'No Sally. We will not tolerate you associating with that boy. You are not to see him again.' Edward reprimanded his daughter. Sally Smith was sitting at her family's glass and stainless steel kitchen table while her parents paced the kitchen, their anger apparent in the permanent frowns etched onto their faces.
In a futile attempt to ease the tension Elizabeth Smith sat down on the chair opposite her daughter, 'Sally, I'm sorry you think we're being unreasonably unfair, but you have to understand that we are doing this for your own good.' Her voice remained level, but the effort it took to keep it that way was evident; the emotion in her voice was tangible. She continued, 'Now, you are going to go and change out of that ridiculous concoction you've thrown together, remove that muck from your face, and then we will talk about this properly.'
Sally Smith stood up, scraping her chair on the kitchen floor, watching with obvious delight as her parents grimaced at the sound it made. Anything to antagonise them she thought to herself. Although she tried her hardest not to show it she was trembling with anger, determined not to rise to their comments. She turned on her heel and strode towards her room, her black chunky boots slopping around her ankles and clumping on the pine wood floor. A noise that her parents detested. No. Not this time, she thought. She knew she couldn't take it any longer, if they couldn't accept her for who she was then they had no more need of each other. Once in her room she slammed the door and sunk to the floor, a solitary tear formed in the corner of her eye, trickling down her cheek. She swiped it to one side, streaking her already smudged eyeliner.
Breathing deeply she forced herself to stand up and walked to her wardrobe, pulling out her old and battered black satchel, that after years as being used as a weapon and a form of defence was held together by contrasting red thread. Glancing around her room she realised there was very little of this life that she did want to take with her. She tied one black hooded jumper around her waist and stuffed a second into the bag, dumping it on the bed as she wrenched open her desk drawer, pulling out a sheaf of papers. They were the only thing she wanted to take with her, the poems that Galileo had written for her. As she sifted through them every one of them was handwritten she realised; it was so much more personal like that she thought. So much more meaningful. She traced the letters lightly with her index finger, Nothing really matters to me. Nothing, no-one but you. I love you Scaramouche. Scaramouche was his private name for her; she smiled slightly to herself as she remembered the day he had given it to her. She had kicked up a fuss, protesting that people would call her Scary Bush.
She stuffed the papers into the bag, picked it up, and took one final look around the room, checking that she had taken everything she wanted to. She definitely had, nothing else was 'real', it was all GaGa made. Taking a deep breath she opened the door, and keeping her head held high stalked past her parents. 'Sally, where do you think you're going?'
Sally sighed, and spun round, 'I would have thought it was perfectly obvious. No? I'm going to- like you care. I'm going. That's all you need to know.' She steeled herself, determined to say what she had to, 'I don't see that we can stay as we are, if you aren't prepared to accept me for who I am. This is, who I am, whether you like it or not. Goodbye.' She turned back, ignoring her parents, flung open the door and walked out, breaking into a run as she rounded the corner of the hallway that led to her apartment. She didn't bother to wait for a lift, but pounded down the stairs, glancing back only once to reassure herself that she wasn't being followed.
She knew exactly where she was going - Galileo's. The tears that she had being willing herself to keep under control broke free, blinding her. Not that it mattered, she had walked this path enough times to know it like she knew the boy who waited for her at its end. She could walk it blindfolded in the dead of night, and still arrive unharmed by GaGa attacks. Turning one final corner down a narrow alley in the 'dodgy' part of town she stopped for the first time since leaving her apartment, hammering on the door with a clenched fist, tears free-falling down her white face, hair windswept and wild.