CHAPTER ONE - No News Is Good News ...
My Name is Abby Greene : Drama Queen. And this is my story.
Well life officially sucked! Actually, my life was over … I was completely happy and comfortable with my life as it was. And now my family life is all strung apart. I guess you could call me naive, but everything isn’t easy like it is in the movies. You know that happily ever after stuff? Bah, I don’t believe in it ANYMORE! I thought things like this happened to other families ... but not mine. I know every little family have their speed bumps, but I never thought that my life was about to be uprooted and changed forever. How was I ever going to understand how to fall in love if I didn’t understand the ones ‘in love’ around me.
It was barely 10a.m when I arrived home. I had been at my friend Rachel’s house over night and didn’t even sleep. We did our usual girl thing and pulled an all-nighter talking about boys, how we would get famous one day, painting each other’s nails and braiding each other’s hair. No matter how groomed I was from last night’s makeover, I still looked like a train wreck when I returned home. Usually everyone was up when I returned early in the morning, but the place was dead quiet. The peace was kind of strange, but I didn’t let it bother me since all I wanted to do was lie down. As I walked to my bedroom I could hear a sobbing and sniffling from upstairs. On Sunday morning my mother is usually blasting music and doing her thorough Sunday clean. Something just wasn’t right and I knew it when my dad approached me with a weighed down look on his face,
“Mum needs some alone time Abby, shush,” he said placing his finger over his mouth.
Alone time? I knew it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe someone died?
I was ushered into the lounge room and I sat down and prepared myself for something serious. I actually began to panic because my dad is a generally a cheerful kind of guy.
“Abby, mum and I hate to tell you this but …” He said as his voice kind of sunk. I impatiently closed my eyes and sighed out preparing myself for a bunch of tears. My eyelids fluttered open again and I cringed slightly because I was certain he was about to announce a death in the family. Mum’s tears and dad’s gloominess, was a dead giveaway.
http://i.imgur.com/9ElPV0Z.png
“We’ve decided to get a divorce,” The word ‘divorce’ just kind of hung there … and it almost echoed through the house even though he said it softly.
What?! I thought someone was dead! Way to give me a bloody heart attack dad!
I couldn’t actually react. I almost ignored it. ‘Divorce’ didn’t seem bad, but the results always were. A million thoughts went through my head at once. My emotions felt scattered. I didn’t know whether to laugh it off, or burst out crying.
Mum and dad were a very quiet couple, they lived pretty separate lives. Dad travelled a lot on business, and their work schedules clashed all the time. Probably the reason I was an only child. I knew they were distant to each other, but I didn’t think it would result in this. Dad patiently waited for my reply, but different thoughts kept coming over and over. The announcement hit me like a ton of bricks when I thought of our family living apart. I was used to my school, my friends and my parents just being picture perfect. Now it just felt like a shattered portrait of our family. I was 16 and I thought I’d take it well because of my age, but I wasn’t.
What was the point after 19 years of marriage? They are old now was it worth splitting up? Everything seemed pointless because all their life and love was down the drain …
I could feel my head twitching and shaking ever so slightly as I returned eye contact with dad. I blinked fast, and opened my mouth to say something but all that came out were guttural sounds as I stumbled on words.
“Abby?” Dad asked, “Are you alright love?”
“When did this happen?” I finally managed to say.
“We can talk about that another time honey, we just thought it was time we told you.” Every time he stopped speaking, my mind went into over drive again. I took a deep breath and kept my head down looking aimlessly toward the floor just trying to contemplate the next direction our family was going to take. Dad cleared his throat which prompted me to look up at him.
“I’m going up to Queensland in a week or so, to stay with your Aunt Eva until we can sort some things out.” I was in a state of shock and looked at him wide eyed and confused.
You’re going without me? I am your daughter! Just because you’re finished with mum, are you finished with me too?
My dad was always so cool and so simple to get along with and it was easy to call him my favourite parent. He was always fair and rarely opinionated. I felt a little freedom growing up with not many restrictions because dad always trusted me. He was different to mum, mainly because he supported me and encouraged me in everything I did. But at this moment I felt a weird distance between us, one that I hadn’t felt before. Dad and I always had the ‘daddy’s little girl’ cliché relationship but suddenly I felt abandoned by him. Dad went away a lot sure, but was this for good? I felt angry wondering the reason for all of this. Who was responsible for splitting our family apart? I looked up at my father angrily as he raised himself up from the chair he was sitting in. I followed him for a moment and gasped to say something but nothing came out again. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t want to take me with him, but I just couldn’t ask because he seemed to be on the brink of tears.
The quietness of the house was deafening except the sound of my heels hitting the floor. Dad turned and looked at me with apologetic eyes as he placed his hand on the wall near the stairs. I wanted to cry, but my tear ducts seemed to be fused shut. He turned on his heel and hung his leg over one step of the staircase and didn’t even look at me to say,
“I’m sorry Abby; this is hard on me too. I need some alone time as well.”
“Dad I…” I attempted to say. But he sighed and proceeded to go upstairs.
http://i.imgur.com/hyg98Fs.png
I fought back the questions that needed answering and was left there at the bottom of the staircase feeling left in the dark. I stood there holding onto the knob of the stairs and leaned on it for a little comfort. Finally, I let go of the stairs and swung my arms down by my side walking slowly to my room. I wasn’t tired anymore, because my head was plagued with thoughts. I sought comfort in someone, but everyone I needed was either asleep or ‘needed alone time’. I lie on my bed with my phone just wanting to call Rachel. But I knew she would be asleep by now. I had other friends but none that understood me like her. I flicked my phone open and shut constantly contemplating who to call.
Open and shut, open, shut... locked out, locked in ... kept in the dark, kept in. How long my parents were falling apart before they let me in on it?
Amongst my thoughts my brain finally gave in and I fell asleep.
Bump, bump bump. Shut up! For goodness sake! Trying to sleep here!
I sat up angrily feeling really under rested. I grabbed my phone off the bed and it was 6:03pm. I heard some rumbling in the hall that usually came from someone coming down the staircase. My door was shut, so I tiptoed across my bedroom and sat with my back to the door and tried to eavesdrop anything that was said. After waiting for nearly 10 minutes by my door I crept out watching my dad throw some pillows on the lounge. I gulped down hard feeling a dryness in my throat knowing that he was setting up his sleeping arrangements. My heart sank when I saw my mother with puffy red eyes holding a blanket over her arm. She handed it to my father as if he was a stranger in our house and walked out the room and into the kitchen. I stood by the stairs watching dad sit on the edge of the lounge with his hand up to his face looking deep in thought.
http://i.imgur.com/R5dkjtz.png
And then I looked at mum in the kitchen. I felt in the middle somehow, but I was barely acknowledged.
Why weren’t they talking to me?
I was the child and I didn’t feel like I should be the one to initiate the conversation about their relationship. But I deserved a proper sit down and explanation. I felt anger boil up inside me before I snapped,
“I’ve had enough! Will someone just talk to me?” I demanded flailing my arms up in the air. “I’ve said nothing all day, I’ve been dwelling all day, so what the heck is going on?” I felt warm in my cheeks, my heart was pounding and I almost felt out of breath.
“Abby not now,” My mother said lazily from the kitchen.
“Yes now!” I said entering the room, “All I know is you guys are getting a divorce, and Dad is moving to Queensland! What about me? Where am I going?” My dad followed behind me and my parents looked through me and at each other. Dad flopped onto a kitchen chair seemingly defeated by my words. Dad decided to chime in first taking control of my little hissy fit,
“Mum and I have already put the house on the market, and mum has taken a job in Perth,”
Why didn’t I know any of this? Had I been too self-involved to even know what was happening? They say things happen behind closed doors, but I had been here behind these doors too.
At first I sniffed out thinking I was attempting to cry fake tears, but they were real. They were selling the house. The house I grew up in, my comfort zone, and the place I held all of my memories, GONE and given to someone else? I bowed my head in sorrow and looked to my side eyeing a family portrait on the hall table. I wanted to smash it into a thousand pieces, but I didn’t. I just huffed out loudly and ran to my bedroom. I slammed the door as loud as I could to make a statement that I was angry. I needed to scream or something to release my frustration. But the first thing I saw was my piano. I attempted to walk over and play it to escape and just forget everything, but I didn’t make it. I suddenly felt weak and dropped to my knees.
I was moving to a total different state. Queensland may as well be a half a country away from Perth. I was never going to see dad, or my friends again for a long time. Tears uncontrollably came and I broke down feeling the full blow of everything that I was told and that was about to happen.
http://i.imgur.com/fBDWN2D.png
I stopped only for a moment to catch my breath after loudly bawling. Neither of my parents had bothered to come in. And I wanted them to. I wanted someone to care about what I was going through too. I wanted my tears to make them feel bad.
I closed my eyes imagined that for a moment that I came home this morning and just passed out because I hadn’t slept the night before and that this was a dream. I opened my eyes again another tear fell. I lightly tapped my face and comforted my body by wrapping my arms around myself.
This was no dream ... This was a nightmare.
