Chapter 13

Next morning at school I saw Austin leaning againest a wall, listening to his mp3 player. He noticed me and waved me over. As I approached him he took his right earphone out and smiled. His teeth were pearly white. So perfect.
'Hey Claudia.'
'You remembered my name?' I teased him. Austin laughed.
'Yeah,' he stuck his tongue out at me, making him look real ctue. 'Hopefully you still remember my name.'
'In fact I do so ha!' it was my turn to stick my tongue out. Austin laughed.
'Aww you look so cute when you do that,' he complimented. I blushed. 'Anyway any more problems I can listen to?' and that was how I started telling him about Callum crying and dad slapping me. He listened all through, like last time. Austin didn't even flinch at any of th things I said. I felt like an open book and damn did it feel good. I wished I could stay forever with him, just talking about random things but the bell rang. Time for classes.

Mum came into my bedroom. She sat down. I looked up at her, she looked better than yesterday morning. She had that look that meant she had something serious to talk to me about. Like when she talked about sex to me for the first time. And puberty. And periods.
'Claudia, I've got something to tell you,' she breathed in deep, 'I'm moving out. I've got boyfriend called Alexander. He's got a daughter, a year younger than you called Cindy. Hopefully after the divorce you'll be able to share with her and live with us.' I rarely heard what she said. It all came out as one sentence. I stopped listening. I couldn't believe she's got a boyfriend. She carried on talking but I didn't hear a sound.
I had gone all numb.
'B-b-but why did you and dad marry each other if you didn't love each other? Now me and Callum are going to be scarred for life!' I asked her. She looked at me and sighed.
'Me and your dad.. Well I had this sort of one night stand with him. He was a friend of mine and we had it, you know what I mean. The condom cracked and we didn't know. Weeks after I found out I was pregnant and we wanted what was best for you. So we got married so you'd have a wonderful life. But we di-' I cut her off.
'But my life hasn't turned out lovely has it? It's all broken now because of both of you. You don't know how much it hurts to see your parents break up!' I shouted. By now tears were streming down my face. They just kept on coming.
'You.. You don't know my life. You don't know my problems. You don't know me mum. And don't give me the stupid "it'll be alright" cos this family is never going to be alright again!' I got up and stared out the window. I didn't have enough courage to look at her face. She came up to me and tried to hug me, I pushed her away. A few minutes later, the door was closed.

I turned around, fell to the floor and sobbed my heart out.