You can't be my mum (a Lucy Bronze fanfic) - Book 1

Chapter 3 - if only you knew

Rosie's POV:

As I ran down the street, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the only car outside the house was my dad's red, 2007 Corsa with a massive exhaust that deafened anyone within a 5 metre radius. I knew that, because I wasn't late, that was one less beating I was receiving later. I stood outside for a bit trying to catch my breath, also trying to shorten the time I would have to spend with them alone. Eventually I opened the front door...

Immediately I was greeted with a strong smell of febreeze. All the windows were open, presumably trying to get rid of the smell of smoke from my parents' cigarettes, and everything was neat and tidy. There was a carpet rolled down the hall covering the wooden splinters but also the blood stain from when my dad pushed me into a corner of a wall and my head started to bleed. A tray of biscuits and tea was set out in the living room where I presumed the meeting was to be held. The cushions were plumped and all the takeaway boxes and cans of beer had been thrown away. I shivered and all my body hair stood up straight. I didn't shiver because of the temperature, I shivered at the fakeness and the desperation of my parents trying to hide the truth.

Everything seemed too neat...

Just as the door bell rang, my dad came downstairs in a polo shirt, jeans and a belt. The opposite of his daily grey marl tracksuit with Chinese spilt down it from the night before. His hair looked like it had been washed and brushed carefully instead of his usual bed hair. My mum came out the kitchen with a jumper, a skirt, tights and slippers on. All her fake tan had been scrubbed off, her big fake gold hoop earrings had been removed and her dirty blond hair had been brushed and was down instead of scraped into a messy bun. Right now, from the outside, we looked like the perfect family. From the inside, my body was aching with how sly and fake my parents were being and were expecting me to be.

Throughout the meeting, the social worker asked questions, mainly towards me. Each time I began my answer I could see my dad sweating and my mum giving me a glare as if to say "if you dare tell her anything, you know what will happen". Most of the questions I answered fine, during the day I had prepared my answers to make them sound real but not too fake. However, towards the end the social worker asked, "have your parents ever tried to hurt you?". I must have been thinking what to say for a while because she repeated to question, this time with more emphasis on the words 'tried' and 'hurt'. I didn't even realise I was speaking until it was too late and I had said it, "if only you knew". After I said it, I realised I had messed up because she started to tell my parents that because of her concerns for my safety she will be starting an investigation. I tried to tell her I didn't mean it like that, but I couldn't come up with a good enough excuse for what it meant instead. After all, I must have had a reason for saying it.

After she has left, I had tried to sneak upstairs but I was too slow. I was dragged into the living room where my dad shut the curtains. They were both raging and didn't want any more complaints from neighbors. They wanted to do this in peace. They wanted to hurt me in peace, "you useless slut" "why the fuck would you say that" "you're going to pay for this" "now look at what you've done". I tried to resist, but my body was too weak after all the punches to the stomach, the kicks to my chest and the words to my face.

After a while, I just lay there in silence and my eyes began to close.

I woke up to my dad putting his belt back on, a big, black video camera staring right at me, nothing but the bruises on my skin to cover me and my mum leant up against the wall slyly laughing at me.

I knew what they had done, I just didn't want to believe it.