Imperfect

Chapter 14

"Charlie have you packed yet?" Mum asks.

I'm lead on my bead and she's holding a washing basket in my doorway.

"Not yet. I'm going to do it now." I tell her.

"Okay, remember pyjamas honey." She reminds me.

"Mum, can I talk to you about something?" I question sheepishly. I know that she'll say yes but it's just a sill attempt to get out of this conversation.

"Of course what is it?" She says. "Is it about school?"

That's a parent for you. Always jumps to conclusions that make you feel even more awkward.

"Err... Well yes and no." I explain. "I know you and Dad met at high school and Stacy has her boyfriend, but I'd just like to talk about this sort of stuff. I don't understand what's happening. I'm not even sure if I like this person or not. I just don't know."

"Oh, Charlie! You'll never know. It's an endless crazy fest of uncertainty. Please if you want to talk just talk to us!" She assures me, stupidly.

"That's what I'm trying to do. I don't know. I've never liked, liked anyone before and this is sort of a first for me and I don't know if they like me back or what they think of me. That and I feel like I've just lost myself completely. Toby might be this horrible bully and he might either be blackmail one of my friends or they're voluntarily helping them." I'm muttering more than talking now and I'm doing it almost as fast as Maria chats. "Brain just broke up with Jenifer and they're like on opposing ends of the spectrum. I'm pretty sure Maria invited me to go on a sleep over the other day and I completely forgot about it, she might also have a crush on Oscar according to Eliza who hates me after I confronted Toby about being the bully and I think she has a crush on him. Then according to Stacy he has a crush on me which is extremely stupid and everything is just trying to punch me in the face with a foot ball or something."

"Okay." Mum says once I'm finished. "Let's do this productively; get your jumper and you trainers, we're going on a run."

"What about packing?" I ask.

"Later, my eldest child's sanity is more important than a plain flight to my father's funeral."

"That seems kind of backwards you know."

"I honestly don't care now let's go!"

I grab my stuff and follow her out the front door.

We head off to the main road where we'll probably follow an old trail to a cafe where we used to get hot chocolate and cake.

I'm right, we run there and get drinks. The cafe is small and nice, with a sort of rustic charm to it.

"So first of all, you think Toby's this bully. Explain three things to me: Why do you think that, when and what has this bully been doing and WHY THE HECK DID YOU NOT TELL ME THIS?!" She demands.

"That's four questions." I point out. "And the bully made a remark at one point that pointed to all the people who were playing football after school. Ruling off Max because it was bout him, all the others aren't anonymous on that blog apart from Toby and his reaction was perfect to one which was guilty. Also he tried to put me off his scent, you see for some reason he has two phones and he left one of them with the rest of us whilst he went to the toilet and posted something one the other so we wouldn't suspect him. Then when he tried proving to me that it wasn't him he showed me the two phones and one of them wasn't his but it was Max's. And I don't think Max would intentionally help him for anything like that! Toby has been commenting and criticising everyone in our grade at school on that website blog thing that was launched. And I didn't tell you about this because it didn't bother me until now."