Once again Jude went to the docks to clear her head, and once she returned near dusk, but unlike last night the house was empty, or she presumed so as all the lights were off. She would have a pink fit if Yvette decided to have a surprise bonding session. Sorting through the mail she had just collected from the letterbox she saw that it was the usual assortment of bills and junk mail, all hastily stuffed into a tiny mail slot… or was it?
As Jude sorted through the mail she noticed a shiny, coloured card, and was about to throw it in the bin, along with the rest of the junk mail when something caught her eye. In the middle of the images of buildings, places and people having fun was a single word… Europe.
With shaking fingers Jude turned over the postcard to see a short, hastily scribbled message.
Coming home for Christmas on the 23rd, 2pm
Mum and Don
So this must be the horrible thing she had been expecting, and yes she had been waiting for something like this to come, but not so soon. She didn't need this right now. But her mum was always going to come back; she made it clear to Jude in her letter that she wasn't going to abandon neither Sadie nor her. But she had deserted her when she needed her most, and had ultimately already abandoned her.
Jude didn't know how to tell Sadie, or her dad for that matter. She really needed to talk to someone, someone she could trust, someone like… Tommy. Jude felt a twang of sadness as she realised he also had abandoned her.
She could call Mason, but his tour was coming to an end, and Jude knew from experience that the end of the tour was one of the most hectic times, and she didn't want him to have to worry about another one of her problems. She had already dumped too many of them on him, the running to him at the start of his tour was only the beginning of the times she had called him in the middle of the night unable to sleep to talk.
Jude didn't know what to do. She was lost, broken and confused. Then she realised the one thing that always made her feel better, one thing she had been neglecting lately…. Her guitar.
Jude went up to her room, locked the door, picked up her guitar and grabbed a handful of strings, which instantly brought back memories of when she first got her guitar when she was 10 and not knowing how to play, just sitting there strumming all the strings at once. Somehow without knowing she started playing 24 hours. No matter how much she had grown as a person she was suddenly plunged back onto the rollercoaster, and was strapped in with no escape until it was all over. But the only thing that scared her now was the third thing, as they say bad luck comes in three's.
All of those things were slowly forgotten, and Jude felt for the first time in a couple of weeks that she had somewhere she belonged