StillBroken is my cool lil sis!!! - surprising mystery is my uber-cool monkey!!!zowie is my lil sis !!!!- LetDeathEmbraceUs is my Wolfie !!!
BrokenKisses is my DizzyCandyFloss !!! rachel487 is my lil sis !!! nuttergirl is my kool neice !!! CrazyKat is my book buddie !!!
NO MATTER HOW BAD YOU FEEL - ONE NICE PM TO SOMEONE NEW A DAY HELPS!!! TRY IT!!!
21:43
Arriving home she wiped her face before opening the door, on the off chance that someone would be there to see her, though she needn’t have bothered. Once again making her way upstairs, she plugged the phone back in and continued to her room. Little after she had shut the door to her room she heard the phone ring, and making her way back down to it she lifted the receiver, “Hello?”
“Rosie! At last! Where the blood hell have you been girl? I tried your mobile countless times but it was off, and then your house phone too! This is the first chance I’ve had to get through!”
“Sorry Jack. I was out.”
“Out where? The bloody moon? Anyway, on more earthly world topics, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, you?”
“Come on Rosie, how long have I known you? I know when Rosie Griffiths says she’s fine that she’s really either suffering from serious PMT, or something more serious is up. And I know it’s not the former. Rosie… you know you can talk to me yeh? About anything?”
“Yeh I know, Jack. Sorry, my head’s just been everywhere all day. I’ll be fine in the morning, I just need some sleep I think.”
“Rosie, I also know that when you say you ‘need some sleep’ you’re really saying ‘get the **** off asking me and get back to your own life’, but then you’ll also know that I, Jack Evans, never do that either.”
Rosie smiled, he was right, she did know that. She also knew that he wouldn’t give up until he knew she was okay. “Jack, do you ever wonder what your mum’s middle name is?”
If Jack was put out by this question, his reply did not mirror this as he answered calmly “No? I know what her middle name is, it’s Ann. Why not instead of wondering just ask her…?” he paused, “Where’s this going, Rosie? Is your mum okay?”
Rosie heard a key in the latch, “Sorry Jack, dad’s home, I have to go, thanx for calling, I’ll see you tomorrow,” and with that she hung up and went to open the door for her father.
“Heyyy Rosiee love thankyooou,” he slurred at her, stumbling through the door way and collapsing onto the sofa in the front room.
“How are you, Dad?”
“I’m gooooooood thankyouu, just went d’an the pub for a lit-littt-little tipple y’know how it goes. Get ‘s a glass of wata would you gem?” Rosie was already on it, coming back to her drunk father with a glass and a jug of water. “Oh you starrrr, I had to talk to you abaaat something didn’t I? Schoooool maybe? How’z school, Rosie? Where’zz your mother?”
“Your wife, Dad, said she was going out with you.”
“Ohh bastard it, I must’ve just missed herrr. Ahh she’ll be alriiiite.” He gulped down a glass of water and, pulling himself up a little, looked at his daughter standing there before him. The image of her mother, he thought, as he fell back onto the cushions of the sofa and passed out.
Rosie stood there watching him for a minute, turning him slightly to his side and lifting the jug of water onto the coffee table for when he woke up in the night and was thirsty. Then, pulling the door to behind her, she crept back up the stairs and closed the door to her room behind her…
March 21st 1997
07:13 The girl tip-toed down the stairs as she was always told to do in the mornings, for a minute forgetting that there was only one person left for her to not wake up. Pushing her way into the living room, she found her dad lying there asleep on the sofa, only one unopened bottle of wine left beside him. As she moved around him as quietly as she could, she cleaned up the bottles around him, and took them into the kitchen. She then filled up one of the empty jugs, from the ‘party’ the day before, with water, and set this down beside him on the coffee table with a new glass. Creeping back upstairs she had no idea that this cracked picture of her father would soon become the fully framed backdrop of her life…
"Be nice. Think happy thoughts. Champion silver linings. Love all things (not just cute things like babies and kittens) & when you do love - love like they do in power ballads (you know like on a cliff with the wind in your hair and your eyes shut, knowing you'll never know love like this). Watch out for dog poo. Smile at people - even grumpy ones. Remember anything is possible & whatever you do always try to look on the bright side."
hun - this is soo good - i hate it when i have to do work coz i wana read it more!
keep it up!
you can always revise on the bus - lol! ! !
StillBroken is my cool lil sis!!! - surprising mystery is my uber-cool monkey!!!zowie is my lil sis !!!!- LetDeathEmbraceUs is my Wolfie !!!
BrokenKisses is my DizzyCandyFloss !!! rachel487 is my lil sis !!! nuttergirl is my kool neice !!! CrazyKat is my book buddie !!!
NO MATTER HOW BAD YOU FEEL - ONE NICE PM TO SOMEONE NEW A DAY HELPS!!! TRY IT!!!
06:24
Rosie awoke to the sound of retching and, wrapping her dressing gown around her, walked down the corridor to the door of the bathroom and knocked. To no reply she entered the bathroom to find her father kneeling in front of the white bowl, vomiting up anything his stomach had once contained. Collecting a glass of water from the sink above his head, she handed it to him and knelt beside the man she once looked up to, rubbing his back in a circular motion.
“Thanx Rose.” He managed to muster in between retching, “I really appreciate this, I’m really sorry, it was just a normal night down the pub, I don’t know why I’m like this, must’ve been something I ate…” the man trailed off as his daughter stood up suddenly.
“Something you ate? Something you ate?” Rosie was suddenly seething, “in case you hadn’t noticed dad, everything coming up into that porcelain bowl there is liquid, the only solids in there are likely from your breakfast yesterday. Don’t you dare try and mug me off with the “something you ate” story again. I’m not ****ing seven anymore, Dad. Lets not pretend any longer.” With that she stormed from the bathroom and back to her room. He forgot for another year because he was too wasted to remember anything. Well lucky him, she thought, pulling back the sleeve of her top and unwinding the bandages, at least one of us is allowed to forget. As she replaced the blade over the gashes one by one, reopening the wounds, she concentrated solely on the task in front of her. Her mind was free from anything that once consumed it in these few spare moments. All she had to think of was the blade slicing healing line after healing line of her arm, nothing else had to matter then. Once satisfied that every lesion was once again bleeding sufficiently she held the used bandage to her arm to stem the flow slightly, and redressed her aching limb…
March 23rd 1997
14:02 The girl cried out. She was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs after falling for the last two. Though sustaining no further injuries than a slight carpet burn she still cried out to her father to help her. “What is it darling?” Her dad made his way to her slowly, stumbling down the stairs slightly himself too until he reached the bottom and her. “What’s wrong?” “My knee, daddy, it’s all red and all the skins coming off, look!” The girl pointed to the slight wound on her knee. “Now lets seeee what we can do about this” her Dad replied. He attemped to lift his daughter in his arms but consequently ended up falling himself. “Oopsie-daisy! Now there’s two injured people we have here!” he laughed as his daughter stared at him. “Are you okay, daddy?” “Yes, yes I’m fiiiiine sweetheart! Now lets zee to that knee shall we!” He got up slowly and walked to the kitchen cabinet. “Now whereee can we find something to make that knee allllllll better?” he slurred. “Daddy, mummy keeps the plasters in the bathroom cabinet…” the girl said almost hesitantly. “Mummy USED to keep the plasters in the cabinet, Rosie. Mummy’s not here anymore. It’s just me” he snapped. He watched as his daughter’s eyes widened, and she dissolved into a fresh wave of tears, running up to her room as she did so. He stood there for a few minutes, contemplating what to do. Cathy would have known what to do, he thought. But Cathy’s not here anymore. She thought it best to leave me here to do this on my own instead, what right way is there to bring up a child? He felt his eyes pricking as thoughts of his wife flooded his head, and he reached up to the cabinet behind him for another bottle of forget-her-not…
"Be nice. Think happy thoughts. Champion silver linings. Love all things (not just cute things like babies and kittens) & when you do love - love like they do in power ballads (you know like on a cliff with the wind in your hair and your eyes shut, knowing you'll never know love like this). Watch out for dog poo. Smile at people - even grumpy ones. Remember anything is possible & whatever you do always try to look on the bright side."
08:15
Rosie eyed up the bottle of vodka in the cupboard, clear, pure, alcohol, similar to the empty bottle littering her mother’s grave. She watched as her hands clasped around the bottle, wincing slightly as she raised her arm. If it helps him so much… The thoughts rolled around her overflowing mind, like marbles knocking into each other with nowhere else to go. As she headed out to her car she stashed the bottle in her bag and sat in wait for Jack.
The journey to school was a one way conversation of Jack trying to get Rosie to talk, “Are you okay, Rosie? You left the phone so fast last night I wasn’t sure what had happened?”
“I’m fine”
“Come on… you ran out of that classroom like a rocket crying, Louise found you asleep in the park, you were sick, your phones were all off or disconnected, you weren’t even online – now how unlike you is that? Come on Rose, what’s up?”
“Jack, just drop it. I’m tired. Just not sleeping well, that’s all. Leave it.”
The rest of the journey was spent in silence, Jack clearly wounded by Rosie’s brush off, and Rosie with too much else on her mind to care.
She spent the morning breezing through the first lessons not listening to a word that was said, floating through break as if no one was around her, and the lessons up to lunch in a nightmare of thoughts just waiting for the bell. As the bell rang she felt a sudden relief, as if the next few minutes would push her into the eternal bliss that she’d spent all morning waiting for.
Walking out onto the park she felt a sudden excitement, a brief anticipation of the knowledge that only she had of the bottle in her bag. As she reached the opposite side of the large green she sat down, and shivered as the wet ground soaked into her jeans. No matter, she thought, soon she wouldn’t be able to feel it anyway. She unscrewed the lid to the transparent bottle and swigged the colourless liquid, choking as she tasted the nail-varnish-remover taste, but swallowing the drink all the same. As she furthered her way down the bottle she found the taste slowly more bearable, and soon found she was unable to taste anything of the gruesome liquid she was downing. She had no idea the length of time that she sat there, but soon felt her phone vibrating in her pocket, retrieving it, she answered, “Hi Jackkkk how areeee you?”
“Rosie? Is that you? What’s wrong with your voice? Why weren’t you in registration?”
“Ohh is it registration already? Ahh I should come back now shouldn’t Iiii! Sillly sill-ill-illlly” Jack, on the other end of the phone, heard Rosie’s attempts at getting up and her collapses into fits of giggles, “Jackkk, I…” she couldn’t finish her sentence for laughing, “can’t…”, more laughing, “get upppp!”
“Rosie, are you drunk?!” Jack had never in his whole time of knowing Rosie, known her to get drunk, she wasn’t the drinking type. Even at parties which they both attended, Rosie declined any drinks as the ‘designated driver’ even if she wasn’t driving.
“Mayyyyyyyybe” he heard her reply.
“Rosie, where are you? I’m coming to find you.”
Rosie suddenly panicked. She’d never felt like this before, never been drunk, but she knew the actions of drunk people, the verbal diarrhoea they seemed to come accustomed to.
“Noo Ja…Jackk don’t come here. Please. I’m fine. See falking tine. Fabulous.” She hung up. She couldn’t have him coming here, heaven only knew what she would come out with. But with another swig from the, now half empty, bottle, her fears subsided and she fell back into her head elation stages…
March 23rd 1997
01:00 The girl heard her father come into her room and sit on the end of her bed. She kept her eyes tightly shut to give the impression she was sleeping, she didn’t want to talk to him, he’d shouted at her. But her efforts were in vain as she felt him shaking her awake. “Rosie, Rose darling, are you awake?” He shook the child gently. “Please, Rosie, please don’t be angry with daddy, hows abouts we go and get some pizza for dinner? I’m sure you’re hungry.” The girl’s father was right, she was hungry after having only a lone sausage roll that she could find for dinner. As she lay there deliberating between feeding her hunger or staying angry with her father her stomach gave a large rumble.
“There you go kiddo, you can’t deny it now.” He started to tickle the child through the covers until she started giggling when she could hold it in no longer, and it became a war between them of who could wriggle the most as the other person tickled them. All was forgiven and forgotten in that moment as they lay on the child’s bed laughing at each other, and in that moment no memory of recent events was allowed to penetrate their happy wonderland…
"Be nice. Think happy thoughts. Champion silver linings. Love all things (not just cute things like babies and kittens) & when you do love - love like they do in power ballads (you know like on a cliff with the wind in your hair and your eyes shut, knowing you'll never know love like this). Watch out for dog poo. Smile at people - even grumpy ones. Remember anything is possible & whatever you do always try to look on the bright side."
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