Living in a Fairy Tale, Grimm Style.
I was always obsessed with fairy tales when I was little. But when you're too young to read to yourself, all your parents seem to read to you is the tame ones, the ones that always have a happy ending. But I prefer the other kind; the originals. The ones that are written by the famous Brothers Grimm. The ones where there is enough blood and gore to rival the worst horror movie.
I started to read those when I was about six. A bit too young for horror stories, perhaps? Maybe, but I didn't mind, and neither did my parents. All they seemed to do was argue, every day, again, and again, and again. When that happened, I'd just go to my room, and read. It was my passion. When all the others kids in my class were playing out with their friends, or talking about the latest computer game, I was reading.
It was a world I could lose myself in; take myself away from the horrors of my home. I remember; I used to wish that I could be the character in the book, the heroin that always saved the day. But that was before I read any of the Brothers Grimm stories. Before I learned that there are no happy endings.
When I was thirteen, my parents' rows climbed to a new degree of rage. When I was in my room, they no longer cared about whether I could hear them or not. They'd just scream at each other. It'd start little, about whether the toast was too burnt or the TV was too loud, but then the row would escalate. It sounded like there was a ferocious monster within both of them, ready to rip their throats out.
When they split up, I thought it was the end of my problems. It wasn't.
My friends didn't know how to deal with it. This was a time when parents didn't split up, or argue. At least, that's what everyone said. I should have seen what was coming, but I still didn't expect the things they told me.
"Keri, no-one else's parents have split up, so you're not like us anymore." Or;
"We think you're parents have split up 'cos they don't love you like our parents love us." And that was the sympathetic ones!
It hurt, to hear my own friends tell me, in short, to get lost. After that, I basically had nothing else to live for except books. So I lost myself in books again; sat at the back of every class, secretly reading under the table; slammed my bedroom door when I got home, pulled a book from the shelf, and forgot about dinner.
At the time, I still lived with my mum, and my dad lived on the opposite side of town, with his brother, my Uncle Barry. My mum would come to my bedroom door each day after school, and try to talk to me through the thick oak, after attempting to get in past the barricade I had made for myself out of a chest of drawers. I refused to talk to either of them, built iron walls around myself, kept them from even knowing me.
But then it all changed; my parents received a bit of a culture shock. My grandma died, and we all went to the funeral. It was possibly the worst day of my life; everyone's faces in permanent misery mode; the casket being lowered into the deep recess in the ground; my mum's face as my dad put a comforting arm around her.
Every five minutes, I felt like howling my eyes out. Maybe that's when things started to get better.
I know it sounds cruel, but I think my grandma's death brought our family back together. I think it was probably a good thing. I don't mean that I wanted my grandma to die, I mean something just needed to happen to jolt my parents back into the real world.
When we went home after the funeral, my dad came with us, and that's when my parents finally realised they were meant to be together, not apart, as they had been for so many years, not just physically, but mentally. I put the books away, and ate with them like old times.
The kitchen was constantly clean, and I'd come home from school to see my dad in a blue and white striped apron, cooking scones, or a cake. I'd smile at him, and he'd ask if I'd had a good day at school. A few months before, the answer would've been simple;
"Rubbish."
But by then, my friends had started to talk to me again, and most had apologised. One girl even admitted to having gone through the same thing. She had just put me down to feel better about what had happened. The good thing was, now my friends had more experience in the matter, they didn't blank her as they had me. Instead, they helped, and her family got good guidance therapy.
Perhaps, if my family had had that before, the divorce proceedings wouldn't have been lying in an office still, waiting to be either taken back, or signed by the lawyer, ready to be put through to a court hearing to decide on all the legal "mumbo jumbo".
But now, we wouldn't have to put up with the court hearing. Wouldn't have to decide who was to have custody of me. They had decided to give it a while before they took the forms back, but they had mutually agreed that if all went well for a couple of months, they'd back out, and save each other a lot of hassle.
At least, it would have been like that, before the worst possible thing happened. I was getting dressed for school one morning, deciding whether to wear the red t-shirt, or the lilac strap top, when I heard shouting downstairs. Such a familiar thing, something that I knew about.
I had rushed down the stairs, still wearing my pyjama top, to see them both standing opposite each other, like two wrestlers in a ring, squaring one another up.
"Stop it!" I had screeched, but they hadn't heard me. Instead, my mum had turned to the door, and rushed towards it, glaring at both of us one final time before disappearing across the street and into the car. That was when the beginning of a new hell started, a different hell to the one I'd already been through.
I had gone to school as always, but couldn't concentrate in any of my lessons. My friends had asked what was wrong, but I couldn't answer. I was scared they'd block me out again. If only I'd heard of the Honeymoon Period before. I wanted to know if my mum was back home yet, whether she had changed her mind about leaving dad, and me, behind. My teachers were worried, I could see that. But once again, I blocked them out, kept them out of my head. It was my way of rebelling; causing a stir.
I don't know why I did it. I think that's the reason I blame myself now for what happened that day. Why I blame myself for the next worst day of my life.
I had been walking back to my house again, head down, heart pounding. For some reason, I glanced up. Perhaps, if I hadn't things would've been different; happier.
All I remember is looking up, across the road, and seeing her. My mum. She was walking down the street, chatting to a friend and laughing. I don't know what made me do it. A moment of madness, perhaps? Maybe. All I know is, that on that day, I ruined my whole life a second time round.
As I had watched her, being so happy, I felt my rage lash out. I had screamed across the road at her, blamed her for everything.
I told her I hated her; that I never wanted to see her again. That she'd ruined my whole life, and she never even cared. That had made her stop laughing. I felt better then, and I didn't regret it, and I still don't. But the rest, I do.
She had looked hurt, and had started to cross the road to me, tear tracks spread down her cheeks. But I had turned away, ignored her. As I started to run, I heard the squeal of car breaks, the cries of horror of passers by in the street. Curiosity had drawn me to turn back. I wish now I hadn't.
There was blood everywhere, splattered across the road, on the car, on street-goers. Scarlet red blood, the colour of hatred. There was blood somewhere else too; my mum. Her lithe body was stretched across the ground, covered in blood and grime.
Like the doting daughter I was, I fled.
Weeks later, I attended the funeral. It wasn't as bad as grandma's, not as sad. My dad had stood with his arm around me, and cried, of course and he wasn't the only one, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it; to let the tears flow down my pale cheeks. I had just stood there, in my simple black dress and jacket, fiddling with the edge of my fingernail. It was all so awkward, so strange. At grandma's funeral, everyone had spoken of the good times they had spent with her, hugged, kissed, consoled. But here, everyone just nodded to each other, muttering;
"Sorry for your loss."
But I wasn't sorry. It meant that my dad and I could live like a normal family again, like the people we used to be. For I could see then that I wasn't the only one that had been affected by the arguing. For the first time in years, I had looked at him closely, and noticed the drained look in his face, his eyes. The numerous amounts of fresh wrinkles that lined the face that had once been so smooth, so care-free.
It wasn't just me that had been affected by it all. It wasn't for days that I would know the truth about that day.
I had been sitting in the kitchen staring blankly into my bowl of cereal one morning, when my dad had come in.
"Keri, it's time you should know the truth." He had begun, sitting down next to me at the pine wood table.
It turned out that on the day that my mum had left, she had changed her mind, and gone back to the house whilst I was at school, spoken to my dad about things. She had agreed with him that the stress of the day had been caused by the fact that it was my first day in her new job. Later that fateful day, after work, she had been walking to the solicitors office with her friend, Shelly, to cancel divorce proceedings, when I had yelled at her.
Those words had rung around in my head for hours after. In a way, I blamed myself for what had happened, but I knew it wasn't my fault really, in my heart. I still don't regret what I said, because it that was the truth. It was her fault that everything had happened with my family. It was her fault that I hated her. But I still missed her like hell, and wished I hadn't actually said it out loud.
I thought that everything was over when she died. That me and my dad would get back to normal once more. That didn't happen. I got out my books again. Started to read once more. My dad turned to alcohol for comfort, would stink of it when I got home each day. I started skipping school, going to the park, to read. It's funny, how the one thing that was destroying my family was also keeping it together in a way. At least when mum was alive, dad didn't drink, and I didn't 'forget' to go to school. At least then, there was something to keep us going.
But now, I'm sitting in a lonely park, writing my own story at last, telling it how it really is. It isn't a fairy tale; the leaves aren't bathed in the summer's sun, they're a bland, dull green, with no light shining on them; the families around me aren't full of laughter and cheer, they're arguing with each other, fed up with the ridiculous heat for September. This isn't a fairy tale, this is the real world.
...There are no happy endings...