La de da da: Thank you very much for your review. But if you'd like to tell me what's so stupid and disgusting about the story instead of just saying "this is stupid and disgusting!" It would be easier for me to know what you mean and change the things.
So… there is an author's note I'm leaving on each and every one of my stories. You may think it's nothing but self- pitying and seeking for attention and feel very free to think so. But here it is for this story.
When I'm looking back, now or later on the six months from the end of the summer 2013 and forward I'm not going to be able to say that time was easy. Neither am I going to be able to say that it was all a good time because it simply wasn't. Things were harsh and as soon as I had just a little bit of control over things something new happened and knocked me right over to the bottom- again.
But the thing was, even when things were at their very hardest I knew that there was always somewhere where people would appreciate what I did even when I wasn't at my best. Somewhere where I would always be enough even if it wasn't always good. And that has really meant a lot to me in the last months.
That somewhere is fancition, ffn has meant a lot to me when I have tried to work my way up to feel better again. But that wouldn't have been possible without each and every one of my readers. So to you, yeah, you who are reading this, thank you. There is no way I would have done it and gotten through things without you.
I laid on my bed staring up in the ceiling later that afternoon. The others were still pretty knocked out after the palt and there wasn't much to do. I had been trying to continue reading and listening to music, but I just couldn't concentrate on anything. I had asked Tracy to come up with a Tracy- plan for how I was going to get to talk to Jess but after the palt even Tracy Beaker was too tired and knocked out to think clearly.
Me- well I had eaten palt a million times and was kind of used to the palt- coma, I felt it but was too used to it t even care about it. I was bored, I had tried to read, to do homework- even maths whch would usually take my mind of stuff, listening to music but I couldn't concentrate.
I had been meaning to continue watching the DVD:s I had gotten from Leon the day I found the stolen stuff under Jess's bed, but with everything that started going on right then I had forgotten to do so. The DVD I had found under Jess's bed still laid on my bedside table, it hadn't even crossed my mind for so long that I should continue watching them with everything that had happened.
I thought for a moment, then stood up, grabbed the DVD and walked downstairs, I put the DVD in the player and then plugged my headphones in the TV not to wake Tyler and Rick up because they were still sleeping in each sofa. Then I turned the DVD on.
The first clip showing was me sitting by the piano, there was no one else on the screen and then the picture changed but the melody I had been playing on the clip before continued. The next was by the graves. We had decided to give them each gravestone so anyone who just knew mum, dad or Jonas could just visit the one they knew, but they were only a couple of meters from each other so it was possible to visit them all at once anyway.
On the screen I knew I had just visited mum's and then dad's grade, now I was visiting Jonas and I had brought a stuffed frog I had bought at some supermarket. Jonas had loved frogs, so I had bought it and put it by his grave, then buried it in the mud where he laid, that would make it feel like I had given it to him. Made it feel like it wasn't too late.
The screen flickered again and showed a clip from the funeral, we had one funeral for the three of them together. Not even Leon would filmt that but after the funeral we had been sent these clips from a man we barely knew. Obviously he had filmed me getting up to the coffins, placing a flower at each and then going to sit down at a bench far forward in the church.
My good mood from earlier was since earlier gone. But now it disappeared fully, looking at the DVD with only me, it made me feel so alone. A couple of times the clip from me by the piano continued on the screen. I knew it was a song I had created for mum, dad and Jonas after the crash. I had memorized it, then wrote it up and then let Leon film it, and we had called it "family."
Because the song was about family and everything there is, trust, pain, in my case- lost, and love- love that is so strong you'll never really lose it. That was what the song was about and that was why we had called the song family. It may not have been any text of the story but yet it was about all of those things. In the hidden messages that laid in each note, in each chord and in each rhythm it was about family.
At last I saw the very end of the clip with me playing "family" I hit the last few notes and pulled my papers together. In real life I stayed on the floor while the screen flickered and went all black. Then I just sat there for several minutes, and because I still had the headphones in my ear I didn't hear Mike come up to me, that's why I didn't notice him until he had kneeled down by me and put his hand on my shoulder.
I looked up at him, once again with warm, salt tears rolling down my cheeks. Mike sat down on the floor by me and pulled up a tissue over his pocket. I took it, but instead of using it I just sat there and fingered with it.
"Emma…" Mike began but I held up my hand to silent him. I didn't want him to speak, not right now. I pulled out my headphones of my ears and then we just sat there during silence through several minutes. I reached down and tied my shoelaces, more too have something to do than anything else. I just needed to keep my fingers occupied with doing something.
"It was the DVD I found under Jess's bed." I said at last, my voice almost breaking. "I've forgotten to watch it until now…. Now I kind of wish I hadn't, that I had watched it when you and the others were here." I shoved my hands in my pockets. "The DVD was the one with only me, me alone." I continued more to have something to say than to add something to what I was saying. Then I looked to the dark TV- screen again. Sighed and dried away a few tears with the sleeve of my hoodie.
"I feel so lonely Mike." I said at last, my voice breaking again. "I know all of you are here and uncle Leon and everybody. But… ehrm…. I loved my family so much, and then… then they were gone and without them I just feel so…"
"I know." Mike interrupted. "And you know what? It's perfectly normal to feel that way. Actually I'd be more worried if you didn't than I am now when you're telling me you are. But you know a great thing?" I shook my head. "When you do feel lonely. There's usually loads of people there to prove to you you're not. And do you know another great thing?" I shook my head again, I didn't want to speak as I thought my voice would break again. "When you do love someone, they never really leave you. They stay right here forever." He held his palm to his chest, I just raised an eyebrow to him, grabbed his hand and moved it.
"The heart is on that side of the chest." I moved it to the left part of his chest. Mike looked a bit confused and then smiled at his own confusion. He lifted his left hand and held it out. I lifted my right and placed my small hand in his bigger hand. Mike wrapped his fingers around mine and squeezed my hand slightly.
"How do you say it will be alright in Swedish?" Mike asked and looked at me from the side, I though for a moment than translated it to him.
"Det kommer bli bra." I answered, Mike let go of my hand, I had to say the sentence a few times word by word before it got stuck in Mike's head and then he took a deep breath and told me.
"Well Emilia Peterson, det kommer bli bra." I laughed slightly at his accent and then taught him to say it with a few different accents, they all sounded Irish and British but with- among other things jaring at the R:s he sounded one South Swedish, one from Gothenburg and one Finland- Swedish.
When Mike had left I looked to Tyler and Rick sleeping in each sofa. Then I stood up, took my DVD and walked upstairs again, on the way there I passed Jody and Harry still sleeping in the sofa, on the way upstairs I looked into the quiet room where Tracy was sleeping in the couch, then Carmen's room and what had earlier been Jess's room where Gina was sleeping, maybe I should try making palt more times if it knocked everybody out like this. The only one who wasn't sleeping was Gus, who despite all the palt- coma had to go by his schedule.
I walked into my room, threw the DVD in the pile on the desk and then laid down in my bed and looked up into the ceiling. Maybe- well, it might be that I had lost all my biological closest family, but Mike was right, actually I would never really have lost them. They would be with me all the time. Just, deep down in my heart.
Then maybe I had earned a new family, maybe a bit dysfunctional with all of the different personalities in it. Maybe a bit unusual because there were loads of people that wouldn't call it a family, but maybe a bit weird with people coming and going yet never really leaving. Maybe a bit bigger than most families, but with a big family comes loads and loads of love.
I was in a good mood again that night, later we all sat around the kitchen table and ended the Sunday with what we usually did every weekend, sandwiches, hot chocolate, cream and marshmallows. And I was happier than I had been in quite some time. I was even in a good mood in the next morning and forenoon.
But the thing with life is, just when you think you're doing well, it comes right back and stabs you in the back, remind you of the fact that nothing should be easy- that nothing is supposed to be good. And I was reminded of that on the English lesson on Monday afternoon.
"So." Mr. Anderson said. "It's time for you to write your first essay for this year. And I want you all to write something about what family is for you. You can write it in any way you want, like poem, story or whatever. If you want you're going to read it up in front of the class the last day before mid term holidays and that is the tweny sixth, today is the eigth so you have some time."
The assignment hit me like a punch in the stomach, though maybe I thought. Maybe I could turn it around and actually write something good. Write something out of what, what I was thinking about yesterday, so I sat the rest of the lesson trying to make up a plan.
After the lesson I stayed a bit after the others to look for something in my bag, and I didn't notice Tara was still there- without her gang this time, but it was just us two, and I should have guessed she was going to say something to me about this.
"Ey Peterson." I looked up to see her. "What are you going to write? How family for you is… let's see… death? Rubbish? Because you never told me why you were in care… Maybe your parents were rubbish then… are you going to write how they left you all alone in the great big world." I don't know what made me so angry with what Tara was saying.
But I was angry- Oh I was so angry, blinded by anger I grabbed the first thing I knew- it just happened to be a chair and lifted it over my head. I threw it towards the girl in front of me but she jumped away and the chair hit the classroom window with a crash.
The crash woke me up. Oh God! What had I just been doing? Had I just wanted to hurt someone- did I wish someone harm. Did I just… The thoughts and questions were spinning in my head as people came running, and the first one to really see it was the headmaster Mr. Samuel.
"It was her." I heard Tara shout and she pointed to me. "She almost threw that chair at me. I didn't do nothing." I knew Tara was right, I had thrown that chair, I had wanted to do harm, I had done something no one should. But she was also lying- because she was doing something much, much worse.