Mummy Plays Daddy.

Chapter One:

On many occasions I have been asked the question
"What is your earliest memory?" and my answer was always the same response.
"I don't know," I'd say, "I can't really remember much from my childhood before the age of 6, and even that's not very clear." And that would be it. End of conversation.
Although really, that was a lie, mainly because I never wanted to admit the truth about my childhood before of the age of 6, because that's when I realised what was really happening around me as I was growing up.
My real earliest memory, was when I was just 4 years old, and have just woken up because I heard the front door close and someone walking up the stairs. I'd crawled out of bed, grabbing my favourite rabbit stuffed animal and went out into the hallway to find my dad leaning on the banister, swaying side to side and finding it hard to balance.
"Daddy! Can I have a cuddle?" I said, walking toward my father.
"N-n-not now..." He stuttered and wobbled past me. "You sh-sh-should be in b-bed..." He took a few steps before walking face-smack into his bedroom door. Within seconds, it flung open and my angry mother standing just inside.
"Do you want to wake the whole neibourhood... Or just the whole house?" She said, with her arms folded across her chest and tapping her foot, then realising I was standing by the stairs holding my favourite stuffed animal, looking confused.
"Oh Lilly! What are you doing out here at this time of night, let's get you back to bed." She hurried toward me and lifting me up into a warm embrace of her arms before turning to my dad and saying "Well... are you going to go to bed, or just watch me put our child back to bed after you woke her up?"
"I..." He started, "am going to go for a piss..."
My mother quickly covered my ears and spoke sharply to him in a tone I'd never heard her use before. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! You can't speak like that infront of our 4 year old child! Go to bed. Your drunk."
My dad, still swaying side to side and looking offended said "I am not dr-drunk!" and then fell into the door from where he'd lost his balance.
My mum sighed before saying "Mhmm... Of course your not. You can stay in the guest room tonight. I'm not having your snoring keeping me awake the whole night... Again." Then turning around and walking into my mine and my sister's room, trying not to wake her up, walked toward the furthest side of the room, before placing me back into my bed and tucking me up inside it.
"What's up with daddy? Why is he acting so weird?" I asked, as she tucked me in.
"He's just had a drink, he'll be fine in the morning." She whispered to me.
"But I drink all the time, and I don't act like that. Neither do you or Luna."
"It's a different type of drink. You'll understand it more when your older." She kissed me on the head and stood up. "Goodnight my little angel." Then she turned and walked out of my room, closing the door, until the night swallowed me, and I fell asleep again.

There is a reason why I remember that night so well, and to be honest, it scares me sometimes... is because I dream it. Often. It reminds me that even when I was a kid, only the age of 4, my dad put drinking before his family, and the reason I didn't notice anytime before then, was because I was always asleep when he went out to the pub, and when he came home. But the one thing that has stuck in my mind since then, that one night I found him coming home drunk, was that he rejected to cuddle me. My daddy never rejected a cuddle from me. He would never dream of pushing me away when I cuddled him when he was sober, but when he was drunk, he only wanted 2 things. More drink, or his bed, where he would snore his head off for the rest of the night.

Chapter Two:

A cold December morning, cold, gray, icy, and just plain boring. Walking to school in the snow was dreadful. Even though I was wearing steel-toe cap boots, which my mum promised me I wouldn't fall over in, I fell over flat on my arse. So not only was I in a bad mood from the night before, being woken up at 4:30am by an argument from my parents about my father's outrageous drinking problem, and lack of consideration of actually listening to her, which made the argument continue longer, I now had a cold, wet arse to start off the school day. Oh how my life is so exciting sometimes.
I honestly felt like crying at the moment. I don't think my mood could have been any fouler if I tried. I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep, I hate the snow, when everyone else seems to love it. I don't see what is to love about it. It's cold, wet, and makes you fall over. Sure, as a kid I was a typical lover of the snow. But not now that I'm 16, and just wanting to get it over and done with.
Standing at my locker with my hood up and iPod in, listening to something heavy to drown out everything around me. Whispers In The Dark by Skillet, if I remember correctly. Something that even I think is too loud for my liking sometimes, but at this point, it was necessary. I needed this. Not paying any attention to my surroundings, there was suddenly two hands on my shoulders, one on each side, pushing down hard, and scaring the life out of me.
"Boo!" Not as if I could hear her, but she does it every day. I'm quite surprised I didn't see this coming to be honest... She does it every day without fail, but I was just swallowed by everything else, I completely forgot about my daily routine of trying to avoid this. I turned around to face her, pulling my headphones out.
"Woah!" said my best friend as I turned to face her, "You look horrible!"
"Oh, thanks." I slammed my locker shut and picked up my bag to walk ahead.
"Another bad night?" She said, catching up to me.
"Tash, what do you think, eh?"
"Well... erm, you had your headphones in, and your hood up... and you look like shit. So my guess is another late night argument keeping you awake?"
I nodded.
"Lilly, you don't have to take this anymore. Seriously." She said, placing her arm across my body and resting it on my shoulder the furthest side from her to comfort me.
"Well what else am I going to do? I can't just run away from it all. It's not that easy. The man has a fucking problem, and he won't see it until he's lying in hospital with liver failure and the doctors tell him that! He won't listen to us!" I screamed, not noticing that half of the corridor was now looking directly at us. Frustrated, I quickly turn around, my bag swinging away from my body and smack bang into someone.
"Woah, watch it babe." he said, holding his hands up in defense. "No need to rush." I could hear the smile in his voice, so I looked up at him with anger in my eyes, which shortly faded.
He was beautiful. Why had I not seen him before? Was he new? Or in the older years? Sixth form, he must be in sixth form... But surely, if he is in sixth form, I would have noticed a tall, dark stunningly beautiful man walking around the school.
I say man because there is nooo way he is just a boy.
It took a nudge from Tash to realise I was staring, mouth open.
"Oh, erm... I'm s-sorry." I managed to stutter.
"Hey, no worries. You didn't seem to happy, just caught me off guard. That's all. Nothing to worry about." He smiled, showing his beautiful white teeth. "I'm Alec, was nice to meet you, even if it was this way." He smiled again. "Catch you later maybe." He winked at me, and walked down the corridor. It wasn't much of a conversation, but that certainly made my day ten times better.
I took a deep breath and smiled at Tash, before turning around more slower than last time, and walked through the door to first lesson. English.
"He's like happy gas for you, eh" She joked, while still trying to catch up to me. I gave her 'the look' as if to say 'Yeah right..'
She gave me 'the look' right back, as if to say 'You totally love him.'
I jokingly punched her on the arm. "As if. I just met the boy..."
"And it was love at first sight!" She said, in a musical voice, dancing around me.
"Ha... Yeah... I wish." I mumbled, not sure if she heard me.
"Oh he obviously loves you! Did you not see the way he looked at you!?" Okay, obviously she heard me. We sat down at our desk, noticing the teacher had just come in, and was looking at us as if he would have a cat fit if we didn't hurry up and sit down. Mr Harrison hated us. Always had, always will.
I don't actually know what I've done, but Tasha used to do spit balls at him when he was writing on the board.
I'm guessing cause she's my best friend, and that we always sit next to each other, that he thought I was doing it as well, so hates me too.
He isn't the best English teacher in the world, but he gives me good grades despite the fact I know he hates me, so that's the main reason I like English lessons.

Chapter Three:

English went surprisingly quickly, and wasn't that boring today. I'm not sure if it's because I was day-dreaming about Alec all lesson and wasn't paying any attention to what Mr Harrison said through out the lesson, but shocker that I stayed awake the whole time. Again, thanks to day-dreaming about Alec, I managed to get through the lesson and keep focused. But I was focused on him, not the work, so I guess I wasn't all that focused after all.
It was soon lunch time, and we sat in our usual table in the smack-bang middle of the dining room, on the circular table, which was slightly closer to the window than the other tables in the middle of the hall. Tasha and I were the first ones to the table, like always on a Monday morning. I spent most of the time glancing around the room trying to see if I could scope out where Alec would be, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
"Maybe he was just visiting, or a student teacher, you know how young they're getting now. We'll have Lloyd Daniels in here in no time trying to teach us all to sing like angels." Tasha's voice burst my bubble of concentration, obviously noticing I was looking around a lot. The girl knows me well enough to know I was looking for Alec.
"Oh my gosh! I wish! Lloyd Daniels is gorgeous! Love his voice too! He is just lush all in all." The talk about Lloyd Daniels completely threw me off of Alec, but only for a second, because as soon as I turned and faced Tasha, with the excitement of talking about Lloyd Daniels, I saw him. Alec was standing in the food queue. Damn! Why did I have to bring a packed lunch? Getting food from the canteen could be my next topic to talk about with Alec, but I'm sure the topic would lead to how crappy the food is here, and why I bring a packed lunch is not really optional to me anymore. Not after I got food poisoning from eating the chicken, which was very poorly cooked.
Again with my bubble of concentration on Alec had risen, only to be burst by a one-after-the-other drop of 3 trays on the table, once again, scaring the life out of me, for the second time today.
"Who's the fittie in the line?" Tessa said
"Yeah, he's fineeee!" Tanya agreed.
"Totally. Someone get me his number?" Taryn giggled and glanced at him with the most flirting smile I've ever seen her do.
Is it weird that my 4 best friends names begin with a 'T'? and my name, well, begins with an 'L'. Probably not all that weird, just something that popped into my head once and thought would make an interesting topic starter, but only with people who might understand. So, bringing it up as a topic with Alec, might not be the best idea...

Walking with Taryn to the last lesson of the day, Math. My favourite. Not only was I very good at Math, my teacher loves me, and I sit on my own so I can concentrate. Don't get me wrong. Taryn is a good laugh, but I never get any work done when I'm with her. When we work together, getting work done is an inch away from impossible.
We walk in, laughing and joking as normal, not paying any attention to anything else around us. We were in our own little bubble of laughter when I walked straight into somebody, stumbling backwards about to fall flat on my arse in front of every one in my class. But before I even make it to the floor, a hand catches my elbow and keeping me up.
Alec. He was the one I walked into and he was the one who caught me. Man, these guy's reflexes are good. He smiled at me, seriously, this man was totally stunning that it takes my breath away.
"Hello again," He started, "are we going to meet like this all the time?" He was still smiling. Taryn nudged me when I didn't say anything and carried on staring.
"Erm.. sorry, I didn't me-"
"Hey, don't worry about it," He cut me off. "At least your in a better mood than this morning," He laughed, "I didn't get whacked with a bag this time." He was still smiling when Taryn grabbed hold of my arm, yanking me from the grip of his hand that was still resting on my arm.
"Sorry to steal her away, but I need a chat." She winked and led me to the back of the class room.
"You spoke to him this morning? And you didn't tell me? How did you meet? He said something about a bag hitting him or something ri-"
"Woah, breathe girl." I interrupt her. "You'll suffocate yourself with your own words if your not careful." She didn't look too impressed. Okay, I forgot, she gets a little too obsessive over hot guys, easily.
"Tell me everything." She started, crossing her arms and looking at me so intently it made me shudder.
"I don't understand what's to tell. I was in a bad mood, I spun around quickly, my bag smacked him in the chest, we speak." I said quickly without any breaths. "Nothing else to say. End of." I gave her a hard, accusing look and stormed to my desk.
Once again, my mood has been ruined by her ignorance and possessiveness of someone who's not even hers to be possessive over.
Pulling up my hood and putting my headphones in to drown out everyone again, I gaze out the window, until I have some sign that Mrs Mason has arrived. I could see my reflection in the window, I really did look like shit. Why did I even bother coming in today? As much as I'd like to think things were going to get better, I knew they weren't, they never do at school, why I thought today would be any better, I'll never know.
Just then, I had a twinge in my gut telling me I was no longer alone. I could feel eyes on me, and a presence of another person there beside me. I pulled out my head phones, turned to face the person beside me, who I was actually pretty certain would be Taryn, and about to ask her what she wanted, my words were suddenly stuck in my throat.
It was Alec next to me, looking at me, smiling.
Mrs Mason was now in the class room, and had assigned the seat next to me, as Alec's. He didn't say anything to me at first, he just smiled until Mrs Mason required everyone's attention, then his eyes were on her, listening to today's tasks.
When she'd finished, I got my books and pens out and turned to the page she wrote on the board.
"May we share?" His voice was so warm and comforting it just stopped me so suddenly. Man, he must think I'm so retarded, I either stop and stare at him, stop breathing, or completely lose myself when I hear his voice. Embarrassing or what?
I slide the book into the middle of the desk so each of us can read from it.
"Thanks," He said. "Mrs Mason said she should have me a text book by next lesson, hope you don't mind just for today." He smiled and gazed into my eyes. I got totally lost. Just staring into his eyes made me lost for words. I actually couldn't speak, my voice was no where to be found inside my throat.
He gave me a questioning look when I didn't answer, so I quickly searched my thoughts to say something quick, that wouldn't make me sound like a moron.
"Erm.. yeah, no problem." I shot a smile back at him to try and cover up my nerves.

Chapter Four:

Math went really quickly, despite the spiteful glances I kept catching coming from Taryn from across the room. Seriously, what is her problem? It's not like she owns him, he probably doesn't even know she exists for goodness sake. The girl really needs to get a grip and to stop being childish.
I spoke to Alec a lot during math, obviously since we're now math partners we kinda need to talk, but we didn't really speak about the work, we spoke more about ourselves. He wanted to know more about me, and I wanted to know more about him. I tried to keep my description about myself quite short and simple, but he kept asking questions about my family, my friends, my interests, favourite type of music, and other stuff, he kinda done the same as me, tried to pass off each question so the other person should answer it.