I Am Unworthy

by Angela Mack

  "I'm coming," I growled. I gingerly opened the door, relieved when I saw Ollie standing there.

  "What are you…?"

  "I knew it!" he shouted, interrupting me and barging past.

  "Knew what?" I closed my eyes and massaged my forehead, my headache taking on a new lease of life. The blood pulsing in my head reminded me of a timer on a bomb ticking down, waiting to explode.

  "I knew when your brother called Mum last night that you being 'sick' was actually code for 'he's beaten to a pulp.' Especially after you didn't turn up for classes. Why the fuck didn't you call me?" Ollie was fuming. He shoved me into a chair at the small kitchen table, slammed the front door shut and started pacing. I grimaced in discomfort. He hadn't exactly been gentle.

  "What good is it having a mate who always has your back if you never let them help?!" He slammed his fist on the table in front of me.

  "I was pretty out of it yesterday, mate. Don't remember much of it."

  "Yeah well, you could have gotten Ryan or Georgie to call me. And don't give me that bullshit excuse anyway. You never let anyone help you." He crossed his arms, staring me down. I shrugged.

  "No, don't you shrug at me. How long are you going to keep this up? What if Big Mike starts hitting Ryan? Or Georgie? What are going to do then? You can't watch them 24/7."

  "He hasn't touched them. I make sure I'm the one that gets the blame for everything." My temper was starting to kick in. It was far too early in the morning for this conversation and I really wasn't feeling up to it.

  "Yeah, and what if that changes? What if he beats you up so bad it kills you? Who is going to look out for them then? Maybe Ryan will just take your spot and Big Mike will pick up where he left off, as if nothing happened…" he smirked, knowing full well he was goading me.

  "Don't you think I worry about that too?!" I roared at him, my ears ringing and my vision starting to sway. "What do you want me to do?"

  "You need to tell someone."

  "Like who?"

  "The police."

  "Oh, fuck off. You know I can't do that. They'd chuck all of us in care and we'd be separated and stuck with some random families. You've heard the same horror stories I have. I'm not having either of my brothers being molested by a paedophile! And who's to say the police would even believe me in the first place?!" I couldn't believe Ollie was even suggesting I call the police. There was a kid a few streets over from here that committed suicide last year, hung himself in his room. He'd been taken away from his family, put into foster care and the foster dad had been hurting him in the worst possible way. Ollie knew this, and yet he was still suggesting I follow the same path. He was really fucking me off.

  "Why wouldn't the police believe you?" he asked, completely ignoring the rest of what I'd said.

  "Oh, come on. I've spent my entire life starting fights and even purposely letting people get a few punches in, just so no one would suspect my old man was doing it. And so far, it has worked a fucking treat."

  "Well, he's getting worse. He used to show some kind of restraint and try not to hit your face much or do a lot of damage. Now he doesn't seem to care. He's getting worse," he repeated. I couldn't argue with that. He had been hitting harder and more frequently recently.

  "I think it's something to do with his work. I overheard a couple guys in Martins the other week, saying there's rumours about the factory closing down and people losing their jobs." That was how this whole mess had started in the first place. Believe it or not, Big Mike used to be pretty decent. He had a temper, sure, and he'd shout like you wouldn't believe sometimes, but he'd never hurt us. And Mum, well she actually stuck around for one. She was a stay-at-home mum and although she didn’t seem to have a great interest in what was going on in our lives, she did her best. But I despised her. How could a mother who spent years raising her children just abandon them? And leave us with that monster?

  Big Mike used to own a car repair garage a few years ago. He'd trained up as a mechanic when he was a teenager and then decided to open his own place. For a long while, Big Mike's Motors was the main garage in Gilleford and almost everyone took their cars to him for repair work. We had a nice house and lived comfortably. But then Big Mike started getting greedy. He began hiking his prices up so he could take Mum out to nice restaurants, buy a flashy car and generally show off. Although customers weren't happy, there wasn't anywhere else credible to go to. That was until A1 Autocentres opened a branch nearby. They were a big chain with garages all over the country. Within a few months of their opening, Big Mike had lost pretty much all his customers and soon we started receiving final reminder letters and bailiffs began knocking. Turns out the business hadn't been doing quite as well as he had led us to believe anyway. He had taken a big loan out against the house for his fucking BMW and to keep the garage afloat too.

  Within a year, the bank had repossessed the house, the car and most of our possessions. We'd been forced into a council house and Big Mike struggled to find work. Mum hadn't had a job for almost fifteen years and so she was practically unemployable. Eventually, Big Mike was offered a job on a production line in a pharmaceutical packaging factory. But his ego and pride were badly wounded. He started drinking regularly and stopping by the betting shop on the way home from work. That was when he started getting violent. He'd lose a good chunk of his wages betting on horses, drink a ton of beer and come home in a foul mood. First, it was Mum he hit.

  "Why isn't dinner on the table, you stupid bitch?"

  "This place is a shit hole, what have you been doing all day?"

  On and on he'd criticise, no matter how many hours Mum had spent cooking or cleaning. Initially he’d use the back of his hand across her face, or shove her into a door frame. I tried to intervene, but back then I was scrawny and weak, and could do nothing but watch helplessly. She’d beg and plead with him to stop, but that would just encourage him if anything. She started taking painkillers and sleeping pills, more and more each day to cope with his behaviour, until she was pretty much high every minute of the day. She stopped bothering to clean and cook, and most days wouldn’t even come out of her bedroom. One evening, I caught him choking her against a wall. I still remember how big her eyes bulged before I launched myself at him, clawing and scratching at his hands. The next day when we all came back from school, she was gone.

  “Where’s Mum?”

  “She left us.” Big Mike threw a beer bottle at me and I flinched as it narrowly missed my head.

  And that was when he started on me instead. After that, there was no way I was ever calling him ‘Dad’ again. He didn’t deserve it.

  “If he loses his job, he’s going to go mental,” Ollie frowned, dragging me from my painful memories. “We could take him, you know.”

  “Take him? What do you mean?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “You and me. We could take him in a fight. We could beat him together.” He clenched his fists and took a fighting stance. I don’t even think he realised he was doing it.

  “And what good would that do? Say we did beat him, then what? He’d be so pissed that the next time he saw me, when you weren’t with me, he’d kill me. He’d literally pulverise me to death.” I could see the rage behind Ollie’s eyes.

  “You need help, mate. I don’t know how we make it stop, but we must make it stop.”

  “Listen. It's not that long until I turn eighteen and then I will go to the police, make them give us our own council house, and leave the fucker to rot by himself. I can’t risk them taking Georgie and Ryan away from me. Just a few more months to go, Ollie.”

  “If you last a few more months,” Ollie mumbled, his anger fading and defeat written all over his face. He knew I was cornered and had no other options. He slumped down in the chair next to me. He was a good friend to me, a really good friend, but I had a plan and I had managed by myself for this long. I could make it to eighteen.

  After several minutes of silence, each of us no doubt contemplating our next moves in life, som
eone else started knocking at the door.

  “Why is everyone insisting on getting in my damn business this morning…?” I scraped back the chair, pausing until my head stopped spinning. I yanked the door open.

  “What?” I answered, shocked to see Isabel standing there holding a plastic bag. She had her hair scraped back, wearing grey jeans and the bright pink Buttercups polo top. With barely any makeup on and her face flushed from the walk over here, she looked gorgeous. Beautiful even.

  “I just wanted to check on you. I felt really guilty about not calling for a paramedic and getting someone to check on you properly,” she said quietly, giving me a soft smile.

  “Well, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “Do you need anything? I could…”

  “Look. Why are you here?”

  “What...what do you mean? I just said,” she stammered, looking confused.

  “No. Why are you really here? Why are you interfering? We don’t need your help.” I gritted my teeth, jaw going stiff. I needed this girl to get lost. As lovely a sight as she was right now, I couldn’t afford to let anyone mess up my plan. I had a feeling she’d cause me trouble if I let her.

  “I just...Georgie…”

  “Why the interest in my brother all of a sudden? He told me you gave him your number. What the fuck’s that all about? He’s only nine, you know. It’s perverted.” I forced my anger to the surface, doing what I usually do when I want to start a fight.

  “What?! NO. It’s not like that...I just…” I slammed the door in her face. She’d get the message now, for sure. I stared at the inside of the door, calming myself down and trying to ignore the aching pain in my ribs. I shook my head, returning to the kitchen.

  “Was that Isabel Johnson? From school?” Ollie asked, incredulous.

  “Don’t even ask, mate…”

  “No, no. You have to tell me why the fuck she’s at your front door at 8.30 a.m. on a Saturday.” I started to recount the events of the night before, whilst Ollie began pulling bread out of the cupboard to make us all some toast. However, after a couple of minutes, we were interrupted by Georgie bounding down the stairs. He sailed right past us in his batman pyjamas, opening the front door.

  “Where are you…” He grabbed something off the front doorstep, coming back inside with a smile on his face. It looked like the plastic bag Isabel had been carrying.

  “No need to make breakfast Ollie,” he smiled, slinging the bag on the table in front of us. Ryan came into the kitchen then too, going over to the kettle to make tea. Once Ollie, Ryan and I had steaming cups in front of us, Ryan poured some of the leftover water from the kettle into another mug. He grabbed a bottle of antiseptic from our first aid kit and added some of it into the mug. He then pulled out our stash of cotton wool pads, placing all of it in front of me.

  "The back of your head looks bloody awful," he muttered. He dunked a pad into the water, using his other hand to carefully part my hair.

  "Shit!" I sucked in a breath. It hurt like a bitch.

  "I need to clean this great big cut you've got. Izzy said we can't let it get infected and to check it isn't too deep." I huffed and crossed my arms, sitting back in my chair. I could tell Ryan was being as gentle as possible, but God the pain was almost unbearable. A couple of times I felt my vision grow hazy again.

  As the bloody cotton wool pads started building up on the table, Georgie began pulling all sorts of baked goods out of the bag. Pain au chocolats, croissants, cinnamon buns, muffins...there was enough to feed about ten people. Georgie looked over and saw me frowning at the food.

  “Izzy text me. She said she had left breakfast on the front doorstep for us. She had to go to work so couldn’t come in.” He reached over and grabbed a cinnamon bun, shoving it into his mouth. “See, told you she was our friend,” he said around the mouthful of food. Ollie was trying desperately not to laugh. I was extremely irritated that not only had Izzy bought a ton of food that I would never have been able to afford, but that she hadn’t even ratted me out to my brother that I’d actually slammed the door in her face.

  “You know, if you want her to keep her mouth shut you should probably make an effort to be nicer to her. Keep her on your side,” Ollie snickered around a croissant.

  “Yeah, especially as she keeps buying us food,” Ryan added.

  “Tell me the rest of what happened,” Ollie requested. I refused to speak, sulking because I had a feeling that Ollie’s approach would have indeed been more successful. It hadn't even occurred to me to try and be nice to her. I was such a dick.

  Ryan and Georgie eagerly obliged, taking turns to add in little anecdotes. When they started explaining how Isabel had cleaned up my puke, I was mortified.

  “What?!” Ollie and I shrieked at the same time.

  “Well, you didn’t think we cleaned it up, did ya?” Ryan laughed.

  “What puke? I don’t remember throwing up?”

  “Georgie said she practically carried you up the stairs ‘cos you could barely walk, and when you got to the top, you threw up everywhere. Someone definitely threw up ‘cos I had to step over it when I got home.” He looked to Georgie for confirmation and he nodded. I dropped my head into my hands. So that was why the carpet looked so clean. She must have scrubbed the whole damn thing! Ollie couldn’t contain his laughter any longer.

  “Oh mate! She’s the first person that’s shown you the tiniest bit of kindness in years and you slammed the door in her face! You are a complete prick.”

  Fuck. My. Life.

  Chapter 7

  Isabel

  Screw you, Joshua Bugg. You self-centred, rude, ungrateful little shit.

  When he slammed the door in my face on Saturday morning, I had been pretty upset. OK, fuming was more like it. I'd gotten up early so I could go check on him before work and stopped at a bakery to get everyone breakfast. I had not expected the hostility that had greeted me. I mean, he'd basically accused me of being a paedophile! What the fuck was his problem? I was just trying to be nice. OK, so we hadn't spoken much before and I didn’t know him at all, but was it really that weird for me to offer some help? I’d held back angry tears the entire walk back to Buttercups.

  I'd been distracted the whole time at work, running the events of Friday night and the following morning through my head. By the time Monday rolled round, I still hadn't simmered down. I made up my mind that I would stay out of Josh’s way. He clearly didn’t want any help and if he was going to be such a dick all the time, then I didn’t want to waste my time anyway. He could sort his own problems out. Fucking ingrate.

  “Hey Izzy, how are you feeling?” Sophie asked as soon as I breezed through the common room doors before classes. I paused, confused by her question, until I remembered the excuse I gave for missing the cinema last Friday.

  “Er, yeah much better thanks. Think I was just over-tired or something,” I strained a smile. “How was the film?”

  “Well, it was a shit ton better than I thought it would be,” Ed smirked as Jack nodded his agreement with a grin. The five of us spent pretty much all our spare time at school together now.

  “That’s only because the leading actress got her tits out,” Jess rolled her eyes. We were all sitting in a circle in what had become our regular spot. I raised my eyebrows at Sophie and Jess.

  “We thought we’d invite everyone in the end,” Jess said, answering my unspoken question. I felt a twinge of jealousy and then guilt. I was jealous that all my friends had gone without me but then again, I had said no. And even if I’d known that Jack and Ed were going, I still wouldn’t have gone. I noticed that Sophie and Jack were stealing glances at each other every now and then. I met Sophie’s eyes after they did it again and quirked my eyebrow, smiling. She flushed completely red. Yep, there was definitely something going on there.

  “Hey, er, Isabel…” I flicked my gaze over my shoulder, seeing Josh standing there looking very sheepish. Nope. I. Was. Not. Interested.

  “Jeez, what happened to his face?”
Sophie leaned over and whispered in my ear. I shrugged.

  “So other than the nudity, was the film actually any good?” I asked Jess, purposely angling myself further away from Josh. Jess looked at me, behind my head, then back to me again.

  “Er...yeah it was…”

  “Isabel. I really need to talk to you,” Josh interrupted, louder this time, moving so that he was standing by my arm. I gritted my teeth. Why was it that people at this school thought they could blow hot and cold and walk all over me?

  “I am not interested in anything you have to say, Josh.” I kept my face completely neutral, demonstrating just how little I cared. He didn’t say anything for a second or two, so I turned back to my friends.

  “Listen, I am really sorry about how I acted on Saturday morning. Can we please talk for a moment, in private?” He was avoiding looking at anyone but me and I could see the desperation in his eyes. I held his gaze for a few moments before I felt my resolve crumbling. I sighed. I stood up and grabbed my stuff, following him outside. He led me to an empty bench behind the common room, choosing to sit on the same side as me with his legs straddled. I sat facing out over the table, deliberately not looking at him. He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot, but it was overcast and the breeze was cool, so no one else was outside. Josh ran his fingers through his hair, scratching the back of his head.

  “I acted like a complete wanker. I shouldn’t have slammed the door in your face. I'm sorry.” I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my head as I continued to ignore him, unsure how to respond.

  “And I wanted to thank you for everything you did on Friday night. Walking my brother home, buying pizza, cleaning that shitty carpet…” I flicked my gaze at him. He was looking down at his fidgeting hands, his hair flopped over part of his face. He looked so vulnerable and up close, his face didn’t look any better than the last time I'd seen him. In fact, it looked worse. The bruises on his cheek had turned deep purple and blue, making it look like he was wearing some kind of weird face paint. He reminded me of Harvey-Two-Face, one half of his face spoiled with the other half of his face pristine. He lifted his chin and smiled at me. Oh wow, what a smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Josh smile before.