, isn’t it?’ she said.

The mouse took some matches and stuck them between the cat’s toes, the cat didn’t even notice, it was too busy looking in the wrong direction. Then the mouse lit all the matches and ran away. The cat could smell the smoke, but didn’t see the flames until it was too late. I laughed again, a pretend loud laugh, hoping she would just go away and leave me alone.

‘I said, it’s happening again, isn’t it?’ She spoke in her cross voice, the one that means I’m in trouble.

I shrugged my shoulders, stood up and walked out to the kitchen. My colouring things were still on the table from the night before, so I started doing that while Mum followed me and sat down on the chair opposite. I didn’t look up. My pencils were too blunt, all of them. I looked at her then and asked if she would sharpen my pencils for me. I’m not allowed to do it myself. Our eyes spoke but her lips didn’t move. She shook her head to say no. I wanted to use the red pencil even more then, but it was so blunt it hardly left a mark. I pushed harder, making a pattern of clear, jagged dents in the paper. Mum tried to take my hand to stop me but I pulled it away. She said we needed to talk, but I didn’t have anything to say to her, so I just carried on pretending she wasn’t there and picked up the black pencil which still had some colour left in it. It was hard to stay inside the lines with my gloves on, so the black pencil went all over the picture until I couldn’t see what it was any more.

Mum told me to look at her. I didn’t. She said it again but broke up the words so they were on their own:

Look. At. Me.

I still didn’t look up, but I whispered something very quietly. She asked me what I had said and I whispered it again. Then she stood up so quickly that her chair fell backwards making me jump. She leant over the table and grabbed my chin, forcing my face up to look at her. She spat in my eyes a little bit as she asked me again what I had said. She was hurting my face, so I told her:

I. Hate. You.

It was the opposite of a whisper.

She let go of me and I ran out of the kitchen and up to my bedroom. I still heard what she yelled up the stairs, even though I’d closed my door and put my hands over my ears.

‘You’re not to see Taylor any more. I don’t want her coming to this house.’

She can’t stop me seeing Taylor, we go to the same school.

I tried reading for a while, but I couldn’t concentrate, I kept reading the same sentence without meaning to. I threw the book on the floor and took Taylor’s broken bracelet out from the drawer next to the bed where I hide it. I unfastened the safety pin and tried to put it on, but the end of the chain kept slipping off my wrist. I wanted to go trick or treating tomorrow night, but I know there’s no point even asking now that she’s back. I can hear her down there, shuffling about, scraping the contents of casserole dishes into the bin and ruining my life.





Now

Friday, 30th December 2016


I’m flying feet first and it takes a while for me to remember that I am in the hospital. I still can’t move or open my eyes, but I can see the light shifting above, like I’m going through a tunnel. Subtle changes from light to dark. Then dark to light.

I realise I’m tucked into my bed and they’re moving me somewhere. I’m not sure what that means and I wish someone would explain. I ask the questions in my head but nobody answers:

Am I moving to a ward?

Am I better?

Am I dead?

I can’t shake the last thought from my mind. Maybe this is what dead feels like.

I don’t know where I’m going but it’s much quieter than before. The bed stops moving.

‘Here you are then. I’m off shift now, but someone else will be back to collect you in a little while,’ says a stranger. He speaks to me as though I’m a child. I don’t mind, though. Him speaking to me at all means that I must still be alive.