I had this idea. It's a second try of a chapter for Hayley Sparks (her last name is on the Tracy Beaker wiki. I don't know if it's correct) in The Story Of Tracy Beaker.
I'm so sorry for not updating but I'm going through the worst writer's block ever. And it's not showing any sign of getting better. Another thing that happened and is taking up my time is that I started school and studying to a medical secretary. I really want this and everything but it does take a lot of time for homework and everything. So I can no longer spend all my time writing.
Hayley Sparks
Mona Sparks' parents were racists.
She wouldn't know exactly how long a person who was racist could go but she knew that if she'd ever had a boyfriend, or a kid that wasn't white and blonde like her child they would never speak to their daughter again.
So when Mona fell in love with Ty she knew from the start it was no good.
Well, as for starters his name wasn't Ty.
His name was Taiyong Chang…
xXxXxX
By a table in a café in Newcastle, England sat Mona Sparks, 18 year old and studied. She had been sitting here for hours ordering a cup of tea after the other so she could stay.
It wasn't the first time anyway. Knowing her parents wouldn't be happy until she had straight A's. She spent as every waken minute at different cafés. She'd do anything not to have to stay at home where one of her parents would constantly breathe her in the neck and want to question her so much she didn't even have time to learn the answers.
So did that one Chinese guy too though. But instead of getting away from his parents he was getting away from friends that liked to party and invite other friends.
The Chinese guy had seen this English girl before, as so to say stalked her. He wouldn't ever have admitted it but he would have liked to go there and talk to her.
Then there was that day when the chair and the table right next to the English girl was empty. And the Chinese guy glanced at it when he got his coffee and his piece of toast. He felt it- this was the day he was going to talk to that special English girl.
He only had the time to sit down and look up at the girl, whose books and paper sheets laid sprawled over the table and the chair right next to her.
When he sat down he had one of his legs stretched out…
If he had bent it the restt of the story might have been very different. Because as he sat down with his long legs stretched out there came a waiter named Oliver rushing on the labyrinth in between the tables.
The boy had just sat down, and neither he nor the waiter himself saw where he was headed.
"Whoa."
The waiter whose nametag read "Oliver" tripped, fell and the whole tray off coffees and cakes flew over the air. It fell, drinks spread over the floor, over himself, over the Chinese boy and the English girl- and over all of her paper sheets and books.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Both the girl and the boy flew onto their feet and both of them started picking up of the girl's paper sheets- save what could be saved!
While the waiter named Oliver rushed around them, apologizing and coming with tissues the Chinese boy too picked up two paper sheets of the girl's that were wet and had stuck together.
"Here. I can help." The boy carefully pulled two paper sheets off each other, "Ehm…"
Mona's first thought was to turn around and fizzle at him he didn't have to and he should go away. But as he looked away from the papers and at her their visions met. Something in the boy's brown eyes, pitch- black hair and soft, brown skin made her feel and tingly and giggly. And suddenly that Englsh girl was the first one to introduce herself.
"My name's Mona."
The thought that Mona had meant to go home by now had left her mind while she, in silence put her bag to the side.
"My name is Taiyong. But you can just call me Ty. Everyone else does anyway. Ehrm…." Ty hesitated. "Well… we're at a café so why don't I buy you a tea? Or a coffee? And then make sure not to spill it all over you and your… papers again?"
Mona's mind said no…
"Sure. I'd like that."
XxXxX
"What took you so long?"
Months after the incident where a waiter had stumbled right over Mona, she and Ty had since long known they couldn't let anyone else know about their relationship- that they were (literally) close and would do anything not for people to see them together.
Sitting at cafés speaking on the phone, turning up on places at different times. Or like now- meeting at a hotel, Mona turning up almost two hours before Ty and sitting on the only bed in the room waiting for him, wearing nothinng but a thin, rainbow- patterned poncho.
Ty, who came right from school smirked. He had come straight and both of them had known exactly what time he would come. Yet none of them could wait until they were both here, the door closed behind Ty as he dropped his bag right on the floor, rushed over to Mona who stood up and they- hard kissed each other as hard as any of them would be able to
"Hey." Ty let go and looked around. The locked door, the curtains in front of the window. He smiled and kissed Mona again. "We're alone."
"Seems like it."
Mona smiled and pulled off the thin poncho she'd been wearing. Ty smiled too, pulled off his jacket and T- shirt and left them on the floor as he went as they slowly came closer until their lips could meet each other's and they could hold on so hard as if their lives were depending on it.
Then they suddenly stopped, took a step back and paused for a few seconds.
Mona Sparks knew what she wanted next and so did Taiyong Chang. None of them knew how to do it…
"I love you." Mona moaned, almost whispering. "I want you."
Ty held a hand towards her neck, now he ran it down without dropping it from her skin, cupping her breast for a second before he continued down towards her hips.
With his hands down he unbuttoned his jeans. While their lips never let go of each other's he pulled his pants down and left them on the floor as he led Mona walking backwards until Mona fell backwards to the bed and he crawled up over her.
What happened that evening in that hotel room would interfere with what happened for the rest of their lives. But while they laid close none of them had a care for it.
Mona and Taiyong were young, they were in love. And they were alone in the whole world.
Where they laid skin to skin none of them had a care about what this would lead to next…
XxXxX
"We did it ONCE!"
Three weeks after they had been here the last time Mona and Ty were back in the hotel sat on the very bed that had started this and Mona was pacing back and forth. On the desk in the room laid several white sticks.
Both Ty and Mona must have known what they were showing but not one of them dared to take a look on them.
"We had sex once." Mona whimpered. "Some people have it like a hundred times without getting pregnant and we did it once… Oh Ty. What are we gonna do? If my parents and friends find out about this I'm dead meat."
Ty watched as his girlfriend suddenly froze. Her skin went green and she ran into the bathroom where she started heaving over the sink.
"Oh Ty."
He followed her, held her hair back while she vomited and stroke her back. Mona didn't have a chance for several minutes to look up and talk. And for the moment she could only heave and cry.
"It's okay Mona…" Ty tried when sobs took over from the heaving. Mona sat down on the toilet lid and Ty put the water to run down into the sink and kneeled on the floor taking Mona's hands as she cried. "It's going to be okay. We'll figure this out somehow. Come here."
Mona still wouldn't move from where she sat so Ty carefully lifted her up and carried her out of the bathroom and to the bed where all of this had started. Mona buried her face in Ty's shirt as she kept crying.
"What are we gonna do? I'll grow huge. I puke fifty times a day and my boobs are so tender I have to sleep on my back for them not to touch the mattress…"
Ty tenderly laid her on the clean, white sheets before he got a glass of water for Mona and went to sit down next to her.
"We should run away…" Mona put her head in her hands. "Not forever. We should just find somewhere to live for a year or so. By the end of that year we'll have figured something out. The baby will have been born and if that's what we're gonna do we can pretend like we never had a baby at all."
Ty stood up silently, then slowly walked over to the window. The summer night outside the evening was with clear skies and an evening sun shining its light upon the streets- but it still seemed way darker where he was.
He didn't want to pretend he wanted to do what Mona did. But seeing where she laid on the bed, crying and whimpering his heart went out to her.
"I have a friend in Inverness." He said slowly. "Maybe we could go there for a the next year or so…" He forced his voice not to shiver. "I'll go call him… but of course I'd have to tell him what's going on…"
"You won't tell anyone else though? Not your parents? Not anyone?" Ty sighed. "Promise."
But this was so hard…
"Promise."
XxXxX
It was a Thursday night when Ty's car lead Mona and himself from Newcastle towards Inverness where Ty's friend Declan lived with his mother Sarah.
Or at least they started on Thursday night. By the time Ty was so tired he could hardly keep hos eyes on the road he stopped by the side of the road and leaned his seat back to sleep.
And then once he laid down he couldn't sleep.
"Have you told your friend why we have to stay with them?"
Ty jumped slightly, he had thought Mona had been asleep. She had half laid with her head against the window for the last two hours and outside was dark and empty so why wouldn't she have been…
"I didn't really have a choice. We can't go to theirs and then just stay there until we have a baby and then fall off the face of the earth without them noticing."
"Them? Who is it more than your friend?"
"He lives with his mum. Sorry, I thought I'd told you that. Anyway, Sarah knows a little something about having a baby and being pregnant. And Declan and I have been best friends since we were little."
"What have you told them?"
"I had to tell them everything. There just wouldn't be another way when we're going to live with them at least until the baby is born."
"You could at least have let me decide what they would know and who to tell." Mona pouted angrily and Ty didn't know what to say. For several minutes they sat in silence and not one car passed them by… "What did they say?"
"Well. None of them supports it if I say it like that. But they have… realized that you are the one in charge and they also can't share it with someone else. If they suddenly stood there with a baby then there's no way people would stop asking questions until they had the truth or until both the police and the social services are involved…"
Ty stroke with his palms over his way and for the millionth time he wondered how on earth he and Mona had gotteen themseleves into this mess.
"At least they can do this and then once the baby is born you can just pretend that it never happened." Mona whined tiredly. "It's another story for me. I will have flappy skin and stretch marks. My boobs will be hanging down to my knees and unless I want people to be able to see that I've been pregnant I can never show up on the swimming pool or the beach wearing a bikini."
Ty's stomach hurt. He didn't want to do this. But what choice did he have?
"It's not like any of us have got any choice…"
"We do though. We could try…"
"No, we don't. Believe me Ty. You don't know what my parents are like. If they find out that I've been with a guy who isn't blonde and blue- eyed, and even had a baby with you. They will never even look at me again… I need my parents in my lfe Ty."
Ty didn't know what to answer. He would never even be able to tell his own parents about this and he did have a history of racism to say the least.
Whenever they were together like this Ty just wanted to turn his back against Mona and not turn back towards her until one of them had come up with a better solution than the one they were planning.
"I just never want to think about this. I want to go out with my friends, have a drink, go back to school. I want to become a lawyer- anything and everything I should have done if it hadn't been for… this."
Ty knew one more thing he had always wanted to be. He also knew that there wasn't a chance he could do it now and when Mona asked one single question he said the first thing he could come up with.
"What do you want to do?"
"What do you mean?"
Or at least he hesitated just a little bit.
"I meant what I asked. What do you want to do once the baby is born? The next day? Next year? With the rest of your life?"
There was something Ty had always wanted to do…
"I was born and raised in England… But still, my grandparents are all from China. And all my life I've been thinking of moving there to… explore my heritage if you'd like to call it that."
"Go!"
"What?"
Ty hadn't expected Mona to answer and then when the interruption came he didn't even get what she had said. Or… he had…
"Go! And never come back."
Ty sighed slightly. As he had just said Newcastle, England was the place he had been borned and raised. His parents came from the other side of the earth…
He didn't even have any family in China. His grandparents had either moved to England or died when he was little…
It wouldn't matter saying that right now though.
"This doesn't matter." Instead of having to answer about a plan he knew nothing about Ty raised his seat and turned the key again. "I can't sleep anyway."
And as he started driving along the dark, empty road. Next to him sat his girlfriend with her knees pulled up… He didn't even mind to tell her that if they were about to crash sitting like that wouldn't be safe…
Although how much he cared for the new little life that was spiring and growing inside of her.
XxXxX
"I want you out!"
By the beginning of December Mona was terribly sick of the little person growing inside of her. Not that she'd ever been happy about this. But she was getting more and more sick of it by the second.
"I already look like I'm nine months pregnant… And yet I'm puking up every single bite of what I eat. I can't even tie my own shoelaces and I have heartburn up to my ears."
Ty stroke over Mona's back as she talked. Every time they spoke about this- and they talked about it loads, his stomach just twisted.
Every now and then he went outside. And instead of doing grocery shopping or something else that actually needed to get done he went downtown, sat down on the bench outside a toy store and watched parents and children of all ages coming and going.
There were stuffed animals, there were board games, there were computer games, there were legoes….
And there were children screaming and crying about something they didn't get…
And watching them made Ty feel… just good.
And just heartbroken at the same time.
Oh, if he'd never been to that café, if he'd never fallen in love with Mona Sparks, if the waiter named Oliver had never tripped over Ty's leg…
Ty liked children. And children liked him. He knew his parents would be over the moon if they found out they were going to be grandparents. But if this was the way Mona had planned…
He just couldn't do it any other way than what that English girl had come up with. And that was even if it meant he would have to say goodbye both to Mona and their child.
He couldn't have the child on his own. And what would happen if people started asking questions that he couldn't answer without actually telling where and who the baby came from.
There wasn't anything to do except for what they were already about to do.
Sarah came and sat down on the bed- just like she hadn't been the day she had spoken to Ty on the phone she wasn't supportive of the choices Ty and Mona were making. But in these times, she had decidded to at least treat the two with respect and not get into business that wasn't her to get into.
"You look beautiful dear…"
Her son Declan, Ty's childhood friend wasn't of the same thinking. He had made very sure he thought the two made the wrong decisions and that abandoning a child wasn't okay anywhere, for any reason.
He hadn't spoken to neither of the two since they came, except for promising he wouldn't tell anyone else about this and to tell them what he thought…
"That's easy for you to say. You showed me the pictures from when you were pregnant and by the time you were nine months you still barely looked pregnant at all."
Sarah sighed slightly while Mona turned on the bed to lie with her back against Sarah and Ty. This would be easier to reach as Ty rubbed her back but he let go and if they hadn't known better they would have believed she had fallen asleep.
Ty had his hands lying on his lap, Sarah reached out and wrapped hers around his.
She didn't say anything…
But in between them there was a knowledge about how much only a parent can love their child.
XxXxX
It was mid- February and the coldest day of the year when Mona and Ty's baby was born.
After more than forty eight hours in labor…
"Okay, you're almost there now Mona." The midwife told the younger woman as she laid pounding in between two labors. "One more push and the baby will be here. Okay?" Mona whimpered as another contraction ran through her body. She yelled at the top of her lungs but there wasn't much noise left in her sore throat. "And push, push… there we go…. Hello sweetheart. Happy birthday… It's a baby girl."
Mona cried as she saw her baby in the corner of her eye while she turned her head away, she heard someone talking- asking if she wanted her little baby girl lying on her chest, some short words about the social services and then Ty's and Sarah's as the staff and their little girl had left the room.
"You don't even want to see her?" Ty asked and Mona shook her head crying. "I saw her… she's beautiful."
Someone came with a paper sheet and a pencil. Sarah took it and started feeling up the paper of the little girl's identity.
"Do you want your names on here? As mum and dad?"
"NO."
Mona yelled that one word, Sarah looked to Ty who just nodded slightly, agreeing with the girlfriend who would soon be leaving his life forever.
Sarah filled up the notes she could without the names of the parents and date of birth. And then turned towards the newly become parents again.
"Did you pick out a name for her?"
Mona had already pulled herself together. For the rest of her life decided that she was done with the baby that had grown inside of her. Ty seemed to sense her feelings as well and Silently they had decided that, while the names could be spelt differently, whatever the nurse wrote would be the right way.
"What's her name?"
"Hayley."
Sarah noted the name Mona had told her.
"And middle name?"
"Bailey."
"So that makes Hayley Bailey Sparks…" Sarah gave Mona a forced smile. "Sounds like someone who will be sweet and kind and…"
"Will you just stop?" Mona fizzled, interrupting. "I'm not keeping her. I can't. Mona suddenly gasped- she couldn't help it. "I can't… please. Just do what you have to and fill that up and then be done."
Silence followed, only interrupted by the noise of Sarah scribbling on the paper sheet. Then she let go and laid the pencil down, looking sadly from Ty to Mona and back again.
"Guys." She said sadly. "You don't have to do this."
"YES. We do." Mona shouted. "We have to do this. You don't understand and you promised you wouldn't act like this. So if you're going to be like this then you could just as well leave right away."
"I won't." Sarah said calmly. "I promised you you can stay until Ty goes to China and you go back to your parents… but no parent wants to give away their child."
"I HAVE TO." Mona yelled. "YOU KNOW THAT."
"Yes." Sarah sunk down on a chair while Ty still hadn't said anything where he stood near the door, without saying a word or looking at the two women in the room. "I know that."
"I'll go to the bathroom."
Ty mumbled barely and went out the door into the hallway. But instead of going to the bathroom down the hall he turned up the hallway and slowly went into a room filled with plastic beds of blue and pink blankets.
One nurse was just putting a note on one of the beds reading "Hayley Bailey Sparks." Not having heard of them she just smiled at Ty and then left while Ty stayed for taking one last look of his daughter.
"Hey." He walked up, stroke her head over the thatch of soft, dark hair. "I'm your dad. And I just wanted… I just want you to know that I love you very much." He was whispering so no one else in the room could hear the words. "And I wish I didn't have to do this…"
Ty softly stroke his thumb over Hayley's dark hair once again, and when he felt the tears streaming down his cheeks he backed away. And with one last glance towards his daughter and two words he left the room.
"I'm sorry."
XxXxX
It was August, six months after their daughter had been born. And never would they know what had happened to her after Ty left that room…
They now stood, wrapped in each other's arms on an airport. Ty was about to leave for China, and Mona was about to go back to her parents'.
This was it. This was where their relationship ended. And they both knew about it.
With that Mona hugged Ty as hard as she ever could.
If she could just freeze this moment forever…
The moment where she loved Ty more than ever and let go, watched him take his backpack off the floor and without another word left the building.
All words were already said, all tears were already shed when she watched Ty pass from the building up to the biggest plane she had seen in her life.
He walked up the stairs to the door of the plane
And with that he was out of her life.
They would wish for things to be that easy at least…
It would pass Mona's mind every once in a while, wondering what would have happened if she had made other decisions than the ones she had made and let her parents know about her Ty and Hayley.
But she quickly shook it off. Knowing that if she'd see Ty and Hayley then she'd never see her parents again.
Although on that day, standing in an airport watching Ty Chang walking towards the biggest plane she had ever seen throwing his backpack over one shoulder and not turning around she would have done anything to run up to him, take their daughter with them and ran away to where no one would ever find them.
But then, where on earth was their daughter- they couldn't know that.
They couldn't know when she took her first steps or said her first word. They couldn't know when she was passed from a care home after the other and temporary foster home.
They couldn't know when she made her first, best friend in Layla…
They couldn't even know when she found her new, forever- family in Mark and Helen.
It was with the knowledge of all of this that Mona turned after having watched the plane through the window and left the airport.
And with that she left her old life behind…
XxXxX
It all happened from studying, a café, a waiter named Oliver and a hotel room with a bed…
Mona's parents never knew about their grandchild. As far as they knew- they died in their eighties still thinking they had been left without the desert of life.
Neither Mona nor Taiyong had any other kids…
Taiyong moved back to Newcastle one year after Hayley was born. Sometimes he and Mona would see each other downtown or at the supermarket. Sometimes on the very café they had met the first time.
They never spoke to each other though.
It was like they had never known each other at all.
The name Sparks was on the Tracy Beaker wiki. And the name Mona I just came up with. Now afterwards I think that might have come from that it sounds quite a lot Rosa Parks.. (Just google the name if you don't know who she was)
Random fact
I really hate Mona. But I feel so bad for Ty, he could have been the best dad ever… And then there was this story and he never got the chance.