Seven - According To Darcy
She sat at the kitchen counter, Darcy's little legs kicked to the bouncing beat of the music she'd put on when she came home from school. Elvis. Every afternoon before her mother came home, she played the old cassette in an even older cassette player that her aunt had given her last time she'd cleared the attic.
Colouring in a bright red dragon, of course. She'd not drawn it herself, she just liked colouring books. Amber said they were for babies, but Darcy figured she could be as much of a baby as she wanted when no one else was around. So she hummed along to Blue Suede Shoes and felt rather at peace, for one so young.
Then mom came home. Hearing the car door slam, Darcy glanced out of the kitchen window to see her mother. She didn't quite know why, she just always retreated to her room while her mother cooked dinner, feeling that she only got in the way. And so she gathered up her crayons, running upstairs, colouring book held to her chest.
It wasn't that she was hiding, so much… But she was. She'd done something bad today. Or something that, at least, her mother probably didn't want her doing. And so she waited for her mother to find her in the first place. Sure enough, there were soon footsteps on the stairs and eyes on her as she lay on the rug, colouring once more. The folded arms in the corner of her eye.
"Did you have a good day at school today?"
That familiar voice using the familiar excuse to call her out on something. School was fine, school was always fine. It just was what it said on the tin, school. Never any problems with bullies, she always had friends, and she did okay as far as grades went. So school was always fine, and that was what she mumbled quietly as she coloured a princess' hair a bright orange.
The faint and distant sounds of Elvis still echoed from the kitchen, the only other thing in the silence between them. "Mrs Parker, across the street. She said she saw you talking to a lady at the door today when you came home from school." Her mother asked, still trying to get away with being non-accusatory. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
And so Darcy shook her head, not really keen on talking. Otherwise she'd have complained. That lady is my grandmother, she thought, and had been for the first five years of her life. Why that had to change because dad ran away with a pot dealing hippy bitch, Darcy wasn't quite sure. Well, she'd never met said pot dealing hippy bitch, but that was what Mom called her in hushed phone calls with her own mother, it had just stuck.
"Darcy, you're not allowed to see that lady any more, you know that. So just stop answering the door when she's there, okay?" At that the young girl rolled her eyes, pushing her frankly ugly pink glasses back up to the bridge of her nose as she continued colouring. "Darcy. Are you listening to me?"
So she decided to be cheeky here. Of course, she didn't do it usually because it was much more fun to curse at your mother in your head and not get told off for it than actually do it and have to sit in the time out corner for a half hour. She was seven. Like hell was she doing time outs, they were for toddlers.
"Nope." she replied, a lazy little pop sound on the 'p' as she shook her head slightly. And so she awaited a reaction, almost a little worried about it, if she was honest. But what was the worst her mom could do, huh?
"I give up with you. I work really hard to look after you, Darcy. And you never listen to anything I say, I swear. One day you'll regret it because I won't be there to look after you, you know." Her mother sighed, turning on her heel and heading back downstairs.
Well. That was hardly expected. Darcy stared at the spot where her mother had stood for a moment, wondering what that was all about. She usually shouted. There was usually a time out or she had to wash up. But Mom just seemed… sad. But the girl shrugged it off, as much as she could, and continued colouring, for all it was worth.