Divided. (Harry Styles)

/4/

When I had finally returned that evening, I hurried inside. I was still clad in the clothes that had been given to me this morning, and whilst they were probably far more expensive than anything else I could afford I couldn't wait to strip myself of them and dress in some normal clothes. I had left my clothes from this morning at the Halfway Point yet right now that didn't faze me. The shoes that had been given to me had lasted not even half of the way here before I gave up on them and padded along the ground with only my bare feet.

“Felicity your feet are filthy!” my mother exclaimed as soon as I walked through the door. “Why aren't you wearing your shoes?”. I held up the heels I had been given in response to her question, hoping my small gesture would answer her question.

“Why are you wearing such nice clothes, where are the clothes you went in?”

“Why are you asking so many questions?” I responded, maybe a little too harshly.

“I'm just surprised to see you wearing such clothes, I bet they're more expensive than everything we own put together, and those shoes how did you even walk home in them?”

“Well I struggled. Hence the dirty feet” I said.

“Okay, sit down, let's get your feet cleaned up” she spoke before going to fill a bucket of water and retrieving a cloth as I sat down on one of the three uncomfortably old wooden chairs that surrounded the table in our small kitchen.

“Where's Zac?” I asked realising I had not seen him since I'd returned.

“Playing with his toys in his room” she replied as she knelt before me, ringing the water from the cloth before wiping it over my feet. “So why did they give you these nice clothes?” she asked.

“It's part of the job” I answered.

She eyed me suspiciously before speaking again;“It's not normal for them to be so kind”.

“And how would you know?” I asked.

“Because I know how they treat people, like Maya from next door. I thought she was your friend”

“Mum, she's hardly my friend any more. I haven't spoken to her in a year and I can't afford friends now. You just don't know who you can trust”

“Well at least you're being cautious with people. That's a good thing now I suppose” she replied, much to my surprise. I had expected her to practically force me to knock on Maya's door and become best friends with her again as if this was some sort of normal society again.

Maya and I had known each other for a long time, having lived next door to each other since we were young and we didn't get forced to move anywhere after the split so stayed neighbours. However, most of our belongings had been stripped from us so it felt as if I was living somewhere completely different.

After the split Maya became distant and I wasn't sure why but I knew she was no longer trustworthy and truthfully nobody was, the amount of rumours that amounted of Upper Half and Halfway Point guards that disguised themselves in the lower half to make sure all was orderly was reaching a tedious amount now, and whilst they were only rumours they could be true. You could never be sure about anything, nothing was certain.

And then I was snapped back into what I so eagerly needed to know after having overheard Veronica and other people when I left the “Styles&Co” building just an hour or so ago.

So I asked my mum to tell me the truth about my father and she stopped what she was doing and looked at the ground after hearing my request. But little more than a minute later of silence she was cleaning my feet again having ignored my comment.