What's up? (Insert readers response in an R-Truth fashion).
Yeah, well when I called this chapter 'Home Truths', all I could think of was R-Truth.
So now this chapter is tainted with conspiricies and all tha jazz.
Yadda yadda yadda, enough of my rambling, ENJOY! (Little Jimmys...)


HOME TRUTHS

Dr Knowles was a tall woman that looked to be in her mid-late-thirties. She wore a black trouser suit with a white shirt and had cropped brown hair. Her face was serious but not unfriendly and she spoke with a hint of Boston in her voice.

Her office wasn't how Mickie expected it to be. She imagined a dark room with lots of bookcases and a chaise longue for her to lie on and dramatically weep over all her problems. Instead, she was greeted by a medium-sized, light and airy room. There was a desk in the corner and in the middle, a coffee table with two couches either side of it; one for Dr Knowles to sit on and the other for her patient.

"Your step-mother tells me you were reluctant to attend these sessions." Dr Knowles told her from the other side of the table. "You have every right to be and I'm not going to make you say anything you don't want to, although I've been doing this for nine years and in my experience, it's the people most willing to open up that gain the most."

"How much do you already know?" Mickie asked.

"Only a little bit. I'd rather hear your side of the story, not your step-mothers."

"I was driving home from school," she began, "and Maria – my step-sister – was with me. We always travel to and from school together; I drive and she sat in the passenger seat because quite honestly, her driving sucks. The whole thing happened really quickly; one minute we're talking like nothing's wrong and the next, this car's flying at us. Maria leaned over to the wheel and swerved but she turned the car so she got the full force of when the Land Rover hit us. Certain details are blurry but others are so clear."

"Like what?"

"The accident knocked me out – I hit my head – and when I woke up, Maria was lying there, before they took her away. She had this big cut on her forehead but what really scared me was how wide open her eyes were – as if she were still watching us."

"Is that what you've been dreaming about, Mickie?"

She was caught off-guard by the question but answered. "Kinda. In my dreams, I'm lying next to her. She's dead and I'm still alive but the paramedics don't realise I'm still there. They try and put me in the body bag next to her and I'm screaming, begging them for help, but they can't hear me." She paused and saw Dr Knowles scribbling into a notepad. "Am I always going to feel this way?"

The therapist's head flicked up and she offered Mickie a gentle smile. "Not if you let me help you."

With a polite nod, she asked "Do you mind if I go to the bathroom quickly?" After receiving a nod not dissimilar to her own, she exited the room and went down the corridor towards the nearest toilet. It wasn't that she needed to pee, more than she needed a break before things got too intense.

Just a couple of months ago, she'd been a normal teenage girl with little more to worry about than school, her friends and the usual worries that crossed the mind of girls her age. Now all of that was pushed to the back of her mind because she felt in a constant cycle of unhappiness that she just wanted to be over. Was that really so much to ask?

She splashed her un-made up face with cold water and blinked a few times as she looked up at herself in the mirror. She didn't want to be here; she didn't want to be this girl and that's why she went back into Dr Knowles' office, deciding to conquer her demons before it was too late.


Despite her being relatively athletic, Layla had never been keen on gym class. Or P.E as it was called back in England. There were the athletic girls that ran track or were on the swim team, or played on the volleyball or lacrosse or hockey teams, girls like Beth, Nattie, Gail and Tamina. Then there were the cheerleaders that got out of gym because apparently cheerleading constituted as a sport.

No-one else was particularly interested in gym and the teacher Ms Boyce knew that, as she made the girls do two laps around the track. Layla decided to stick in amongst the crush of girls, moving steadily around the track, but as she did, she found her eyes flicking up to the bleachers where she noticed Adam sat. As subtly as possible, she found herself creeping away from the pack and over to John's best friend.

"Don't you have a class to be at?" She asked, standing in front of him.

"Math can wait when there are girls in the shortest shorts I've ever seen. That is a fantastic pair of pins you've got there, Miss El." He eyed her up and down, a smile on his face.

She shook her head at him, taking a seat next to him on the bleachers. "I wanted to ask you about John. Since Eve's party, he's been avoiding me – I just need to talk to him, I need to see what's going on."

"If you're looking for him today, he's not around, he's helping out at some sport programme at the local elementary school so he'll be there all day." Adam leaned forward, his elbows rested against his knees. "I know something was about to happen between you two and the timing of the Maria/Matt thing isn't ideal but John's in shock. He's confused – one minute he's mourning his dead girlfriend, the next it turns out she isn't the angel he thought she was."

"Is this what he's told you?"

"He's my best friend, he doesn't need to tell me anything. John's one of those guys who has a face that tells you the whole story."

"I don't know whether I'm supposed to give him his space or whether I should be there to comfort him–"

"Layla El, I don't believe I have you permission to be sat on the bleachers flirting with Mr Copeland." Ms Boyce walked up to the pair, scanning her eyes over them disapprovingly. Although she hadn't been at the school for long, Layla already decided Boyce was already her least favourite teacher. "Why aren't you on the track with the rest of the girls?"

"I…I was–"

"She has a headache and was asking if I had any aspirin on me." Adam lied seamlessly. "Unfortunately, I don't."

"I have something in the locker room, come with me. And Adam, don't you have a class you should be in?"

The gym teacher led Layla back inside but as they entered the girls locker room, there was another student in there. Layla recognised her from a couple of her classes; she was tall, slim, blonde and attractive. She looked like the stereotypical popular type but Layla never saw her at lunch with the cheerleaders or Eve's group of friends.

"Michelle McCool, you're late." Ms Boyce stood with her hands on her hips, disapprovingly eying the blonde up and down. "Again."

"Sorry." She shrugged, pulling her gym shorts, t-shirt and sneakers out of her school bag.

"No excuse? Well, you can make it up to me after school. How does six laps around the track sound?"

"But Ms Boyce–"

"Come on, Michelle, that's a walk in the park for you." The teacher found two aspirin in the cupboard for Layla to take, thrusting them into her hand. "See you girls out on the track."

As soon as she was gone, Michelle let out a frustrated sigh, pulling off her jeans and slipping into the shorts. "I hate that woman. Seriously, I hate her. I dropped out of the track team after sophomore year so I could focus on my schoolwork and she hasn't forgiven me for it. She can't exactly blame me for putting my studies before running but apparently losing her star sprinter was a tough blow."

Unsure of what to say, Layla hoped the look she was given her showed sympathy.

Michelle turned around and smiled. "You're the new girl from England, aren't you? I always thought you seemed nice." She commented, the last of the gym kit on her slender frame. "Let's go, we'd better get out there before Boyce decides to make it ten laps."


"You're all much quieter than usual."

The stony silence of the dinner table hadn't gone unnoticed by Elizabeth Hardy, who looked at each of the men around her in turn. Her husband wasn't usually the chatty type and her sons' usual teenage grunts were positively mute. Matt stared at his plate of pasta, as if willing it to clear itself, whereas Jeff wolfed down the whole lot in record time, barely stopping to breathe. Nobody responded to her comment, not even glancing over at her.

"Nice to know I'm noticed around here." Sighing, she filled up her glass of water from the jug on the table before turning to her youngest son. "Jeff, how was your day?"

"It was okay," he replied. "They've chosen twenty students from Fitzwinter to display their artwork at the gallery downtown and I'm one of them."

"That's fantastic news. We'll all have to take a trip down there to have a look at it when it's up, won't we?"

"Yeah, well done Jeff. Good work." Matt commented sarcastically under his breath, pushing the pasta around his plate.

Elizabeth heard his comment but ignored the sarcastic tone and carried on. "So what was the painting of? Is it one we've seen?"

"No, I actually only came up with it a couple of weeks ago…after Maria died. It's of her, actually." Jeff admitted quietly, this time not looking up at anyone else around the table.

Matt slammed down his cutlery. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Matthew Moore Hardy, don't you dare use that language at the dinner table." His mother scolded him and turned back to the younger Hardy. "That's really wonderful, Jeff. I'm sure it's great and I can't wait to see how it looks."

"This is a joke."

"What is your problem this evening? In fact, you've developed quite an attitude over the past few weeks. Is there something you'd like to share with us? The thing that's making you so angry? Is it something to do with your friends? Football? Have you spoken to Eve about it?"

"Eve and I broke up."

With no idea any of this had happened, his mother was shocked. Her husband, not good in situations where emotions and sharing were concerned, finished his food and disappeared up to his study with a bottle of brandy from the liquor cabinet. Once he was gone, Elizabeth placed her cutlery down on her plate and leaned forward. "Matt, I had no idea. When did this happen? What went wrong?"

He didn't respond to his mother's question. Maybe it was out of shame for what happened or possibly embarrassment for revealing such intimate details to her but whatever it was, the words weren't going to come out of his mouth.

"You can sit there with a face like thunder for as long as you want but you know I'm friends with Eve's parents so if you don't tell me, I'm sure to find out from them."

There was still no response from Matt.

"Matt cheated on Eve and I made him tell her." Both heads turned to Jeff, sat at the end of the table. Noticing his brother's furious expression, he rolled his eyes. "It was going to come out eventually, you can't just run away from it."

"What a load of bullshit. You're an idiot, you know that right? First you make me ruin my relationship with Eve and now all my friends hate me, then you tell mom? Are you fucking stupid?"

"Are you stupid?" Elizabeth cut in, her eyes wide as she raised her voice at her son. "You cheated on Eve? That girl was good for you, Matt – a genuinely sweet, wonderful girl that cared about you. Clearly she was too good if I think about what you did to her. And after everything she's been through, she must be even more heartbroken."

Even Jeff decided that bringing up Maria wasn't appropriate.

"You know, I thought I'd brought you up well but apparently not. I think this is the most disappointed I've ever been in you."

"Oh really? So there's nothing I could say or do that could make you think any lower of me than you do right now?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, I might as well tell you that it was Maria I was seeing behind Eve's back then. But like you said, there's nothing I could do to make you think lower of me."

It was so difficult for Elizabeth to hear. How could her son, the boy she'd brought up right, do something so cold-hearted, so against everything she'd ever taught him? Growing up in a house male-dominated, she'd tried to teach him how to respect women. Had all that gone over his head? She looked over at Jeff, who was once again avoiding her gaze, and then back at Matt. Was this a result of her parenting or was Matt just a bad seed?

Whatever it was, she didn't want to talk to her son. "Go to your room." She hadn't said this to him since he was about ten but she didn't know what else to do. "Go!"

Matt didn't argue, storming up the stairs and slamming the door of his room so hard that the whole house seemed to shake. Neither Elizabeth nor Jeff seemed to react, still sat in their chairs with sombre faces.

"Well, these dishes aren't going to clear themselves away."

Jeff watched as his mother got to her feet and began gathering plates and disappearing in and out of the kitchen. As observant as ever, he looked over at the tear that had slipped out from the corner of her right eye. "You need a hand?" He asked.

She nodded and in silence, they tidied up the table, neither one mentioning a word about what had just happened.


Hope you liked the update :) Sorry about the long delay since the last chapter and thank you for all the feedback!
Please leave a review :) xx

NEXT TIME – Mickie finds out about Maria and John finally speaks to Layla.