Chapter Two
Finally at home, I really was in trouble because my clothes were beyond repair. "If you can´t act out yourself, we have to forbid these walks alone. You should be old enough to let you out alone without ruining your clothes, but you proved me wrong." Why my clothes? Why wasn´t it more important that everything hurt? Why didn´t they care at all? I concentrated on not having to cry, the angry words of my mother passing by. As I finally was alone in my room, I ran into my own bathroom, shut the door and cried. As my parents were asleep, I finally got out and went to sleep as well. I really was exhausted.
The following weeks went like usual. I did my best during the lessons and ignored my classmates and the free periods I spend in one of the music rooms. The piano there was great and I practiced a lot. When I didn´t know what to play anymore, I tried the drums. I knew the theory for ages but never had the possibility to try it out. I got better very fast, was able to play some rhythms after a few minutes. I had declared the encounter with the Benedicts as imagination a long time ago since I was used to losing my grip in reality, drifting off in some other worlds that were anything but real. I just sat at the drums as I realised the encounter with the Benedicts hadn´t been imagination at all when Zed and Sky entered the room. "Oh, you´re here? Then we´ll leave you." Sky said friendly. But I knew they both wanted me to go. "It´s okay, I´ll leave." I just wanted to vary the beat a bit…Well, I also could do that tomorrow. I put away the drumsticks and got up. "No, no, it´s okay. You play the drums?" Zed asked. "Not really, I just tried out a bit. And you?" I asked back cautiously. "Wow, didn´t sound bad just for trying out. Yes, I play the drums." I had used the time to pack my stuff. "Wow, cool, have fun." And then I hurried to get out of the room. "Hey, you don´t have to go." Sky grabbed my arm before I finally could get through the door. It felt…strange where she touched me. I got confused. Thank God she let go immediately. "No, really, I have to go eat a bit, have fun." And there I went.
But I needed these rituals, this daily routine, and having broken it really confused me and made the day feel weird. Everything got out of its rhythm. That´s why I wasn´t surprised seeing Sky and Zed waiting for me at my bike as I left school. I was just trudging myself there as I saw them, so I needed a few seconds to get what they wanted. To be exact, I got it in the moment Zed spoke to me. "Why did you run away before? We won´t bite, promise." Well, his appearance told other things. I just nodded and hefted my bag on my bike, then pulled on my helmet. Now I just wanted to go home and sleep off, that would be so nice. My thoughts were as fast as my Computer from 1995 I once possessed. But my operating system hadn´t failed yet. "Run away?" Again I needed a while to get what he meant. "Oh, no. Not ran away. Polite. I was polite and let you have the room." I murmured as I pushed the bike out on the street. "Ah, okay. But well, actually we just went there to talk to you." Sky said softly. I looked at her surprised. What could they want from me? "We just wanted to know if you really don´t want to report these guys. And how you are." How I was? "I´m fine." I always was. "And I really don´t wanna report them." I felt sick. I hadn´t drunk enough water today, I hadn´t eaten properly and I was increasingly tired, but in school I had tried my best like always. I felt completely run over and really just wanted to go home. "You sure?" Zed asked again. I got on my bike. "Sure." I drove home, leaving them standing there. After a while I got a bad conscience about it, but I told myself that wasn´t important. First I had to go home. Eat, drink and sleep.
My plans got crossed by my mother, who just handed me some rests of the meal the day before I really wasn´t able to eat. Then I had to help in the garden, build up the last furniture, shred moving boxes and so on. As I was finally done, I didn´t have the time to sleep anymore since my homework wanted to be done as well. I was hungry, but I would never get done if I started eating now. Although I really worked hard, I hadn´t finished until ten pm and food wasn´t available for me anymore. I just drank some water against my headache, read a book I soon had to give back to the library, chat with some people on the internet and then finally fell asleep at half past midnight over a book about vocational guidance.
The next day wasn´t much better, and I was longing for the weekend. Sometimes older classmates caught me, but it wasn´t as bad as it had been a few weeks ago. And I really got used to their stupid comments. I didn´t even care anymore why they did it, if they wanted they should do, I was broken already. My mother still made me work in the house, and during the week she mostly didn´t have the time to cook. My father got home late as always and I saw him rarely. My body felt light from hunger. I just didn´t eat enough, but I was too tired and felt too bad to eat anything of the stuff my mom produced. But then the weekend finally came. My mother wanted to go to some people she worked with, and because they had a daughter my age I had to go with her to make some contacts. This meant I had to get up incredibly early in the morning and couldn´t sleep off, and more importantly she would praise me like a product of highest quality and not like a human being. Still, I interpreted it as a compliment. Normally I wasn´t allowed to go with her when she visited clients. Duty of confidentiality and stuff. So I really got up early, did some household, eat as much as I could and then entered my mother´s car. The mountains looked wonderful, but this wasn´t my landscape. I missed the sea so incredibly much. After having driven a while, my mother stopped in front of a big old-looking house. It fit perfectly into the landscape. Who might live there? An absent-minded looking man opened the door. His long brown hair was bundled in a ponytail and on his jeans you could see marks from oil paints. I immediately decided he was sympathetic to me. "Hello, Mister Bright." My mother smiled. "We phoned already, right?" "Come in." Mister Bright had a friendly face, but he looked worried. I went after him and my mother into the kitchen. Still I recognised the piano in the living room and I really wanted to play. But first I followed my mother. "Oh hello, thank you for coming. I´m Sally and that´s Simon, my husband." Sally looked way more living and vivid than her husband. Her smile was sincere. Next to the two there stood a boy, maybe about my age. He was tall, thin, his face was lightly rounded but had some strict features, his brown eyes stupidly watching at my mother and his hair looked like he just got out of bed. I could understand him. I was tired as hell, too. The smile on his lips was weak and definitely fake. He looked like loneliness in person. "That´s Taiyo, our adoptive son." "Hello Taiyo." Definitely my mother, always friendly, with this fake polite smile in her face I hated the most.
"Hi." And that was typically boy, short and bare, just cool. "That´s my daughter, Rylie. I hoped your daughter could show her a little bit of the town." I heard steps from the floor. "Of course, I´d love to." Sky? Why was she…Oh no. She really seemed to be Taiyos adoptive sister. "Come along." She smiled and I followed her back to the wardrobe. "What do you want to see first?" she asked. I hesitated. I really didn´t want to do that. Sky seemed to see that. "Let´s just get up into my room and I´ll tell you a bit about everything. Come on." Sky´s room was beautiful. Turquoise walls, a little bit chaos, but not too much, way better than all rooms I ever had had. It really looked comfortable. Especially the bed - it looked so warm...I decided not to sit on it or I´d probably fall asleep. So only Sky sat on the bed and I sat on a chair. Not comfortable at all. "You look better" she said. I just nodded. Then I looked at her more detailed. She was friendly, but there was something she was worried about, too. The dark circles around her eyes were bigger than the last time, so she had to be as tired as I was. Her blue eyes seemed cloudy. I didn´t have the courage to say something. We weren´t friends. I wasn´t in the position to critisize something. She wouldn´t tell me something either. She didn´t have to since my mother wasn´t here to drink some cup of tea, but to help Sky´s brother. "Again...thank you." I said just to say...something. "Don´t mind." Sky smiled again. I involuntary asked myself how long she wanted to keep this faked smile. "My mother really is great in her job, you don´t need to worry so much about Taiyo." I finally told her. "Thanks." She changed the topic. We talked about the school, the city and everything that could help me getting along here. I was bored, I didn´t plan to integrate much here. The conversation was exhausting, but for my mother and because it was polite I listened to her and really tried my best. She could say a lot, but still told me this was the short version. I couldn´t believe her. This town really was too small to tell so much about it. But as I thought she´d just made things up now, she started talking about the Benedicts. Just as she started to explain the relationships between the family members in detail, I heard my mother come close to her room. I always recognised her steps. For me it mostly sounded hectic, aggressive, loud. Like a warning. "So...are the things here very expensive?" I asked as I heard her closing in. Sky looked at me surprised. "N-No...?" She knocked. Thank god. My mother came in. "Rylie, we´re leaving. Thank you Sky for helping her. You´ll see each other again on Monday in school. Goodbye." I got up. "Bye." I said and then turned around to follow my mother. During our way home we both stayed silent for a while.
"You got along well?" My mother finally asked. "Yeah, we talked a lot." I answered and put up a smile. "I´m glad. Now you have someone to talk to in school." "Yeah..." I didn´t mention I wasn´t in search for someone to talk to. "And she helped you, did she?" "Yeah, she was a great help." "That´s good." Silence again, which I used to play some game on my mobile phone. I nearly had enough coins to buy the avatar I desperately wanted. "How´s it been?" my father asked immediately after we got in. "It was fun and Sky really helped me out." I told him. "That´s nice!" I got out of my shoes, put them away, got out of my jacket and went into my room again. "Dinner´s at five pm!" my mother shouted after me just to go outside to smoke. I really hated to see her smoke, but I had stopped some years ago begging her not to do it. The rest of the day I spent on my computer or with a book, but mostly I learned for school. I also wanted to get some sleep, but I just couldn´t . Lunch wasn´t my favourite, but my dad´s so he didn´t grumble again. I wasn´t that enthusiastic about having to eat spaghetti bolognese the fifth time in two weeks. So I just ate until I didn´t want to anymore and then waited for my parents to finish. Maybe I really should try to learn how to cook, even against my mother´s will.
A/N:
Hello, it´s me again! I´m so amazed by all the views and reviews I got by now, that´s so crazy guys! I´d never expected so much feedback, thank you!
Well, it takes me hours to translate even one chapter and since it´s really exhausting I double-check every chapter before I publish it here. Still, sometimes mistakes just slip through my control, so if you find anything, please tell me! What do you think, are the paragraphs okay like this, do you wish some more or some less? I always have problems reading on electronic devices so I don´t know how you think about it and if you need the paragraphs or not.
I´ll try to upload chapters regularily, I don´t have much to do at the moment, but my story isn´t near to be finished yet, so I just translate while working at the original and well... I only have one brain and two hands...so I can´t do both at the same time. Additionally, I overworked the first chapter like five? times by now. Therefore I hope to be able to give you high-quality chapters that really are worth to be read and reviewed.
Concerning the questions in the comments... you´ll have to read on and see ;)
Have a nice week!