Adopting Faith

Chapter 2

15 Miles away...

A crowd of 18 year old sixth formers huddled together like a group of penguins keeping warm.  They were all swaying and singing their hearts out, arms wrapped around each other, in a tight embrace. One girl sat on another girls’ shoulders.  She had a long thick mop of raven black hair, with a floppy fringe and more eyeliner than she needed clinging round her huge green eyes that sparkled with a layer of tears.  

It was Mackenzie Watson.

She pumped her fists into the air, threw her head back and belted out the last verse of ‘Waterloo’ by ABBA.  She wasn’t sure why that was the song of choice this afternoon, but looking around at her highly emotional classmates all singing with her in unison, she didn’t care.  She loved her friends, all of them had their own unique characteristics and they all had made her the person that she was today.   

‘Macaroni, I fucking love you!’ someone shouted from across the room.  It was Simon, her boyfriend of two years.  ‘I love you too Si!’ she yelled back.  Their friends immediately started pretending to vomit and cracked up laughing.  ‘We love you guys too!’ they chimed.  

‘Mac, we’re going to the pub and then having an after party at mine, you’re in right?’ a smiley red headed girl panted, out of breath from all the singing and the laughing.  

Mackenzie’s face fell and she grimaced for a second, she was brought back down to earth with a heavy bump as she realised it was 3.30pm, her mother needed her next lot of pills and a cup of tea.  

‘I can’t Belle, my mum...’ 

‘Oh come on Mac, it’s one day.  You only finish school once! Please?!’

Mackenzie felt the familiar lump in her throat start to rise and she swallowed hard.  She was so bored of this same conversation, of being stuck between wanting to go out and having to go home.  Bored of constantly feeling guilty about wanting to be away from her mother and feeling sick with sadness and fear about the future.

She didn’t care that she had just done her A levels, that she had no clue what career path she was going to take or that in 5 minutes she was leaving the comforting womb of the school building.  Her mother had breast cancer and she was dying.  She was going to die, maybe in a week maybe in a year.  

‘I’ve got to go Belle.’ she said, her voice shaking a little bit, ‘but if Mum goes to sleep before 12, I’ll come and find you yeah?  I’ll try my best.’ 

‘OK my darling’ Belle replied, and kissed her friend hard on her damp cheek ‘Hope to see you soon, send my love to Bev.’

Too scared to speak and not wanting to cry Mackenzie raised a small pale hand in a reluctant goodbye, turned and ran out the building.

Her walk home gathered pace and turned into a sprint.  But no matter how fast she ran the tears wouldn’t stop and by the time she reached her small terraced house she was sobbing harder than she’d ever sobbed before.  

Her Mother couldn’t see her like this.  She sat on the wall and lit a cigarette, mentally preparing herself to face the reality that awaited the other side of the door.