1. Lonesome
Emma
“EMMA WHERE THE FLIPPING FUCK IS MY BADGE”, my mother screams from her room.
As I help my mother look for her work badge, I rush past the twins and I notice something shiny in one of the twin’s hands. Billy realises he’s been caught and hides my mother’s badge behind his back and tries to run away. I quickly manage to scoop him into my arms and set him onto the sofa.
“Billy… We’ve talked about this” I sigh, but he stares at me blankly, which I then realise the cheeky bugger has taken his hearing aids off to avoid getting into trouble.
I hold my hand out for him to hand over the badge, him finally giving in when I give him a stern look.
“Thank you”, I sign snd kiss the top of his forehead.
“EMMA I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS”, Mum shouts, even louder this time.
“Mum, you do realise this is a very small house and we can hear you just suffice without the need of the megaphone you call a voice”, I say rolling my eyes at her as I hand her the badge.
“Well don’t piss me off and I won’t have to shout. Ugh where was it?”
“Under the table”, I quickly say. “Must have fallen there when I was doing the washing”.
I decide to hide the fact that Billy stole the badge to try and stop her from going to work. Mum is already stressed as it is.
As my mum has been working more to pay the bills, she is seeing less and less of us, leaving the twins and Anna to miss her presence a lot. Whilst I do miss my mother’s presence, I understand the necessary measures she has to take to keep a roof over our head.
Suddenly the door swings open with Maria running in holding a drawing, Anna creeping in behind her.
“Mummy, look what I drew!” she beams, holding up a crudely drawn stick figure painting for everyone to see.
My mother sighs in slight irritation and glances as the drawing.
“It’s lovely, dear”, she says and he takes the drawing from Maria and puts it on her bedside table.
“Anna, how many times have a told you to not let them to disturb me whilst I am getting ready to work?” my mother snaps.
Anna just shrugs her shoulders and looks away.
Mum is usually one of the sweetest and kindest people I have ever met, until one of her jobs stresses her out, then she becomes a little.. pissy to say the least.
Pressed for time, Mum rushes out the room as she puts her badge on.
I glance over at Maria, and see the hurt on her face when Mum barely looked at the drawing.
Knowing someone needs to encourage Maria, I pick the drawing up and bring it over to her.
"Wow Maria! You drew this?" I say, her nodding her head and smiling again.
I must say for the age of 3, Maria is quite a talented artist. She definitely gets that from our father.
Our. Father.
Who left us nearly 3 years go, to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. He said there was nothing for him in Ipswich and needed to move to Cornwall for “inspiration”.
Apparently, that inspiration meant he needed to abandon his family and leave us to struggle on no wage.
Before my father left, we were never rich, I wouldn't even say comfortable. But we made do with what we had and it worked. We didn't need a lot of money because our house was full of love and laughter and that was all that mattered.
The day my father left was the day I had to give up my teenage years and take on the responsibility that most 30 years olds would even struggle with. That day broke my mum in ways you couldn't imagine. She was inconsolable, there were days she wouldn't even get out of bed when one of the twins cried. She became a ghost and all the light she was filled with disappeared, it was haunting.
Since that awful day, I worked in order for us to survive, until recently I switched over to take care of the kids. At least this way I would be able to have time to study while I'm in uni.
I prepare a snack for the kids to distract them from my mother leaving, letting them help smear chocolate spread onto the fruit.
My mum rushes into the kitchen, putting her coat over her uniform and grabbing her things.
"Oh mum, it's my first day at uni tomorrow so I will be out all day, are you still gonna be home?" I remind her.
"Oh yes, darling of course. Wow, my baby girl is going to uni" she says as she pinches my cheeks.
"Oh stop it... it's no big deal anyway. It's only Essex, at least its close by" I retort.
My mum rolls her eyes, "Well its better than I ever did so I am proud of you. It's about time people knew about that big brain of yours".
As she heads towards the door, she waves us goodbye and gets on her bike to get to her job at the pub.
Maria is able to deal with mum's absence a lot better than Billy. Billy sulks as he licks chocolate spread from his fingers.
I go over to Billy and put my arms around him.
"It's okay Billy boy, she always comes back. And I am sure she's gonna bring that yummy chocolate cake too for us". I say. He then smiles and goes back to eating his fruit.
Anna comes to the kitchen to grab a drink and starts clearing up the twin's mess.
"Hey hey hey" I warn her. "You know you don't need to do anything" I say as I take the the cloth away from her.
"You never let me help. I have finished all my homework too so I am literally doing nothing but sitting on my ass whilst you struggle with everything".
I stare at my sister for a second. My sister is 12 years old and I would never forgive myself if her teenage years were robbed due to household burdens. That responsibility will lie with me only.
"Fine, you can clean the table tops and put all the cutlery in the sink whilst I get the twins bathed and ready for bed" I sigh.
She eagerly gets to work, spraying cleaning product all over the table tops.
Bathing and settling the twins for bed was a lot more challenging than anticipated, thanks to the chocolate. An hour and a half later, they're finally sound asleep and I get to the kitchen to start washing the dishes, only to find it them all washed, dried and put away.
"Anna I-"
"Before you say anything", she interrupts. "There wasn't much to clean and you were really busy with the twins".
I go over to her and pull her into my arms. "You know, you don't ever have to do this" I say, looking her in the eye.
"I know, but you do so much for us and it's the least I can do" she retorts. "Now, we can finally watch that movie that mum brought from the charity shop".
I giggle, fully knowing I would be using this free time to dive into a book.
Anna sets up the movie whilst I grab a book to read for when I eventually get bored of the movie.
The movies my mum brings are never well known, but I guess it makes it part of the fun. It's a tradition now for Anna and I to sit through these movies and make it a competition of who gets bored first. She usually wins.
I grab a blanket and the leftover jar of chocolate spread along with two spoons, and my sister cuddles up to me as I sit down.
"So Emma", she says, wiggling her eyebrows. "Are you gonna meet any hot guys at uni tomorrow?"
I roll my eyes and gag, "Please, that is the least of my worries. Not interested in any boys. Just want to get my degree and get a good job so we can live a good life" I reply whilst licking some chocolate off the spoon.
Anna dunks her spoon into the jar and grimaces at the taste.
"I wish mum bought Nutella instead of whatever this fake, shitty knock off is".
"Well, Nutella is expensive and you're lucky to have this as Mum went slightly over budget to get it" I say, holding up the jar of fake Nutella. "Plus, you really shouldn't use the word 'shitty'. You're 12".
"13 in 5 days" she says eagerly. "Then I can say any swear word I like".
"Yeah I don't think that's how it works" I laugh and turn my focus back to the movie.
The scene starts to show a man on a plane, ordering a stewardess to meet him at the back. The stewardess follows him, unbuckles his trousers and puts her lips on his....
"OH MY GOD" I scream whilst I rush to rush to turn off the movie, Anna cackling in the background.
"Oh come on Emma, don't ruin the fun!" Anna says as she tried to stop me from removing the disk.
"Anna, you're 12 and this movie is clearly a porno. What does 365 days even mean?" I say looking at the back of the movie.
Anna takes the movie from me and reads the description. The movie is about a man who hallucinates a young women when he is fighting for his life. He makes it his life's mission to find the woman, which he eventually does and kidnaps her, giving her 365 days to fall in love with him. Creepy.
"Oh of course you would find it creepy, "It's so romantic and I must say, this guy is fit as fuck". she says as she points to the male on the DVD.
Eager to drop this subject, I head to our room and go through my schedule for tomorrow. I will be attending a mixer tomorrow morning to get to know the students in my class and I have to admit, it is going to be weird mingling with other people my age. I can't remember the last time I did that, and I don't even know if I remember how to mingle.
Even before having to help out around the house, I was extremely introverted, sticking to my two friends before they stopped inviting me to hang out.
After Anna and I get ready for bed, I try to read my book, but my mind is distracted. A WhatsApp group chat with all the students in my class was made a few weeks ago and everyone seems to know each other already. Of course me being an insipid wallflower didn't say a word so no one knows who I am.
I grab my phone and start to type out a text on the group.
"Hi everyone, super excited to meet you all tomorrow!"
I type out this message, but then I realise that I don't even have a profile picture so no one will even know who I am, so I decide not to send it. The sound of the door opening with Billy creeping in distracts me, him asking me for a glass of water.
After Billy is settled in bed, I pick up my phone, and to my horror, I find the text that I typed out sent, with other students replies.
"And you are??"
"Wait, who the fuck are you??!"
"She doesn't even go here"
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Just as I am about to throw my phone against the wall, another text comes through.
"Excited to meet you too, hopefully we can put a face to this text :)".
I can't help but smile at this message. Before I am able to look at the profile of the person who sent it, the front door opens and I rush out to greet my mum from work.
"How was work?" I ask, taking her coat and hanging it up for her.
"Ugh, don't get me started, there was this family with like 5 kids under 8 and they made the biggest mess. The fuckers didn't even bother to tip!" she moans, kicking her shoes off and resting them on the arm rest.
"Ooooh that sucks, can I make you a cuppa before you go to sleep?" I asked as I go to put water in the kettle.
"No don't worry, sunshine, I'll probably end up waking up to it tomorrow morning as I am so tired" she says, yawning.
"Anyway, you go off to bed and get ready for your big day tomorrow. My gosh I am just so proud of you, sunshine".
I give my mother a quick kiss and head to bed. Before I go to sleep, I contemplate replying to the person on WhatApp. After typing out several messages and hating every single one of them, I settle for giving a heart reaction to their message instead.
Shutting my eyes, I decide tomorrow I will be a new Emma. I do not have to commit to going to university social events but hopefully I am not pathetic enough to hide behind a book, and actually make some friends.
But I will be definitely bringing a book just in case.
