L'amour (e.c)

twenty; memory lane

Charlotte

I never believed in bad people, just people making bad decisions. But in reality I didn't know what a bad person was, I didn't think I'd ever met one. I suppose I was privileged; parents with a great job, nice house, good school and a cute dog. To everyone else my life looked perfect.

My Mum, had a great reputation around the village. They saw her as Dr Smith, a hardworking doctor, a caring mother and a loving wife. She would bake cake for the old ladies next door every weekend, even though she was working the night before. She would volunteer at the soup kitchen on Sundays, her only day off. Everyone saw her as perfect, she still is. But now she's just slightly... damaged.

My Dad had a great reputation too. The village knew him as Coach Smith, the heroic firefighter that coached the rugby team on the weekend. He seemed like a great Dad and a loving husband. Him and my Mum were high school sweethearts, he was the year above and it caused quite a scandal when he rejected all the girls in his year and went for quiet April Jones.

Their love story was one I'd always wished for, the bad boy, good girl cliché that shocks everyone. Then the perfect engagement at their favourite restaurant in Paris- the first restaurant they visited on their first holiday. The wedding was obviously beautiful, expensive too. There was no way they would have been able to afford the wedding if it wasn't for the wealth my Dads parents had, firefighters don't get that much.

Then I came along, completing the family. I'd like to say I was planned- but I wasn't. I wasn't unwanted though. I was a 'Happy Surprise' as my Dad used to affectionately call me. We were the ideal, the tv show kind of family.

Maybe it was because we were blessed with great genetics and wealth. Or maybe it was our kindness. Or just maybe everyone loved the idea of us. They didn't love us, just how perfect we were, how we were what they wanted to be.

Or maybe they loved to hate us. I was never quite sure.

One thing I am sure of, is that they loved it when it all fell down.

It had been so normal before it had happened, it's true what they say about the calm before the storm. Nothing was wrong, everything was great- better than great. But I had my secrets. I'd kept them for a long time, it's not hard to keep quiet.

Everyone does it.

It was just sex. That's all it was. I was never in love with him, or wanted anything with him. And that was the problem to everyone else. I knew it would be scandalous if anyone found out, I had to save myself until marriage, just like my mum did. But that was the one thing I couldn't do.

I wasn't the perfect girl everyone thought I was.

It had been going on for months when it happened. I knew I had to stop it. There was too much sneaking around, too much secrecy. It was far too stressful.

I had to end it.

It was just unfortunate that he was with a girl when I texted him.

Louisa Roberts, she'd always hated me. I don't know why, we were in the same friendship group, had the same interests and were both beautiful. I think her problem was that she wasn't me. And I know how vain this comes across, but I was vain. I needed to be the IT girl, I suppose I still do. It validates me in some weird way.

Louisa couldn't help herself, after she'd seen the text she had to tell everyone. It was mean girls style too. Real nasty shit.

Remember the scene where Regina George threw the sheets from the Burn Book everywhere? It was like that. Just with my face photoshopped onto some porn star.

Could she not have chosen Paris Hilton or something? I could have been remembered as 'One night in Charlotte, North Carolina'.

But I guess you could say everyone was dramatic back then. But high schoolers are.

School turned into a horror film for me, it was all anyone would talk about, I was used to the stares, but now it was stares of disgust- not lust or envy. I wasn't even too sure why. Sex was a normal thing, everyone has it. So why was it so scandalous that I had indulged?

Home life was getting worse too, my Mum was super supportive. She would hold me while I cried at night and rub my back when I was being sick from crying too much ( Yes, I cried a lot, can you blame me though?) She was great, but my Dad wasn't. He wouldn't even look at me, apparently he was a very big Catholic.

News to me.

He then started disappearing. He wouldn't come home from his shifts until a few hours later, he would never be home for tea and hadn't spent a weekend with us in weeks. I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault- it was my fault, I had drove a wedge between them, forcing them to deal with their different views in real life.

Maybe I take the blame for a lot of things in the past, I would often blame myself for this too. But not anymore, I was still a kid really. This one was all my dad.

I remember finding out about it. It was a Saturday morning, I'd just finished drying my hair and was ready to settle down with netflix. Until I heard the screaming.

It was one of the most heart wrenching things I'd ever heard, and I never want to hear it again.

Of course I ran down the stairs to see what was going on, I needed to know if my Mum was okay. When I walked in the kitchen there was cake mix splatted all over the floor, my Mum sat next to it, my Dad stood over her.

She was crying, he was just stood there... emotionless. The whole time he never said a word. Even now I don't know if I wanted him to say just one last thing to me, but maybe its good that he didn't.

I never saw him again, I never want to. Once my Mum finally stopped crying enough to be able to talk she explained everything to me. My heroic father had been having an affair for four glorious years. That was the reason he had stopped telling my Mum he loved her, because while she was saying it to him, he was saying it to someone else. He had taken the woman I adored, and ripped her to pieces, made her hate everything he once said he loved about her.

Made her look desperate to the town. He said she knew about the affair for years, he told them how she was okay with it, she wasn't bothered as long as she had him to leach off and sleep with on a night.

He then told them that his affair was okay, because she too had an affair, she'd given him permission to have one after admitting she wasn't sure I was his child,

Some Catholic, huh?

i totally hate this chapter so much. ew.