Golden (Book 1 of the Golden Series)

Chapter 42

It feels like I'm always apologising to you for hiatuses and such and honestly each one is harder and harder to come out of. My life is a shambles, as is my mental health, my self worth and any ideas I have for the future. I don't know what I'm going to do and it terrifies me.

I didn't write for a while because I didn't have the energy, and then i realise that's exactly why I was sad and didn't have the energy - BECAUSE I WASN'T WRITING.

Writing has helped me so much and is probably the only thing I still love after so many years. So Im back, and I'm going to try. My dream would be to have this published - to be an author for real, maybe I'll manage it and this turmoil of college and whatever else will be solved for me if I work hard. Maybe it won't. For now though -  I love you all and this book for helping me and supporting me

Also when I last uploaded I said thanks for 400K reads - its been a 3 month hiatus and we're now at 484K reads and I'm in disbelief. Thank you for all the kind messages and the continued dedication x I hope you guys enjoy x

I love you x

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Chapter 42

It was strange being back in my home. Or I suppose home wasn't really the word for it. It had never felt like a home - not really. A place that was meant to be filled with warmth and laughter, love and acceptance, was instead a place which I feared to enter. A place where the most terrible things had happened to me. And by people who were meant to have cared.

"There's no pictures," Cole comments, looking around the place and I shrug, my eyes drifting across the empty walls that were dulling with smoke.

"My father was never really one to put up family memories, he already said that I reminded him too much of my mother, he didn't need to see my constantly," I reply quietly, walking down the hall with my breath held. It was habit really - my father hadn't come back here since he'd ran from Cameron, Cole informed me of this as we entered, apparently smell was something that they used often. Never the less, my body tensed as though it could feel the punches he had thrown at me, and my skin itched with bruises that were dusted across it.

Obi knocks me out of the spiral I had begun to go into as he runs past my legs and towards the sofas, taking full advantage of being able to jump up on them and the shiver that had past over me eases a little by looking at his lolling tongue.

"Was he always..." Cole's face scrunches up and he shakes his head, "Sorry, that's probably too personal."

I smile gently, shaking my head as we make our way through the house.

"It's alright... I suppose there was a time where he was a kind man, I don't see how my mother could have married him if he wasn't. But as long as I can remember there was never love in his heart... not for me anyway."

Memories of his fond and proud grin staring at Matt makes my stomach roll and an awful taste makes it's way into the back of my throat, my tongue becoming dry. How I had wished for him to look at me like that, for him to be proud of me in some way, shape or form. But no matter what I did it was never enough, he could never look at me like that. He would never wrap his arms around me, or tell me he loved me... he wouldn't so much as touch me unless it was to cause pain.

The feeling only worsens when we finally enter the kitchen and the remnants of our fight lie scattered, as if placed there to create a crime scene and I'm taken aback by the savagery of it. I suppose at the time I hadn't really thought of how it would look after, but this was worse than I could have imagined.