Shit happens ✧ *:✧･ﾟ* Skins gen 2 • James Cook • Effy Stonem • Freddie McClair

Season 2. 8

Cook

TW. child abuse, abandonment, miscarriage/stillborns

I woke up and decided to sort through the last of my boxes of things so I was fully settled in to the house. As great as the situation was, India's house didn't feel like mine. I've never felt like a house is mine, ever. I don't really belong anywhere, I'm a lone wolf.  I love India, but sometimes I feel like a burden.

My mum didn't want me, her own flesh and blood. My dad fucked off pretty early, lives on a boat in a shit city. I wouldn't be surprised if India left me, our baby did. My heart missed out a heavy beat any time my unborn child crosses through my mind. The thought of me having full responsibility of someone else's life terrified me before, but now I know I could've had the chance to navigate someone through life and make it better than mine, my hearth breaks more and more each day.

I sighed as I pulled out the last of my random stuff, it was all old junk that wasn't really worth packing, I've not had possession of anything valuable beside India and my unborn baby. I came across the only thing I have from when I was a child myself. A little blue blanket. I placed it on the bed as if it was made out of the finest riches in the world. As my eyes were locked to the blanket woven with innocence, I imagined myself as a kid.

I remembered the days where I was acting out to get my mothered attention that her boyfriend was touching me.

***

(flashback 1)

"Mummy, I don't want to fucking go to school." Cook protested, banging his breakfast spoon on the glass table. Most adults' stomachs would churn at the thought of an year old swearing and banging spoons against an expensive glass table, but Cook's mother was not a regular adult.
"James...darling," She spoke, forcing kindness into her face, trying to disguise that fact that thunder clouds were forming inside her head. "You are going to school today."
"Fuck off Ruth, my name is Cook." He grinned, sticking his tongue out. Cook had always been a cheeky boy, however, until a month ago, he wouldn't dare shout, let alone swear, at his mother. Ruth had never predicted this behaviour from her son, she thought she'd raised him well, but all of those thoughts went out the window once she caught his pissing in her new expensive jars, finally figuring out why her house stunk of urine.
The little baby in the corner of the room started screaming deafeningly as it's mother's new boyfriend entered the kitchen, he stood in front of the window, drastically preventing what felt like all light from penetrating then suddenly small room. The man was  titanic compared to everyone in the room. His aura gave off the bleakest of impressions, sucking all happiness from any room he entered. Cook's mother thought otherwise, she shoved a dummy in her youngest son's mouth and practically ran to fling her arms around the impostor of the big house that felt small with him in it. They passionately kissed, filling the room with noises that 8 year-old Cook couldn't bare to hear. He watched the man he was terrified of gripple his mother's body in Places Cook considered funny to touch. The boy watched the man feast his bearings on his mothers buttocks. Feeling terrified he launched his bowl of cheerios towards the nightmare in his kitchen, missing, and ending up in the front garden instead.

Cook's belly clenched in a way no 8 year old should ever have to experience.
He had not intended to break the window, he intended to save his mother from the man he knew to be straight from those horror films he secretly watched when at night.

Cook's mother screamed in towering rage, his mother seemed taller as she looked down at him out-letting her wildest regrets, seethed moments and exasperation towards the small round-raced rosy-cheeked boy.
He clutched onto the spoon he was bashing around earlier as if it was a mighty sword as he saw the look on the scary man's face. He didn't blame his mom for shouting him, he thought she was probably pretending in front of the man who did horrible things to him at night in the shadows.