Perfectly Dysfunctional

I cursed as I realised I’d left my car keys in the house and I heard the door open again as I began to march down the street.

“Jennifer, get back here! Where are you going? It’s eleven o’clock at night! Jennifer, you’ll come back here, or-” But that was all I heard, because I jammed my earphones in and quickly made my way to the only person I could talk to at a time like this.

On the way to Diane’s house I thought about my life over the past six months. My gran had died about eight months before, and everyone took it pretty bad, but nowhere near as bad as my mum. My mum ended up taking time off of work and one day, whilst my dad was working and I was in school, she suffered some sort of attack and was rushed to hospital, but died. She already had loads wrong with her mentally, but the main one was her stress levels were constantly through the roof, which we later found out was passed on to me. They told my dad exactly what she died of, but he’s never told me, claiming that my mum wouldn’t want me to know – but that’s a total lie. He’s probably fucking forgot. Ever since she died he turned to drink – something he always claimed he’d never do – and would visit my uncle, his brother, and not come home for days on end. What a hypocrite; if I was to come home like that it’d be straight out on my arse, despite being eighteen and legally allowed to drink. He’d start to show up really late for work, or some days just not go in, wasting his days and weekends away sleeping. Our relationship started to dwindle; it was never good before, but then it just got awful. I tried to keep the resentment at bay, get him up in time for work – which was bloody hard for me seeing as his shift starts at five am, but I took it upon myself as my mum always used to do it. I’d wake up, get him up and make him breakfast and coffee, but then he started not caring what I done, ignoring me, or just not getting up. Then there was the one time where I snapped and shouted at him and he lashed out. Since then ‘loathe’ took on a whole new meaning entirely.

I cut through the park which was petrifying enough at night, especially because of the area in which it was situated, and was relieved when I emerged from the gates at the other side. I crossed the road then walked up to the flats where my cousin lived. I buzzed up and took the lift, stepping out to find Diane already standing there, her robe wrapped around her body and thick slipper socks on her feet. She’d clearly sussed something was wrong just by the fact I’d buzzed up at half eleven at night. She held her arm out to me and ushered me inside the house.

“I’m sorry if I woke you, I didn’t know who else to go to – Emma lives too far away for me to walk there safely,” I explained as I removed my shoes at her door.

“Don’t be silly, do you want a drink?” I nodded and followed her into the living room. “Chris, could you get Jenny a drink, please? What do you want?”

“Just water will be fine, thanks,” I said, sitting down. I thanked Chris when he handed me the glass of water and Diane told him to leave. “Oh, no, he can stay if he wants to.” So Chris sat down on the other sofa and flicked off the TV, and I told them everything. About how my dad had basically told me that we were moving to England for no apparent reason – he’d claimed it was a promotion, but a promotion from what, I’d asked; he never went to work.

“But you’re nearly finished school! You’re just about to go to uni!” Diane exclaimed, clearly annoyed.

“Yeah, well, apparently not in Scotland, I’m not. I wouldn’t mind moving to England overall, if he wasn’t the one I had to move with. I don’t want to leave everyone I know and love back here and move down there with him, where I’ll know no one, and the only person I will know, I’ll hate.”

“Well, how long will it be before you can move into a place of your own?” Chris asked and I considered my options.

“Well I don’t have much money just now at all. I'll need to get a job down there or something; I can’t afford to go to college or uni down there, and everything is so expensive. I don’t know, my guess would be at least another year or two until I can afford it properly.”

“And the thing is you might meet someone down there that you’re prepared to move in with; that way you can share the rent and the bills and stuff. And, you’ve got the money that gran and your mum left you. I’m sure that if they knew what’s going on down here that they’d want you to use that money to get yourself out on your own. That or you could use it to go to uni, it's up to you.”

“I guess you’re right,” I mused and finished my water. “I’m going to get more,” I said but Chris took my glass before I could stand.

“I’ll get it. Do you want anything to eat?”

“Actually, could I have crisps or something? I’ve not had dinner; I’d just got back in when I left again,”

“Well phone a Chinese or pizza or something. I’m sure Chris will have something, before you even say anything.” I grinned. She knew me well. Well, she was my big cousin.

“I actually could do with something to eat right now,” Chris mused as he handed me my glass and I laughed. “Right, what do you want?” he asked as he picked up the phone. I told him and Diane decided she was hungry too.

“So, when are you leaving and whereabouts are you going?” Diane asked as we tore into our food half an hour later.

“I didn’t ask him, so I’ve got no idea.”

“Oh well, you’ll e-mail or text every day, I’m sure. And you can come up here and visit once in a while if you want.”

“Definitely, I’m going to need some sort of happy family to return to every day,” I grinned to Chris and Diane then thought of Ellie sleeping in her Disney Princess room. I’d miss them, for sure.