Not Just Another Boy

Chapter 11

My first year with Tom in Manchester was just how you, the reader, would imagine it. It was utterly perfect. I would go to school nearby, at Rosewood Secondary College, which I enjoyed quite a considerable amount more than Skerton High. I would return home every evening to see my beautiful angel tired and battered from training.

My favourite days were Sundays. Tom didn't have any commitments on Sundays. We did something different every Sunday. We went to theatre shows, (which was my absolute favourite thing to do!) and we went bowling. We would go shopping too, choosing new shoes for Tom, and also new shorts and protein shakes.

I found my role in our household quite new and challenging at first. Although it was just Tom and I, I knew I would have to bring something to the table. Tom was out training everyday, I was at school, but not for as long as he trained! I started cooking healthy dinners. This made me look better as a football girlfriend....but its main purpose was to keep Tom healthy. I also started a course down the street every Thursday afternoon on Massaging. I learned how to properly massage someone's back, and legs.

Every night, when Tom came home battered and bruised, I would massage him.

It got into a continuous cycle, but I was happy. I grew up more than I ever thought I would in that first year. It was so uneventful, I don't want to bore the reader with it. It was really just a year to find our feet in a new city. Which, we did....eventually!

Some nights i would cry. I remember that clearly. Nights when I longed for my Mother. Nights when I longed for a chat with Angela, but she wasn't just down the hall. Tom would hold me those nights. Tell me that it was okay, and that I had him. That he was my family now, and I would get used to it.

I did get used to it. Tom started playing games here and there halfway through the year. It was great. He was finally doing what he loved, and getting recognized for it. The nights before games, I would often sleep in a different room. I stayed up late at night, thinking, worrying, writing, texting Mum and Angela, and sometimes even Jenny.

It was the summer of the next year, 2013, where everything started to change. For better or for worse, it changed.

That year, that first year in Manchester that I spent with Tom, I can tell you, was the best year I ever spent with Tom.

Now is where the story begins.