Tainted Love

⇸ Chapter 2 ⇷

Cliff's horrific singing dragged her from her sleep, though, at least this time the sun had gone down enough not to assault her eyes. Charley swung herself around and rubbed her eyes, a mass of black makeup staining the back of her hand. She reached for her phone and flicked through the messages she'd gotten off people from the party that had made an effort to even try and go home.

Ryan

Fuck you, Charley.

She chuckled as she pictured Ryan slowly waking from under Kyle's arm with a huge red splodge of a kiss mark on his forehead.

Jack-Ass

Hey, Charley! You dipped this morning.

What's the matter? Didn't feel like staying

for breakfast?

Charley groaned. The only reason she went to those stupid parties was to prove to Jack that she wasn't bothered about what happened last summer. Which she wasn't! It was just that he seemed so intent on trying to get a reaction out of her so when she was barely phased when he would take two girls into his lap or remove someone's bra with his teeth during a drinking game whilst making direct eye contact with her, his jaw would twitch ever so slightly in frustration.

Alice

Hey Charl! We got home safe. Come round

whenever you want. We saw Cliff putting

the rubbish out by the curb.

Cliff let out a perfectly timed metal scream from the kitchen; he seemed to think that he was the next George Fisher but he was more like an unfunny Danny Devito with the creep factor of Dahvie Vanity.

With a nausea infused groan she hoisted herself from the bed and grabbed the jacket, intending to spend as little time in the kitchenette of the trailer as possible.

As usual, Cliff was flipping some sort of grease-drenched fried food in a rusted pan whilst her mother leant on the small table, her eyes heavy and sunken likely from the decades of surplus drinking.

"Where you off, kid?" Cliff asked which grabbed her mother's attention.

"Out." She called back but right as she reached the door, her mother gripped her wrist with those bone-thin claws she called fingers and stared up at her.

"Where were you last night?" She tried to shuck her mother off but she held firm.

"Party. I told you yesterday before I left."

"You did not." Her mother's grip tightened around her wrist, untrimmed nails pressing into her skin. Stifling a yelp, Charley managed to shake her mother and quickly donned her jacket to avoid any more sharp objects piercing her skin if her mother lashed.

"Perhaps if you were sober for more than two tuesdays in a row you would remember." She snapped, turning for the door right as Cliff pointed a bent, scalding spatula at her face.

"Don't talk to your mother like that."

"Touch grass, Cliff. You're not my dad."

"Now hang on just a minute -"

"Oh please, you pay for my mum's booze and that makes you think you can strut about like you own the place. I'm nineteen, I don't need some drunk, overweight asshole to tell me what to do."

"You little bitch!" Cliff bawled as he made a b-line for her right as her mother stood between them.

"Just let her go, Cliff. It's not worth arguing about."