Chapter 9
NINE
MOLLIE
No one knows this, but the day Mum left I cried face down on my bed for about two hours.
Mum and Dad never argued in front of me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know about it. One night last year, I could hear their voices coming through the ceiling into my bedroom. ‘You’re not listening to me,’ Dad kept saying. ‘You’re not listening.’ I don’t know how Mum could not be listening because he was so loud.
We all went to look at Ben’s new school together. It took ages in the car and Ben kept taking his seatbelt off. In the end, Dad pulled over and Mum came to sit in the back between me and Ben. It took forever to get there and I couldn’t understand how they would be able to get him to school every day. Then a horrible thought hit me. ‘We’re not moving again, are we?’
When she shifted her position to look at me, Mum’s eyes were full of tears. ‘We’re just going to look.’
That wasn’t a no. ‘I don’t want to move again. I like our house. I don’t want to go to another school.’
A new boy had joined our school a few months before and I’d felt so sorry for him, trying to fit in and find friends. There was no way I wanted to have to do that. And I did like my school. Especially now Mum didn’t work there. I mean, it was okay when I first started – nice even – to have her around. But when all that stuff was going on with that boy and his parents, everyone was talking about it. Talking about her. People I didn’t know – even some of the older kids – kept asking me where my mum was and why she wasn’t in school. Had she been suspended? Arrested? What was happening? I got so sick of it.
‘No one is talking about you going to another school.’ Dad’s voice from the front answered my question but seemed to be directed at Mum. She chewed at her lip rather than answer him.
It still wasn’t enough. I wanted to hear it from her. Last time we moved, it had been her decision. I’d heard that through my bedroom floor, too. ‘It was your choice to move here, Erica.’
‘There was a fire, Andrew. It wasn’t safe.’
I leaned forward in my seat so I could turn and look Mum in the face. ‘We’re not moving, are we?’
She shook her head and did that fake smile I hated. ‘No one is going to force you to move anywhere, sweetheart.’
I didn’t take in much about Ben’s school apart from the fact it was big and bright and the classes only had about six children in them. The whole time we were being shown around, all I could think about was the prospect of moving again. Every part of me felt sick at the thought. I’d lose my friends, my teachers, my bedroom. No. I wasn’t going to do it. I’d have to tell them that it wasn’t fair.
And that’s what I did. Back in April when Mum and Dad sat me down to explain what was happening.
Mum leaned forwards on the sofa, her hands together like she was praying. ‘Ben needs a different school and we think the one we visited will be perfect for him.’
Immediately, I knew what was coming. Ben already went to a different school from me, so there would be no need for this obvious set up to talk to me about him. ‘Okay.’
‘The school is an hour’s drive away and you know how difficult he finds it to be in the car for long periods of time.’
Dad made a strange sound, but when I glanced at him he said nothing. Just continued to sit to the side of Mum and watch her speak, face like a stone. I turned back to her. ‘What are you saying?’
Mum’s eyes were really shiny and she chewed at her lip. It was getting more difficult to remember her as a teacher who would stride around school checking in on students, sharing a laugh with them. Ever since that school trip at Easter, she’d looked like this. As if she was scared of something. Even her clothes had changed. She used to wear bright floral dresses with trainers or skinny jeans with a shirt. These days she was never out of leggings and long shapeless t-shirts.
Now she glanced back at Dad before she got to the real point of why we were here. ‘I’m going to rent an apartment, close to Ben’s new school. I’ll have to be there all the time for the first few months until he’s settled in. And then maybe I’ll go back and forth. It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment. This place has come up for Ben and we needed a quick solution.’
Then Dad joined in. ‘Mum will be able to come back anyway. At the new school, Ben can stay overnight sometimes so that we can do things together that we can’t do when he’s here.’
Mum stiffened. ‘Not right away, obviously.’
Back and forth, each time they spoke my stomach felt tighter and tighter. Mum was leaving? ‘Are you getting a divorce?’
‘No, sweetheart. No. It’s nothing like that.’ Mum reached out for my hands. ‘This is just something we need to do for Ben right now. It’s not forever.’
Dad said nothing.
‘I don’t want to change schools. I don’t want to move away.’
I was looking at Mum, but Dad answered. ‘You don’t need to. I’m staying right here. Nothing needs to change.’
But everything would change if Mum was gone. I searched her face to try and get to the truth. I could see how hard this was for her and I didn’t want to make it worse, but…‘Do you really have to go? Is this because you’re suspended?’
She swallowed. Then shook her head. ‘No, it’s nothing to do with that. It’s because it will be so good for Ben. He needs this. You can come and stay with me whenever you want. I’ll FaceTime you every night and I’ll come back every week to visit you. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know this is a lot, but I think we have to give it a try.’
The day she moved out, I couldn’t watch her drive away. I gave her a hug and a smile and then told Dad I needed to go upstairs and I just laid down on my bed and cried.
Mum promised me that nothing would change, but it did. I couldn’t think of anything to say when she FaceTimed me; it was so awkward. Things that I might’ve mentioned to her if she was here felt…weird to talk about when I was staring at her face on the screen.
Which is one of the reasons that I didn’t tell her about Luca. When his friends told my friends that he fancied me. Or when he asked me out at the end of one lunch break. Or when I said yes and he became my boyfriend. Luca. Dark eyes, wide smile and that confidence that meant all of my friends were totally jealous that he wanted to be with me. That he’d chosen me from all the girls that wanted to be with him.
It felt really good to be someone’s favourite.