When I met Josh

Chapter one

The rain crashed violently against my bedroom window. Every drop of rain landing with such a strong force then it slowly drizzled down to be followed by the sudden flash of light that appeared from the sky. I turn away from the window to search for my phone. Soon the crash of the thunder followed me. I love this weather. I guess you could say it reflects me. It's about 1 am and I'm about to go on one of my walks. I live for my night time walks. No family members to piss me off. No bitchy girls from school to attack me. No stress. Just me and the world. I especialy love it in this kind of weather as I feel it tells more of a story. I plug in my headphones and play the cold war kids album. I then make an exit through my bedroom window.  I walk down our road on auto pilot. I don't plan out my route. Ever. I just keep walking and eventually I find my way home. Hardly anyone is out at this time and that is the way I like it. I turn down an alley which leads to a different part of town. I am without a coat. Wearing my ripped black skinny jeans and a baggy white top with long armholes. My long crazy thick dark blonde hair is out cascading down my front. I let the rain fall onto me, hitting my face as I listen to the beautiful lyrics. It's a very liberating experience. After about an hour I decide to head home. Retracing my steps I manage to stumble back. I climb back into my window and it's as if I was never gone. Life has been unpaused and it's back to my living hell. My midnight walks are my escape. 

***

Taking one last look in the mirror I sigh. I'm 17 and in year 12. In England in most schools for the last two years you don't wear uniform but smart office wear. Today I picked out a white shirt with a black pencil skirt and a floral kimono on top. I am wearing thick eyeliner and red lipstick. I grab my rugged old satchal and head downstairs. "Beylinda darling, please stop throwing your cereal on the walls," Vicky my dads wife says to my brat of a step sister. 

"NOO!" He growls. Vicky looks me up and down and sighs. "Carter you look a mess as always, you look as if you got about an hours sleep last night,"  Yeah maybe thats because I did only get a bloody hours sleep last night. Like every night. Vicky is one of these very annoying people. She has these small, slanted, cold green eyes. She has almost black hair cut into a very uneven bob around her chin. She always wears bright colours that clash and she's one of annoying these people who believe that their own precious kids could do no wrong but will critize all the others aka me. She has 2 kids, Benjamin and Belyinda who are 6 year old twins from her ex husband. 

Once upon a time I did actually have a happy-ish family. I lived with my mum, dad and big brother Charlie. My mum and dad owned this bakery which we lived on top of in Cornwall by the beach. Me and Charlie would help out at the shop from a young age but it was fun and we would all have a laugh together. We would mess about and every Friday dad would come back with fish and chips and a dvd rental. We would close the shop and watch the film on the big tv screen inside the shop. When I was around 8 and Charlie was 14 my dad got a new job. He said he was tired of just working in a bakery and wanted to move onto bigger things so we could have more money. This job involved him traveling a lot and he would be in different countries for several months. We sold the bakery and moved to a house in Kent. Charlie and I attended private school for a while. I didn't notice it as much at the time but now looking back I realised just how miserable we were. My mum became very withdrawn. She had Charlie at 15 and me at 21. She was still young and was finding looking after two kids without dad very daunting. My mum used to have a history of drugs and she soon resorted back to it. Then things became nasty and both Charlie and I were aware of it. We were pulled out of private school and sent to the local comprensive and it was a very rough school. I was probably about 10. Dad came back very rarely and when he did mum and dad would just argue. My mum became verbaly abusive to all of us. One morning I came down the stairs and she just lost it. She screamed in my face calling me "A fucking disappointment" then slapped me in the face. She then walked out on us for several weeks. I thought it was all my fault. The once bubbly happy go lucky me was vanished. I changed. I wore dark clothes, hid my feelings and listened to dark music. I was a shadow of my former self at age 10. I felt like I had nothing to live for. To top it of I was getting bullied pretty severely. Mum returned a month later and apologised but it all kicked off again. When I was 11 my mum found out my dad had been cheating on her with Vicky for 2 years. It caused chaos in our house and I remember locking myself in my room crying everyday after school. Eventually they got a divorce. Charlie was 17 by this point. It had really fucked him up. My once bright big brother dropped out of school at 15. He joined a few gangs and got in trouble with the police. He then left home. He is now 23 and I haven't seen him in almost 3 years. I lived with my mum for a bit. She convinced me that dad hated me and I should never talk to him. Then suddenly things changed. My mum started verbally abusing me again then decided to ship me off to my dads new family in West London at the age of 13. This is were I live now and I hate it because I feel like I'm intruding on someone else's family in my own home.

"Vicky I'm running late, can you give me a lift?" I ask her whilst shoving a bagel in my mouth. 

"Do I look like a taxi service to you?" She replies to my bluntly. 

looks like I'm getting the bus.