Forgive Or Forget

Chapter Two

I have three numbers saved on my phone ; Walter, Olivia and Vikas. 

Vikas was a friend I made in Maths, we were both in middle set and were made to sit next to each other in the seating plan. Vikas had dark caramel skin with dark brown wavy hair. He wore glasses and a dorky smile. I liked him. A lot. In the six months we sat next to each other for, we grew fairly close and through the many of our meaningless conversations about our classes and teachers, I somewhere along the way grew feelings for him. We were each other's rock through year ten to year eleven. We'd facetime at 2 in the morning as he'd help me understand how to factorise algebraic expressions when the exam was two days away. After we sat the Gcses, we grew apart. The last message he sent was a thumbs up emoji in response to me congratulating him on getting a grade eight for maths. We talked a bit in school after but we aren't friends now. Walter has been trying to convince me to message him, he thinks it'd be good for my mental health, each time he suggests it I always say, 'are you my therapist too now?' to which he always manages to cringe and then changes the topic. 

It's my first time seeing Walter for a bit, you see your social worker less and less when you're in a stable foster home, and now that I wasn't well..in one it was the perfect timing. He finally walks into reception, his hair is all overgrown and his beard patchy, but he wears a suit nevertheless. Just by looking at him you wouldn't think making sure children weren't homeless would be his job. He frowns when he sees me and shakes his head slightly. "You not happy to see me?" I saw jokingly trying to make the light of a not so great situation. "Ah, Jessica, always have a way of laughing, don't 'chu?" His eyes meet mine, they're genuine. "I'm so sorry Jess." "We've already had this conversation on the phone, it's fine, this has happened four- five times now." 

He opens his mouth like he's about to say something but then sighs and closes it. "Let me update you on what's going on then." He holds up his brightky coloured orange folder, colour picked by ten year old me. Yay. The cover reads in bold, 'Jessica Rose Houghton'. Inside it is everything. My life simply bullet pointed and sectioned. He flips through the recent pages, scanning them all a bit as he does normally when I have a new situation. But this time, he flips the pages back to the first, 'Biological Family'. I try and meet his eyes but he furrows his eyebrows and he looks for something and then it hits him, his eyes widen. "Uh?" I begin to worry. "Right, Jess. You will most likely not be going to a residential home with other teenagers in the system." He waits for my reply. "Okay..?" "We have some very striking..news. Your mother, has been to rehab and a little over a year ago she requested that we trial her to have you.. well living with her again."