2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Maisie
M y first week back at Meadowside Veterinary School had flown by, I was three years into my veterinary medicine degree and was loving it. Of course it was exhausting which is why I spend every Friday night in the local bar getting completely wasted and doing fun things with other peoples private parts. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not some floozy up for dirty fun with just about anybody, but I did have a few regulars who were willing to take the edge off.
When you grow up being passed from foster home to foster home, some part of your conscious gets left behind. I'm the first to admit that I don't really know how it feels to be loved, I've never been in that kind of relationship and my parents died before I was old enough to reap the benefits of that parental bond. Any attention and affection I'm able to get from somebody, I'll grab it with both hands even if it only lasts a little while and I end up feeling dirty and used up by the end of it.
My parents died in a car crash when I was ten years old, they dropped me off at school and were run off the road on the way home by a drunk driver. I never got to tell them goodbye, I never got to tell them that I loved them. They were just gone. I remember vividly that night when a social worker came to take me away to a foster home. I hadn't even had the chance to absorb what had happened and that I was never going to see my parents again. I packed a bag of my things and I was taken away.
I was only taken back to my parents house one more time after that, after their funeral. My foster mother at the time took me home to collect some of my parents things that I wanted to keep. I had no idea what I was supposed to take, what would be meaningful to me as a grown up, but I took two things. First was my mother's silver locket, it had a photo of us inside. Second was one of my father's huge t-shirts, it smelt just like him. I've slept in that t-shirt every night for the past twelve years and I've worn my mother's locket everyday since too.
I vaguely recall someone telling me that the rest of their stuff had either been donated to charity or put into storage, I was given a bunch of papers which made absolutely no sense to me and a stack of family photographs. I carried them from home to home over the years. I still haven't opened that folder and I still don't know what those papers are.
I spent the next eight years moving from home to home, nobody seemed to want to keep me. I was 'trouble.' I'd been told that many times by many different families and I knew it was true. You try losing your entire family in the space of one car journey and see how you react – arseholes. I didn't have any extended family so there was nobody else to take me in. I caused problems, I was disruptive, I did bad things to get a reaction out of people. I know now that was probably not the best way to try and find a new family, but I couldn't help it. I was hurting and I just wanted my parents. I was alone, unloved, unwanted. As I got older I realised that there was a way I could garner attention and that was to find the cutest boy and throw myself at him.
I lost my virginity at the age of fifteen, to a boy who never even looked my way again. I can't bring myself to regret it, in the space of that ten minutes (because let's face it, he was a teenage boy) I found a connection and I went with it. There have been a number of boys since then, I've never truly had a connection with any of them. They are just a means to an end, a way for me to feel … something, anything that may closely resemble affection. Maybe one day, if I'm truly lucky then I may find the kind of love that my parents had. They were always laughing together, hugging and kissing. They were playful and fun, they were happy. They may have been the ones who lost their lives that day, but they took my soul right along with them.
When I finally turned eighteen and was legally an adult, I was straight out of my current foster home and finding a place of my own. I was incredibly lucky that I'd received an inheritance from my parents, which became available to me on my eighteenth birthday. I was incredibly lucky but I'd much rather have my parents here with me than a bunch of money. I received everything they had, if I wanted to I didn't need to work a day in my life. My father had been a barrister and my mother a nurse, we had been well off. There was no way I could just sit at home wasting away though, my mind would fester and eat away at itself.
I'd known from a very young age that I wanted to be a vet and the money my parents had left me was able to pay for my top notch education at Meadowside Veterinary School. The course wasn't cheap, it would come in at around ten grand by the time I graduated. But I held a love for animals, they are the only living things to have ever shown me what love feels like. I have a gorgeous little springer spaniel at home called Milo. He's two years old, I rescued him when he was brought into the veterinary surgery that I do my work experience at. He was brought in with his brothers and sisters, a litter of six puppies all abandoned at the side of the road. He was in a bad way and we didn't think he would make it. But he did, we saved him and nursed him back to health. The second I looked into those big brown eyes I knew he was coming home with me.
He's the only man in my life to love me unconditionally, probably the only living thing actually.
I lived in a tiny little flat on the outskirts of Meadowside, it was only a one bedroom studio but it was plenty big enough for me and Milo. I'd made this place my own, it was comfortable and I'd filled it to the brim with things that make me happy.
I have hundreds of photos of my parents in this place, some with me in them but most of them were just of them. I loved having them around, seeing their smiling faces brought a warmth to my soul. It made me feel like a small part of them was still here with me. I also had a gorgeous white sofa, in front of a tiny fireplace. I spent many a night cuddled up on that sofa with one of my favourite smutty books. I love reading a bit of smut, what I'd do for a man like that in real life. Damn, if only dreams really could come true.
It was practically just one big room which held the bedroom, kitchen and living room with a tiny little bathroom tucked away in the corner. One day, I'd move to Meadowside. I'd have a big house, with a navy blue front door, white shutters across the big bay windows. I'd have a little garden out front, with lush green grass and a white picket fence. There would be a huge oak tree off to the side where I could sit underneath and read my books to my hearts content. I'd have a gorgeous husband, tall, handsome, kind and we'd have a group of red haired little kids running around the place.
That was the dream anyway, I'd had a lot of dreams growing up and not a single one had come true. I was Maisie Connell, nothing ever came true for Maisie Connell. So for now, this place was my sanctuary. Nobody had ever been here, men I slept with never came here. This was my safe place, the place I could just be myself. I didn't have to put on the Maisie mask when I was here, to be the confident and carefree girl people knew me as. The Maisie that didn't have a care in the world and was always up for a good time. People are often quick to judge a person like me, the person who stands out from the crowd, the good time girl. What they don't realise is that for most of us it's just a fa?ade, a way to mask the pain and loneliness. A way to feel … something.