A Mother's Word

Chapter Twelve

Mum had now gone back in to the office to work, she had been assigned another case by her boss which was in another town. She started to leave early in the mornings and return late at night, once again. Her boss was working her to the bone, it seemed the company were always so short-staffed, which put pressure on the whole team as they all had to up their work loads. Eve was now in charge of three families all living in different areas, her worst fear was, and always had been, children slipping through the net. She was worried that with the lack of staff, resources and support it was inevitable. Although mum feared for my safety, she didn't have a choice but to return to work. I also had a feeling she was still documenting in her little black notebook things about Jenny's family, but with them being so aggressive towards us, she had to back off slightly to prevent any arguments from happening. It was such a mess.

Amy had upped her hours at the supermarket, she had taken it in her stride to provide for her family more and over the last couple of months, she had changed. Amy had now turned in to a mature young adult, she was supportive, kind and respectful, she would check in with me constantly and always guided me when I needed advice, she was a great role model and a fantastic sister. She was also my protector.
I still had my paper job in the mornings which by that point was the only thing that was keeping me occupied, the rest of the time unless I had to go out the house for an emergency, I would isolate myself away in my bedroom, which had now become my 'safe space' and somewhere I was now spending many hours of my day. I used to love going on walks or visiting the local farm, but I had no motivation or energy to do anything.
Jenny and Becki would walk past my house constantly and shout abuse at us, Jenny had become very mean, she intimidated her friends to be friends with her, and they had to do everything she told them too. There was one morning, I had gone downstairs to get some breakfast when I suddenly heard an almighty crash sound from upstairs. I ran up the stairs and seen a brick was on my bedroom floor surrounded by broken, shattered glass. It had a note attached to it 'please kill yourself', my heart was pounding so hard, I slowly took a step towards my window and seen Jenny and Becki who were stood on the pavement outside my house, laughing. I messaged mum to tell her what had happened, she contacted our landlord, but unfortunately he was on holiday and therefore could not help us until he returned. I found some cardboard from our recycling bin and cut it to size, I then carefully pulled off the sharp glass that was still on the window and replaced it with the cardboard. My room suddenly felt very cold.

The mornings were so cold and miserable and more often than not you could see your own breath in front of your face, we had started to use hot water bottles to warm us up at nighttime as the electricity and gas prices were now crippling us, however; by the time morning had come they had turned into a very cold ice block. The landlord had yet to fix my bedroom window, as he was still away on holiday, and so the cold air would pierce through my body every morning, leaving me shivering. We wore lots of layers of clothes and my favourite budget buy was a pair of fluffy socks, which I treasured so dearly. One morning, mum had woken me up early and asked if she could borrow my bus pass, she had gone to get into her car to go to work but had noticed two of her tyres were flat. I looked at my alarm clock it was 5.10am, I found the bus pass and sleepily handed it to her, and she walked out my bedroom and I fell back asleep.
It wasn't until I had woken up a couple of hours later that I realised mum would have had to of walked to town before she could have even caught the bus this morning and that also meant that she had to do the same in the evening to. I heard lots of laughing outside the house and as I carefully peeped out of the window to not be seen, Jenny, her mum and Becki were looking at mum's car and laughing. They had deliberately popped her tyres to prevent her from going to work.

Amy and mum would message and check in regularly, but it was so lonely, and I contemplated self - harming myself on many occasions. My thoughts were becoming very dark, and I couldn't see a way out, I hated the feeling of being bullied, and I was scared for my life. I couldn't stick it any longer, Jenny had turned everyone against me and the only one good friend I had was now getting on with his own life.
The bottles of tablets in mums medicine cabinet looked tempting, and I had to fight every urge in my body to stop taking any.
I did however, find a solution to my pain, a razor blade cutting through my bare skin immediately made me feel better and released a weight that had become so heavy on my shoulders. I had to keep this quiet from mum and Amy, and so I used a part of my body that wouldn't be seen and could be hidden easily-my thighs were the perfect place.
The blood would pour instantly from the wound and although the pain was excruciating it made me feel good.
I had previously stumbled across a dark webpage on the net which had showed a tutorial on how to do it and that was what I had decided to copy.

Mum had by this point approached dad and informed him of what had been happening over the recent months and to keep an eye on me when he could, although he had limited contact with us over the years he was still our dad and part of his role was to protect his children at all costs, they had now agreed to be civil for the sake of myself and Amy and dad was now stepping up to his responsibilities.
Mum and dad had learned to be civilised adults for once!
Dad hated the fact that I was being bullied, although he did apparently say to mum, "you shouldn't have got involved in that mess in the first place!" And to be honest I wished we hadn't, but at the time we were witnessing awful evidence of abuse and Elias had disclosed important details to us, so someone had to do something!

I finally received my exam results and I had passed. Mixed emotions ran through my body, I should have been happy, but I couldn't even bring myself to smile. The job I had always dreamed about was now in reaching distance, this is what I had revised so hard for but yet I felt so depressed and empty.

Mum and Amy were unaware of the demons I had been fighting in my own mind and had decided to throw me a 'results party', I had no friends at this point apart from Adam who was busy with his new cricketing adventures, so Amy invited a couple of her friends, mum invited Eve and several other colleagues and dad, Julie and Dylan also attended (Dylan was dads latest child, the one who dad had left crying in the house previously).
They had decorated the downstairs living room with banners and balloons and mum had even brought a cake! They had all brought a little congratulation present for me and were eagerly waiting for me to open them. Amy brought me a beautiful necklace, Eve and mum's other colleagues had all pitched in and had brought me a supply of stationary, dad had got me a voucher for a music store and mum handed me an envelope. The room fell silent and mum encouraged me to open it up, inside was an acceptance letter for the local Veterinary Centre, I had apparently passed the introduction process and had been accepted for a three-year course which the centre would fund, and I would earn a superb salary.
I looked shocked, Amy then admitted that she had seen an advertisement on Facebook from the Veterinary centre and on my behalf she had applied.
I had thanked everyone for their kind gifts and gestures, however I was feeling tensed and annoyed. Jenny and Becki had heard about my party and had sat outside my house for several hours, they were playing loud music over a speaker, drinking alcohol from the bottles and smoking cigarettes that smelled suspiciously of something else. They had invited Poppy and Belle to join them, and they were all trying to do everything in their power to ruin the party and intimidate our guests. Jenny had yet to realise the head of social services was also in attendance and had been watching her every move behind our curtains.

I did join in with the party that evening, I didn't want mum and everyone else to realised something was wrong with me and to start asking questions.
My face was happy and smiley and yet inside I was emotionless and feeling suicidal. I was constantly walking on eggshells and any minute now they were going to crumble.
Not only that, but I couldn't wait for the night to be over, I had already placed my razor blades, paracetamol and a towel on my bedside unit ready to release my pain when I was finally able to escape the party and slip away to my safe space. I sat on my bed, my phone pinged, it was a message that read 'no-one likes you, go and kill yourself, J', I dampened my towel, mum was always now buying white towels, but I had managed to find a deep dark blue hand towel at the back of the airing cupboard, I pulled the newly brought razor out of the packaging and pulled my trousers down to my knees, the razor was so sharp, it had five blades and the company had just redesigned the product to offer a 'cleaner shave with a lubricating strip of Aloe Vera and vitamin E, which enables the razor to glide over the skin for a smoother finish'. Furthermore, I moved the razor a crossed my thigh carefully placing it on an area which I hadn't cut before, I slowly started to cut in to my skin, tears streamed down my face, the pain was unbearable, and the blood trickled down my leg. Yet I felt relieved.