Chapter four

"I-I'm such a failure!" She wallowed in my arms.

"You're not! Don't ever say that. It's impossible to be a failure" I tell her. I lifted her chin so she looks me in the eyes for the next bit.

"You got out of bed today that's so powerful. If you can do that, you can do everything"

"Even fly?" We both laughed at her joke. When something emotional is going on with any one of us, we say something dumb to brighten up the mood.

"Are you still living with your mum?" I question her.

"She's been on business trips and left me with dad" my eyes widened and I instinctively scabbing her body for bruises.

"Don't worry, he's been at the bar 90% of the time" she reassures me.

"You can always live at mine again, if you want? I'd sleep better if I knew that you were safe" I tell her.

"I feel like I'm such a burden though!"

"Don't worry you're not"

"We should head back" she says I nod and we walk out of the bathroom hand in hand after I wiped away her tears. She also asked me to put a bit of makeup on her to cover her tear-stained face.

"We're all friends again?" Izzy asks us once she notices us.

"Yep" we both say. "We need to get to track" Izzy tells me.

"You've got my parents and Jamal's numbers right?" I questioned Sals. She nods and whips her phone out to text one of them. "None of them can pick me up so I might just finish my art" she tells me.

"Did you guys talk?" Iz questions need.

"We didn't say what we wanted but we didn't have to" she nods.

Nothing really interested happened at track except for the fact that there's going to be a competition soon but a date hasn't been set yet.

"Are we getting the bus?" Sally questioned me.

"Bus because Jamal wouldn't pick us up because he's Jamal and Paps is at work and dad is grocery shopping"

"Izzy are you getting the bus?" Sally asked Izzy. To which Izzy nodded and hopped on the bus.

Izzy's stop was first then we went past my house to get to Sally's to get her stuff. We walked to her house from the bus stop to see that her dad's car wasn't in the driveway and he luckily wasn't inside. I thought to brighten up the mood by playing throwback girly slumber-Party songs. We danced, sang, laughed and packed.

"Shit" we both whisper-shouted at each other when he heard the door swing open. I instantly turned my music off. Sally peaked out to see the movements of her dad. She urged me to run out the door, considering her dad was outside taking a swig from his beer. Sally and I kept sprinting until our feet began to throb and we both ran out of breath.

"Let's walk" I tell her as we carry her duffel bag like a toddler holding both of his parents' hand. We also took turns holding my PE bag and we carried our individual school bag.

We finally got back to mine after buying some ice-cream. She got cookies and milk and I got chocolate, chocolate is my all-time-fav. Why would you get any other flavour? We both call Izzy basic for getting vanilla.

I hold a finger up to silence Sally as I answer to call from Paps. "Has practice run over-time?" He asks me.

"No sorry. We're coming back now" I answer him.

"We're?"

"Yeah. Is the spare-room made up for Sally?"

"Oh. You guys will have to make the bed up, though. I'll try to get home early; is dad home?" With that 'oh', I knew that he knew what I meant. Dad got left redundant 6 months ago and is taking a year out of work some things out and he's tempted to start a candle-making business, Paps thinks it stupid but hasn't got the heart  to tell him otherwise. So therefore income has been a struggle. Jamal and I have been 'suggested' (ordered) to get a job. Jamal helps out with his friend's mum's small business and I've got a job interview next week at the ice-cream shop Sally and I were just at. And Sally is already working at a local art shop. We're all seniors; why wouldn't we have job. Well Jamal is a junior but 99% of the juniors have jobs.

When we entered my house dad nodded in understanding and told us that he's making spaghetti bolognaise for dinner tonight. Then we dumped my bags in my room and we dumped her bags in the spare-room that was next to Jamal's room. The spare-room, is extremely different to mine: beige carpet, crisp-white bed and light-grey painted walls. 2 years ago when Sally's mum and dad we're getting a divorce and somehow her dad won the custody battle because he brought up his ex wife's sketchy past. Sally then moved in with us until her mum won the custody battle. Her mum, however acts oblivious about the dad by letting him take care of Sally when she's on business trips.

Sally and I had fun making the bed up and making the room a bit more Sally. From last time we hung some of her art pieces on the wall and we kept a working desk in the room.

"Dad thinks he's funny by texting us to quit messing about and do our homework. Downstairs in the kitchen where he can watch this" Sally laughed at my dad's joke. Sally made a start on her homework as I showered the dried sweat off of me, tossed my BO-filled kit and got dressed into my comfy sweats.

At 7pm Paps came home and helped Sally, Jamal and I set the dinner table. Dad served us the meal he made. Like usual it was amazing. Dad really has a talent, it's a shame that his new boss couldn't appreciate it- he was a chef at a restaurant (we don't go anymore because everyone treats him strangely).

After dinner Sally continued her big art project of drawing me. I could move my neck and face, considering she's done with that stage of the drawing.

"I'd like to apologise for the way I acted at the party" she apologised to me.

"Don't worry! We're fine" I tell her honestly.

"No it's not fine. It's been playing on my mind and I'm ashamed that I let some douche bag control me like that. I was in the same class with him today and I overheard him talking about this girl he hooked up with and the way he talked about her was so vile and disgusting" a ghost of a smile played on my lips. It made me happy that she's finally seeing his true colours.

"I'm so happy that you came to the realisation that you deserve so much better than that beast"

An hour passes and I ask her if it's finished yet.

"There needs to be a bit more shading but overall it's finished" I walk up behind her to the canvas to see a beautifully and realistically sketched out drawing of me. I've never really considered myself beautiful but this... this is beautiful. Is this how I really look? I need to hype myself up more!

"It's.."

"Terrible? I know"

"NO! This is magnificent. You need to be more positive about your art work- about everything, really" I tell her honestly.

"Okay I'm done with it for tonight" she says sighs a yawn.

"It is getting late. We should go to bed" I checked my phone to see it was 11.30pm.

I groggily opened my exhausted eyes to adjust the darkness and when I adjusted to my surroundings I realised that the yelling and the thumping wasn't in my dream. I shakily get out of bed to see what's going on. Once I reached the 5th step I noticed Paps on nervously yelling into the phone while pushing angry fists away. In front of Paps was dad pushing a large man off of him and toward the door and roaring to get out. Jamal was shielding Sally who was breaking down in his arms. I sprinted down the steps and grabbed the first thing I saw with a sharp edge on it.

With the boost from my adrenaline I held up the weapon strongly in my arm. "GET OUT OF OUR HOME" now that I'm face to face with the intruder I recognise the dirty man as Sally's dad. He scarily snickers at my attempt of being brave.

I wince pain as dad protectively pushes me out of the way as Sally's dad launches himself on him. The smell of alcohol that was surrounding him like a blanket was the most disgusting thing I've ever smelled. Jamal's hand reaches out to me as he shields me as well. As dad pushes him out the door, blue and red lights fill the house as sirens also fill our ears. Three police officers brutally grabs Sally's dad, forces him into handcuffs and shoves him into the officer car. 

"Are you all okay?" Paps asks us extremely concerned.

"I-I am so- so s-s-Sorry! I-it's a-ll m-my fa-ult!" Sally bursts out. Jamal rubs her back comfortingly as I hold her, Paps engulfs her in a hug and dad softly touches her hand. "It's never your fault" dad sternly tells her.