Chapter 4
It was a Friday after school and Rachel had just gone to pick the girls up from their primary school, while Jess was waiting in the car. Olivia came out quickly and went straight over to Rachel
"Hey love how was school?" Rachel asked
"It was okay, a bit boring though we had to do 2 hours of maths" Olivia said causing Rachel to laugh
"Oh dear, I know maths isn't your favourite, it wasn't mine either when I was at school"
"I just don't get any of it, it's so boring"
"Well unfortunately my love you'll be doing it for quite a few more years so I'm afraid it's just something you've got to get on with"
They waited a bit longer but when Chloe still hadn't come out Rachel told Olivia to go and wait in the car so she could go and check everything was alright with Chloe
Just as she was about to go over to the classroom she saw Chloe's teacher walking towards her so smiled at her politely
"Hello I've just come to get Chloe is everything okay with her?" Rachel asked
"Well actually that's why I wanted to catch up, I'm afraid Chloe's got herself into quite a bit of trouble, she's not been concentrating on her work at all and kept distracting everyone else and at break she got into a fight with another girl and ended up punching her so she's spent the afternoon in a different classroom but apparently she hasn't been much better there"
Rachel was shocked to hear all this as it really didn't sound much like Chloe, normally she was so well behaved
"Well I'm really sorry about all that, I'll make sure both me and her Dad talk about it with her, let her know it's completely unacceptable"
"Thank you, it is quite unlike her but obviously I still had to tell her off, I was really surprised though she's normally the star of my class"
"Well me and her Dad will talk to her and again I really am sorry, I'll make sure you get an apology from her on Monday"
"Thanks Rachel, would it be okay if I give you a letter for Joe to sign, it's just procedure really when we've had to move one of the kids to another classroom"
"Yes of course"
"It's just in the classroom; I completely forgot to bring it out earlier which was a bit silly of me"
The two women walked over to the classroom, Rachel glanced over and saw Chloe sat at the table biting her finger nails, something she always did when she was feeling nervous.
Rachel picked the letter up and then walked over to Chloe
"It sounds like you've got a lot of explaining to do young lady" Rachel said sounding stern
She never really disciplined the girls, as she didn't really see it as being her place and usually left it to Joe but she knew that she couldn't really leave this till Joe came home
"Get your stuff we'll talk back at home"
Chloe slowly started to pack her stuff away as Rachel walked over to the door.
A few moments later she turned round and saw that Chloe was still sat down
"Chloe I'm waiting"
When Chloe was ready they walked out together
"I'm really disappointed in you Chloe, I thought you knew better than to act like that"
Chloe didn't say anything in response just stared down at the ground
"Well I'll be speaking to your Dad when he gets home and I don't think he's going to be too happy about any of this is he?"
"No you can't tell him" Chloe said suddenly sounding scared
"Chloe if you've got into trouble then of course I'll be having words with your Dad, he has a right to know about these sorts of things" Rachel said
"But…"
"I hope you're not going to try and argue with me Chloe. You can go to your room when you get home too for and do a time out for 10 minutes"
"Rachel please don't tell him, I'll do a time out for the whole night and all of tomorrow but please don't tell Daddy" Chloe sobbed
"Chloe I'm talking to your Dad and that's final okay"
"Will you be there when he talks to me?"
"I don't know that's up to him, he might want to speak to you by yourself"
This seemed to get Chloe really scared and she was silent all the way back to the car as tears fell down her cheek
When they got to the car Rachel made sure Chloe was belted up before getting in the car and driving off
Despite what had happened Rachel couldn't help but feel worried about Chloe as she did look really frightened.
"Rachel I'm going out for a bit when we get home" Jess said
"Out where jess?" Rachel asked
"Just out"
"Not good enough I'll need to know where you're going I'm afraid"
"Jesus Rachel I'm 15 years old, I'm just going out okay"
"Mind your tone with me young lady and no it's not okay I need to know where you're going in case something happens"
"fine I'm going to a friend's house for a bit"
"Well why didn't you say that when I first asked you?" Rachel asked sounding a bit suspicious as she wasn't buying this
"I don't know, but can I go?"
Rachel sighed but realised she couldn't exactly stop Jess from going round to her friend's house
"Yeah fine but I need you back by 7ish for tea okay?"
"Yeah that's okay"
As soon as they got home Chloe ran upstairs to her bedroom before Rachel could say anything to her and Jess went upstairs to get changed
A few minutes later Jess came back down, she quickly said goodbye to Rachel before rushing out of the house
To Rachel's surprise about 5 minutes later Joe's car swerved onto the drive, even though he wasn't due in till later
He came in and went through to the kitchen
"Hiya love what are you doing home so early?" Rachel asked
"We were quiet and they owe me some time because of the hours I did last week" Joe explained
"Oh well it's nice to have you home so early" Rachel said smiling "Actually I need a word about Chloe, should we go and sit in the back room"
The two of them sat down on the sofa and Rachel explained everything that had gone on today, but she tried not to make it sound too bad as she knew how upset Chloe was about it
"Wait till I get my hands on her the little.." Joe said sounding really quite threatening
"Oh come on Joe, she's only a little kid and she seems really upset about it don't be too hard on her yeah?"
"Don't tell me how to deal with my daughter" Joe shouted
Rachel was taken aback by his tone, and almost felt a little scared of him
"Don't raise your voice at me Joe not in my house, and the last thing Chloe needs is someone shouting at her, so if that's all you're going to do to her then I'll deal with this"
"No you bloody won't, I'll go up and see her now"
Joe stormed upstairs leaving Rachel feeling really quite worried as she'd never seen him flip like that before.
A few minutes later Rachel heard joe screaming really loudly at Chloe so raced upstairs and barged into her room
For a second Rachel thought it looked as though Joe was about to hit Chloe but then she presumed she'd just imagined it
Joe stormed past her and a few minutes later she heard the front door slam
Rachel rushed over to Chloe and put her arm round her feeling really sorry for the little girl, even though she had been a bit naughty today she knew that the way Joe had treated her was completely unacceptable
"Chloe I'm sorry Daddy shouted at you like that, it was completely wrong of him and I'll make sure he apologies to you later for it"
Chloe put her head against Rachel's chest and relaxed into her properly so Rachel could give her a proper cuddle
"Does Daddy often get angry at you? Maybe when I'm not around hmm"
Chloe didn't say anything in response just continued to cuddle into Rachel
"Chloe you can tell me anything, you don't need to be frightened of me sweetheart"
It was obvious though that Chloe didn't want to talk about it so Rachel didn't want to force her, she was starting to get very worried though about what was going on as she'd seen a side to her husband tonight that she hadn't before and she didn't much like
"Am I still in trouble with you about today?" Chloe asked sounding scared
"Well I won't pretend I'm happy about it Chloe, I think that you and I both know that sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable, but I'm sure that between your teacher, me and your Dad you've been punished enough for today so I won't say anything else about it for now okay?"
"Thanks Rachel" Chloe said
"Okay love, are you feeling a little bit calmer now huh?"
"Yeah I feel okay now"
"Good stuff, now do you want to come and help me with a bit of baking"
Rachel hadn't been planning on doing any baking tonight but she figured that Chloe could probably do with doing something nice to take her mind off today a little bit
"Yeah that'll be nice"
"Okay well I'll go and see if Olivia wants to help too" Rachel said gently pushing Chloe off her knee so she could get up
"Rachel can I go to the toilet before we do the baking?"
"Well I think that's just about allowed" Rachel said laughing, but she was a bit worried about Chloe she did seem very shaken up after what had happened with her dad
Rachel went across to Olivia's room and opened the door
When Rachel came in she noticed that Olivia closed her laptop immediately which made Rachel wonder what it was she was looking at
"Why did you close your laptop as soon as I came in love?"
"I didn't"
"Yes you did, what were you looking at huh?"
"Nothing" Olivia said beginning to blush
"I'll only open it and check your search history, so I think you better tell me what it was you were looking at don't you?"
Olivia sighed but realised she couldn't really get out of this one so decided to tell Rachel
"one of my friends started her periods yesterday, and I thought that we wouldn't start till we were much older so I started to get worried that I might start soon, so I just wanted to look at what the signs were and it says that normally the best way to get an idea about when you'll start is to ask your mum when she got her first because normally it's about the same time, but I never asked my mum so I won't have any idea"
Rachel sighed realising she should probably have a little chat with Olivia about this, after all even though she wasn't Olivia's mum she was the closest thing she had to a motherly figure and it was going to be down to her to have these types of conversations with her
Rachel went over and sat down next to Olivia on the bed
"Darling if you were worried why didn't you come and have a little talk with me about it huh?"
"Because I didn't want it to be embarrassing"
"It doesn't have to be embarrassing love, look I know I'm not your Mum but I have been through all this stuff myself and I need you to be able to come and talk to me about this sort of stuff, I know that it can be a bit uncomfortable but it's so important you have someone to talk to my love"
"I'm just scared it'll happen all of a sudden and I won't know what to do, especially since I've got no idea when I'll start because I didn't know when mum started"
"Oh love asking you're mum when she started her periods is just one of the things you can do, there are lots of other signs too, you'll normally start to get a bit of a figure before you start and you'll be getting mood swings quite often"
"I have been quite moody, and then I feel really bad about being moody because I know how much it annoys everyone but then I get upset and that just makes it worse" Olivia said tears filling her eyes
"oh love come and have a cuddle"
Rachel put her arm round her and brought her into a cuddle
"Don't worry about getting moody, we all understand at the age you're at its hard, your hormones are all over the place because you're starting to grow up and you've got lots of other pressures too, what with preparing for your end of school exams and then you've got to worry about moving to a new school and everything. But do you know what? You're going to get through it all okay in the end I promise you"
"Really"
"Yeah really"
"Rachel can I ask you something?"
"Of course you can my love"
"How old were you when you started your periods?"
"Oh erm I think I was about 11"
"Did you tell your mum?"
"No we weren't really that close like that" Rachel said smiling slightly "But it made it a lot harder for me, not having anyone to talk to when it's such a big thing to happen to you"
"I'll tell you"
"well make sure you do, I want to be able to help you sweetheart" Rachel said "and if you have any other questions make sure you come and ask me, it's a lot better than looking things uo on the internet you'll find all sorts of crap on their that'll probably have you twice as confused as you were before"
"I'll come and ask you I promise" Olivia said smiling
"Good girl, now the reason I came in was to ask if you fancied doing a little bit of baking with me and Chloe, she's had a bit of a rubbish day at school today so I thought she could probably do with cheering up"
"Yeah that'll be really nice, I'll just get changed out my school stuff"
They had a nice evening together and Joe came back later in a considerably calmer mood but Rachel still didn't feel completely relaxed around him after what had happened earlier.
However as time went by Rachel began to get more and more worried about Jess as she'd said to be back by 7 but there was still no sign of her by 8
Rachel had tried ringing her a few times but Jess wasn't picking up
By the time it got to 8;30 Rachel was getting really worried as well as being really quite angry at Jess so she decided to go and have a look round for her in the car
While Rachel was driving she remembered how reluctant Jess had been to say where she was going tonight and this made Rachel feel even more worried
She searched round all the areas she thought she might be but couldn't find her anywhere
She had rang her about 10 times and there still wasn't an answer
Rachel was about to call home to see if Jess had turned up back there yet when suddenly her phone started ringing when Rachel looked she saw it was Jess's friend Katie, Rachel had given her her number once when she'd taken her and Jess to a concert so she could ring her in case they got split up
"Hey Katie" she said "Is everything okay are you with Jess?"
"Rachel somethings happened and we really need you" Katie said through tears
"Okay what's happened? I'll be there as soon as I possibly can"
"It's Jess she's been attacked, we're at the park" Katie sobbed
"What?" Rachel said in disbelief "Is she okay, do I need to call an ambulance"
"No I don't think so she's bleeding though"
Rachel stayed on the phone for a bit and then went towards the park as quickly as she possibly could
It took her a while to spot Jess and Katie and when she did panic flooded through her when she saw Jess sat on the wet ground, her lip bleeding as tears ran down her face
Rachel ran out of her car towards her
"Jess what happened?" she whispered
"we were meeting up with some guys and they started trying it on so we pushed them off but then they said they wouldn't go till we gave them our phones, I was scared so I handed mine over but Jess tried to stop them taking hers so they punched her till she gave them it" Katie explained
"Oh my god, Jess talk to me are you okay"
"Yeah" Jess cried
"It's alright love let's get you home and in the bath, it's going to be okay you're nice and safe now"
Rachel helped Jess to her feet and got her in the car
"Katie let me give you a lift home"
Jess stayed silent the whole way back even when they'd dropped Katie off
Rachel tried asking her some questions but she wouldn't reply so in the end Rachel just let her have some time to herself before helping her inside the house and up to her room
She explained to Joe what had happened but said Jess wouldn't want lots of people round her so she went back up to see her herself
When she went in Jess was crying again so she rushed over and pulled her into her chest
"shh it's okay you're safe now" she soothed
"I'm scared Rachel"
"I know but it's over now it's all okay"
Rachel tried to comfort her but nothing was working so in the end she helped her get changed into her pyjamas so she could get into bed, but Rachel was incredibly worried about her.
The next chapter will continue from this one, I was going to write more but I'm really tired and I've had a busy weekend so I could only write this tonight but wanted to update before tomorrow. Please review xxxxxxxx