CHAPTER 1
‘New Beginnings’
“If my mother was an animal, she would definitely be a Doberman…Victoria Gray, I say the words loudly, deliberately, the acid taste of bitterness rolls off my tongue. The mere thought of her name almost makes me feel sick but I swallow hard and press on. I refuse to think of her as my mother, I say scanning the faces in the classroom. Unfortunately she is, biologically at least. Funny how you can be born to someone that you are completely different from. Except for my dark hair it’s such a relief that I don’t look, or think anything like her”,
All eyes are riveted to my face, ears attuned to every word and I steel myself and continue.
“You see my mother, if you can call her that, is a high profile media personality. You’ve seen the photos: dark glossy salon perfect hair; her Botox induced face and her white teeth, immaculately bleached. I never thought I would know what hatred feels like; I guess this extreme disgust must be kind of close. I can only hope my words convey their correct implication.”
I look around at the horror dawning on their faces, my anger rippling through the audience, causing discomfort as my ‘Show and Tell’ veers off the accepted rails. I smile inwardly at its desired effect. I wait to be asked to stop. Silence hangs heavy in the air and I don’t stop now, I need to make it count.
“I remember when I was about five or six years old and she was reluctantly patching up my split open knee, sit still and don’t be such a baby! You are so much like your father Charlotte, she snapped. The steel of her eyes, the sneer in her voice…unforgettable.
Then at twelve and protesting to another photo shoot. Charlotte for God’s sake get that sulky look off your face or I’ll slap it off, it’s bad enough that you are so fat. I can’t have you on camera sniping like that. The sharp bite of her tongue, leaving another dent in my already bruised self-image.
And so, I see my mother as a dog, something like a Doberman, sleek, beautiful to look at. The type people have put down because they are simply too vicious,
The End”
I finish my class speech to a progressive gasp and walk back to my desk, head held high in victory. I’ve imagined this scenario a dozen times. I can see it as if it’s really happening, a class speech describing a family member if they were anything other than the person that they are. A deserving fit for my mother…but it’s not real…and there is so much more I can say…but I can’t allow myself to think about her final betrayal.
Because when I do…it spins me out of control.
I jolt upright hyperventilating. The reminder so real I can almost feel the pressure indented on my lips as I run my fingers over them. I’d been lying awake for hours the speech running through my head on repeat. My room is starting to feel claustrophobic with the heat of early autumn sun streaming through my window. Drenched in sweat I force myself out of bed. Dreading the day ahead, I stumble across the room pushing hard against the window longing for cool air on my face!
It’s a daydream, a fantasy I tell myself. Only I’ve imagined it so often it’s like it’s become real.
Breathless Description:
Synopsis
Charlie has lived life trying to avoid the train wreck of a life that is her mother. And she is trying to deal with the physical consequences of the wreckage.
Desperate to forget the last year of her life and trying to put it behind them, her and her Dad Mitch move to the coastal town of Cronulla hoping to find some peace of mind in the slower paced life of the beach culture there.
But the consequences of her past life are savage, and constantly flood her mind with memories that are so painful they stop her from breathing…then the blackouts come. All she wants is to be left alone.
When school stud Cohen takes an interest in Charlie, she doesn’t know how to respond – is she just a conquest for him? More importantly, does she even like him? Then Charlie meets similarly-distant Tyler, who’s also new to school. Just as Charlie begins to feel comfortable with Tyler, he goes missing from school for a few days, leaving Charlie vulnerable to Cohen’s advances in a local nightclub. But when they meet the next day at school, it’s Tyler who gets Charlie’s first kiss. Falling in love with Tyler comes with a price, as is clear once the FEDs come knocking on Charlie’s door and out of necessity place Tyler in witness protection, having witnessed his father’s murder in Melbourne last year and Charlie with him as she is now implicated from hanging out with Tyler.
Tyler forced to leave promising career possibilities, elite schooling and all he’d ever known behind him in Melbourne – and then some – finds himself on the run from someone else’s mistake.
And sometimes someone else’s mistakes have serious implications on our lives especially if the mistakes are made by someone we love. Implications that in the end we can’t run from.
But witness protection is not the only difficulty Charlie faces when her mother suddenly appears on the last day of school and tries to make contact with her.
It seems that bedroom doors with locks won’t keep the world at bay forever…
