1
I stepped out onto the stage feeling so alone even though I was standing in front of 20 million people. Who think they know me, when actually all they know is a front I put on. I want to let them know who I actually am and that I'm no different to them, just someone who sings in the shower as loud as I can and when my jam comes on I start dancing in my bedroom like a lunatic and I have no clue about fashion, I can't actually do my own makeup and I'm really photo shopped on magazines, which I hate and makes me feel insecure about myself. I want them to know that I was defiantly not cool at school; I was more of the quiet student. I don't have the perfect love life and I'm not dating the person they think I'm dating, I'm seeing a boy that I really like but the media don't want me to date him because there's not enough drama. My mum would have been so disappointed if she could see me now.
If only I could just go back in time to my quiet life sitting on the beach at night in Hailing Island with the people I loved around me.
The time I wasn't stressed, the time people didn't spread horrible rumours about me and my family. I wish I could go back to a time people wouldn't meddle in my love life or just my life in general. At the start I loved it all the attention and I was being recognised for what I loved to do but that didn’t last long.
It started when it was my sixteenth birthday and it wasn't the day that I had planned at all, it was probably the worst and the best birthday ever. But I'll start right at the beginning when it was all going really wrong.
2
It all really started when my mum, Steph, became ill. It was horrible, she had three brain tumours. The day I found out was my thirteenth birthday. I went down to the hospital with my grandma Carol, we were greeted with my mum in a white gown and one of her pale hands covering her face and her other hand was being clutched by my dad with both of his large hands, with his head on the sheet white bed. As I was being told by mum with dad sobbing in the background I felt like I was being hit with a metal pan in slow motion.
My mum struggled through the next year while the tumours grew and the aching became bigger and put her through agony. The doctors said they couldn't do anything about the pressure being put on my mum’s head. Every night for the rest of the year I questioned why my mum of all people was being put in pain. She worked as a full time nurse and the hours were horrible but she always had a smile on for her patients and her family. Mum loved her job and became good friends with half her patients. Why would someone would loved and cared for people have such bad luck? Why was she put through so much pain? Why couldn't bad people like people in ISIS who are killing people on video then showing relatives the video, why aren't they put in pain?
The day she died was so clear in my mind and I've never forgotten it. It was the twenty eighth of January, five days before mum’s birthday. I woke up at six fifty seven on a Monday morning. I got out of bed and was in the middle of struggling into my school skirt when I heard my dad shouting. It wasn't very clear what he was saying but I could make it out kind of, "No, why now? Why? She can't go. Please!" I charged down stairs. They had moved my parent’s bedroom downstairs as my mum was getting tired very quickly and struggled to get up the stairs. I looked around to see my mum’s body in bed looking so blissful and peaceful and my dad who was in the right corner of the room. His head was wrapped around in his arms; dad was curled up in a tight ball rocking from side to side.
Over the past couple of months dad had been getting weaker and weaker like mum, I had to look after both of them as well as having school and reminding dad to pay all the bills. He got time off work to look after mum but most days he was in bed with mum and never left her side, meaning I had to take time off school and my fourteenth birthday was forgotten. We were running out of money quickly so I took it out of my savings and mums. It was getting harder and harder for me as I didn't tell anyone about my mum so the only thing I could talk to was my five year old pet gold fish, Simon, but he didn't give me any advice as you can imagine.
My parents thought I was very strong but I could feel myself breaking down inside. When I felt like I was going to breakdown into tears I went to Hailing Island beach because it was always peaceful and the waves were relaxing.
The beach was right outside our house which was so nice. Our little house was adorable with beautiful scenery behind it. It was like a mini forest, tropical flowers surrounded it and huge trees toward over our house.
