How To Love A Dead Boy

Chapter 23 | Shiver

SHIVER

I come home to find Johanna on the phone in the hallway, her mouth moving ten miles a second. I look to Ryden and he looks to me, shrugging. Mum's usually perfect bun, has come out and her brown hair now hangs from head, dripping a little from the rain. Her back is to me, and as I let the heavy wooden front door close behind me, she turns a little, so that I can see her face.

Our eyes meet for a split second.

The phone slips from her hand and she runs over to me, throwing her arms around me and pulling me into her chest. Still in shock, she takes my shoulders and steps back from me, crouching in her heels to meet me at eye level, as she strokes my forehead, pushing my stray hairs back. 

"Thank the Lord that you're okay Lucy. Your father would have killed me if anything had of happened to you," she says, planting a kiss on my left cheek.

The shock passes over me, and I finally come to my senses, to put an end to this act. I push myself away from her, taking several steps back. Her eyebrows draw in, and she once again reaches for me. 

"Are you okay? I just boiled the kettle, so if you need a hot drink, you can help yourself... Oh Lucy, I thought you'd run away..." she says, sounding genuinely concerned, "Where were you?"

"School," I reply. Isn't it obvious... after all, I am in school uniform, I think. 

"But why so early? You didn't even tell me that you were going early; I could have dropped you off pumpkin. You almost scared me to death! What are you trying to do? Send me to an early grave? Don't you ever do that again! From now on, I drop you off at school and I pick you up, okay?

"

I know that things may have run differently while I was on my trip, your father might have let go a bit, but I'll have everything back in order in no time... No more running off in the middle of the night. I am going to be the real mum you deserve, Lucy, even if that does stepping out of character and setting some rules. You're only 16 dear, I would hate for something to happen to you..."

*           *           * 

The rain pelts against the window next to me. I look out at the school yard, about 200m from where I sit, where kids are running all over the grounds for cover, using their blazers to protect their precious faces and hair. With a heavy sigh I reach down into the foot compartment of the car and pull out my raincoat from my schoolbag. 

"No! You are not wearing that into school! No daughter of mine wears incorrect dress. You must proudly wear your school uniform Lucy, not hide it under a revolting yellow plastic thing," Johanna says next to me. I look up to her, noting how she positions herself in the driver seat of her work car to face me. 

"But I'll get wet," I tell her bluntly. With a perfectly manicured finger, and a deep, blood red fingernail, she points to the schoolyard. 

"None of them have raincoats," she says. I roll my eyes. Yeah well other kids get dropped off in front of the school, not down the road. I take my red wellingtons from under the seat. I start to take off one of my school shoes and she slaps me. 

"NO! What are those? You can't wear those in there!" she almost screams. I recognise that same high pitch from that day I sticky taped my first origami birds to the newly painted ceiling of my bedroom. 

"But my shoes will get wet... and my socks," I tell her. She reaches forward and throws my wellingtons into the back seat, as well as my raincoat.