Coffee Breath

Chapter three - Bubbly

Freya woke up to her mother shaking her violently, the smell of her lemongrass perfume wafting into her nostrils.

"Yes?" Freya asks groggily, obviously still half asleep. "Watch your tone Freya" her mother said sternly but quietly. "You need to pack a bag, we have to leave." It was evident that her mother was trying to sound stern, despite sounding more desperate.

There was an obvious slap mark on the side of her mother's face, just above her cheekbone that Freya could just make out in the dimness of the room. Freya knew better than to ask.

She sat up slowly, yawning. "Any day now, please" her mother looked down, a slight smile forming on her lips.

Freya could tell it was hiding the truth though. She wished her mother would just tell her directly what had happened. She was hoping that they'd be going to the cinema as a surprise, or maybe just for a late night drive. She wasn't stupid though.

When your mother wakes you up at two in the morning with a slap mark on her face, asking - no - begging you to leave with her, it can't be anything good.

Freya trusted her mother though, she believed that she knew what was best for her as she opened her closet and starting throwing clothes into her sky blue suitcase.

Freya had packed the majority of the things she owned into that suitcase and a white duffel bag she used for her ballet things when she was younger.

She went into the bathroom and grabbed her makeup bag and toothbrush and placed them in the duffel bag along with pieces of stray clothing, messily tossed in.

She zipped up both her suitcase and duffel bag and made her way to the front drive where she found her mother staring at her phone.

Freya quickly checked her diamond studded, white watch that she'd received for her sixteenth birthday. She'd taken almost exactly eleven minutes to put her life into that suitcase and duffel bag.

She opened the boot of the white Volvo and lifted her suitcase and duffel bag into it. She looked up at her mother and squeezed her hand gently, making a motion towards her mother's suitcase with the other.

She couldn't read the look on her mother's face as she put her suitcase in the car. Her mother was a more mature version of Freya looks-wise, but with dimmer green eyes and a few age wrinkles.

Freya made her way to the passenger seat at the front of the car, climbing in and reaching for her seatbelt.

She switched on the radio and A Million Miles Away by Hawk Nelson came on. Funny how such a bubbly song comes on in a situation such as this. She thought as she quickly switched the radio back off again.

The rest of the drive was silent. Freya didn't ask where they were going or what had happened.

She was tempted to turn on the radio again so there was something filling the abyss of the silence between them but at the same time she just wanted to go back to sleep and deal with whatever this was in the morning.

Freya woke up with a start as her mother pulled into a driveway. She rubbed her eyes and sighed as the dimly lit street lights lit up her grandparents' house just enough for her to recognise it.

Neither of them spoke as they got out and locked the car and walked up the driveway, knocking on the front door.

Her grandfather answered. He was a kind man, he always played board games with her when she was a little kid and as she got older gave her five pounds every time they visited to go towards her university funds.

He looked them both up and down with a weary look on his face but proceeded to step aside and let them both in. "There's a room upstairs for you, pet" her grandfather said gently. Freya could somehow tell that he was aware of whatever had happened.

She nodded her head and slipped upstairs without a word, hearing her mother's and grandfather's hushed voices coming from the dining room.

Freya slept with ease that night. It was strange, you're supposed to be up all night, anxiously overthinking whatever's happened when something like this occurs but Freya didn't let it bother her.

Maybe she was exhausted, but maybe it was because she knew that she wouldn't be able to deal with the things her brain would come up with if she asked herself what that was all about.