A Life Plan Without You.

by Christine Wood

  “I hope someday someone finds a way to help you, I hope too someday you get your true always and forever, I wasn’t yours, but you were that person for me Sam. You need to get some help! Goodbye, I will never forget you Sam!”

  I have found that person baby he is helping me. My only, always and forever, is sat here breaking her poor heart; you were always mine baby from the minute I saw you that day in the ally dancing into this sorry heart of mine! I will never forget you either baby! I do as she tells me and I go back to Aunty, I see her car and head for it, it kills me as I hear my baby crying and now I hear Michelle as she screams for me to come back. With a deep sigh, I get back in the car and don’t look back, I can’t look back I have ended it.

  Days ago I was so happy and we had everything. What I wouldn’t give to turn the clock back and stay at Aunties, she asked me to and I said no, it would be fine but now after that I’m as good as dead, so I take the pills, these will stop her screams and these will stop my heart from breaking, I swallow and as the empty bottle falls from my hand… I hope the end comes quickly… I sleep…

  Walking home having been dumped, I was angry and crying and now even more confused than ever, shit it really had happened, we were over and not one word came from his lips, what was going on? Why did he hate me so much what had I done? Perhaps he needed time, but I didn’t need the crap that came with it. To say I was angry was an understatement I had given him everything and was left with nothing but tears and sadness.

  In days I would be in Hambleton for the whole summer I may even look at stopping there and going to Fylde University and never come back The Australian thing seems like a good option to, it’s the furthest place I can run to. I had a three more days of exams, three long days left in college, my dance exam and a wonderful week at university to look forward to.

  I will carry on and stop feeling sorry for myself. He had made it quite clear by his silence that I wasn’t wanted. So I pick myself up and carry on regardless, yeah right was that it was so easy, my helpers tried to tell me to wait, to give him time, and as I walked home looking like a lunatic I shouted at them to leave me be, they weren’t helping with their cryptic messages of danger and a great sadness coming my way, what did they think I was doing now, a happy dance?

  I went to bed and slept, no tears just thoughts of Sam, dreams of Sam and then the tears for Sam. I had a nightmare that he was in trouble. I woke feeling sick and it was so awful I rushed to the toilet and was sick; this was going to be a long few days. I was at the doctors again as mum and Aunty Liz were insistent, I sat there and listened and as I stared into space, I looked at the pictures on Dr Jude’s walls, and said nothing.

  “Michelle how do you feel today are the pills helping you?”

  “I don’t feel anything, isn’t that what you want for me not to feel, and to be falsely happy, what have I to be happy about?”

  “Are you taking them regularly?”

  “She is Doctor I give them her.” Naha, I take them and spit them out, should check under my tongue mother.

  “I don’t need pills to cheer me up I just need Sam, do you do him in pill form?”

  “Michelle the doctor is trying to help!” Right suck it up mother.

  “Well the pills aren’t working and you nagging all the bloody time isn’t helping either.”

  “Are you still having trouble sleeping Michelle?” You could say that Dr Jude.

  “What’s sleep? I cat nap and I cry, sleep would be good really good, but then I have nightmares and wake up screaming.”

  “I’d like to increase the medication and add in a sleeping tablet after tea!”

  “Oh, if you could get her to eat tea that would be a start!”

  “If you could fucking cook… That would be a start!”

  “Michelle there is no need for that young lady now stop this at once and apologise!” Opps I’ve pissed off Aunty Liz now!

  “Sorry Aunty Liz, Mum… I’m sorry you can’t cook!” I laugh and the doctor does too.

  “A smile something we haven’t had in a while Michelle!”

  “I live to make your day Dr Jude! So I get to take more pills and take a sleeping pill, fine can I have the prescription please I have and exam tomorrow, I need to study!” She handed me the script and smiled. I was walked home and as Aunty Liz and mum chatted I felt like crap. Getting home I went to bed to study. I wasn’t taking anything in and decided to go for a run, getting down stairs mum was sat with Pat and they were discussing the nut job upstairs, the fucking fat bitch said she knew Sam was too good to be true and mum agreed. I went in the front room for my purse I wasn’t stopping here anymore. I looked at the fat bitch on the couch and she opened her fucking mouth to me for the last fucking time!

  “Have you finished putting your mother through hell? Get your act together and grow up, there’s above you in all this!”

  “Shut the fuck up you miserable fucking fat bitch and get the fuck out of this house Dad bared you, did you forget did you? What hell has she been through? Was it her that was attacked? Was it her nearly raped? Was it her whose fiancé was beaten half to death? What the fuck has it got to do with you?” Just then Becks came in and just as mum handed me the pills, I hit her hand so hard the pills pinged of the walls and Pat sat staring at me!

  “Michelle calm down now, I’m telling you to calm down!”

  “Fucking get out of this house now. Now you fat bitch get out or I swear I will kill you!” Becks knocked on the wall as I screamed at Pat and my mother. “What’s the point in being like this? What do I have in my life but you and your bullying? I wish I was dead, I really do and I’m not stopping here with you two fucking cows, if you won’t leave I will and I’m not coming back ever do you hear me ever. I hate you I hate this place and I don’t want to live any more, not without him.” Becks screamed as Uncle Joe and Aunty Liz watched me run for the road and I wasn’t stopping either I ran, I heard the screech of the tyres and the smash of glass before darkness swept over me. I was better off dead! Waking later on I had a headache and the hushed sound of dad crying woke me.

  “Dad, why are you crying?”

  “Michelle you tried to kill yourself, why would I not cry?”

  “I wanted to die Dad, they were being nasty Fat Pat and Mum were saying Sam was a liar and didn’t love me I was to stop messing around Mum was hurting, she shouldn’t have been here and she was and they were being awful again. I didn’t want to be here I don’t like her and I hate Mum!”

  “Umm, you don’t Michelle, you don’t. Your just sad and missing Sam.”

  “I can’t live here Dad I can’t be in a place that has him in it and not me, I want to move to Hambleton with Grams and Gramps and never come back!”

  “Michelle, go for the summer and think about things Grams and Gramps are there for you, things with Sam will be better then, much better. You have a couple of exams left and then university to see and dance exams to take, go then?” I took the offered cup of tea and he kissed my head and left me alone!

  That was the last time I was alone for a long time, they watched my every fucking move, and everywhere I went I had a minder. I wrote to him every day, the same letter sent to his home and his Aunts. I didn’t think they would go back there, but sent it there anyway. He had a fair few letters all begging him to come back for me, but he didn’t.

  I’d wake and run, write a letter post them and go to class, college didn’t stop just because we had, plod on carry on. I hated my life and I was prescribed tablets to help me cope, I laughed because they can’t mend my broken heart. I pretended to take the anti-depressants the doctor gave me and spat them in the toilet, keeping mum off my back for the remaining time left here. I would talk Gramps into stopping in Hambleton and not sell up, because I never wanted to come back.

  I got ready for class and dressed in Sam’s favourite blue dress, I didn’t feel right, having the sexy underwear on. The rest that was on show was perfect. I had lessons to teach. The lads had decided that dancing wasn’
t for them and Ellie had decided that Jimmy wasn’t for her, so that put paid to that class, Samantha could teach Gary and Stephen on her own, but I had a new group of nippers and had those to teach and teach them I did.

  Then I went for my lesson with Lee and Ellie. Our class went very well Samantha and Lee danced us through all the dances. My second class of nippers did very well in their class, but I was finishing class a little later than normal and Sam walked in… With her, her of all people. He had her arm in his, her of all the people, Karen-Bloody-Manning. He saw me, she saw me, she put her arms around his neck and she kissed him, she kissed him and he allowed it, his hands coming to her waist, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  I was devastated, what was he doing rubbing my nose in it with her, her of all people, and here. Shit he’d lied he’d cheated and he hurt me all three rules broken with that slut, her of all people. I turned and ran across the floor, down the back stairs I had to get home. Still in my dance shoes, in the pouring rain I ran crying and screaming, I stopped midfield to take my ruined shoes off and fell to the floor. After yet more screaming. I ran home crying, he had broken my heart again, with her why her? Was she always there? Had he lied? Was she in fact one of his shags from the market? I was angry sad and out for revenge. I didn’t know how, but I would have it. They will both pay and badly, just see if they didn’t, just see…

  That opportunity came quicker than expected, on Saturday afternoon when Michelle, quiet one. Came around to mine and told me Paul had been riding his motor bike on their land. They’d been talking and he had asked her to ask me if I wanted to go out on a date.

  “Really and he couldn’t ask me himself?” We laughed about shy Paul, the once schoolyard hooligan, who was now too shy to ask a shy girl for a date. I saw a way of getting Sam as angry as I was, he had someone, I would flaunt my pretend new someone, and no way did I want to be this hurt ever again. “Tell him to be at Ridgley’s on Friday, I will let him know then.” I’d had my teaching lesson on Wednesday where Lee noted my sad face and kissed my cheeks and gave me a hug and told me it gets easier.

  Exams and college were nearly over, I had done the very best I could and had thrown my all into passing and I did, but why was all my success meaningless and empty, perhaps because I’d no one to share in it? I had my dance exam Sunday and uni visit to look forward to next week. Had I not got dance exams and college, I would have run to Grams and Gramps. Lee snapped me from my daydreams, with a squeeze, stopping those damn tears.

  “Please don’t Lee, I had a horrid night Friday and of all the people he could have come in with, he chose Sherpa Amazonian Man.”

  “Babe she is soooo not of my people, she is swamp trash. Oop’s, that’s soooo not nice. She does have manly features and false tits. I won’t be able to look at her now, bitch, without laughing inside. Sod it may laugh to her face. If it’s any conciliation, he didn’t stop he left straight after you? She was left on her own.” I smiled, but he still came with her and he knew it would kill me, the anger rose within me and the red mist descended. I wanted my revenge. I wasn’t thinking straight.

  My mind was full of stupid thoughts of why him and her? Had he lied about her, had he done nothing but lie, why her, he knew she was the one person I would never forgive him for. Perhaps there was always something between them and he had lied again? Shush, my mind is exploding. I knew too mum was mixing pills in my drinks too, so I’d stopped eating and drinking at home, because things didn’t seem to bother me as much for a couple of days. She was overdosing me on the herbal tablet St John’s Wort for my depression, bloody hells teeth. I found the spoons she used and she bought milkshake mix an unusual occurrence I thought at the time, her pandering to me and buying in my favourite foods. I had now conspiracy theories too. Damn my head was a busy place.

  “You say the nicest things Lee, teach me, teach me things, oh wise one.” He put on another album and we danced through them in the order they came in, Cha-cha-cha, rumba and jive again, Paso-Doble, and we finished with the Samba. Ellie joined me for extra lessons. She knew nothing about Sam and me. She was digging for info for Karen. I gave her nothing to work with and went home sad and depressed and so tired so lonely.

  Last day ever in college, I was presented with a cheque for coming top in all my classes and best attendance and told I could work in any top kitchen I wanted… Whoop. We had a photo shoot on the last day with the Stockton Times for the cup win and that was the end of my college and school days, I either go to uni or in the Royal Navy.

  Next week I was at Stockton University all week, which was something I was looking forward to doing, before my last summer at Gramps house. Friday came, the sexy virgin-no-more-white-dress was worn, which had its last outing the day we went for my rings, the newly dyed black satin shoes were none the worse for wear, being dyed black, (they didn’t come clean after the dash over the field the week before.) No sexy underwear for him though. We did our new nippers lessons, our own last lesson, before exams and nailed it, all the extra time had worked.

  We looked good on the dance floor at last and smiled as we noted our audience had arrived. We still had our nipper’s classes to teach and teach it I did. Full of my inner Amazon woman as Lee called me.

  “Babe’s smile and look at her and know you’re prettier than her.” I smiled and held my pretty head high.

  “Right class tonight’s your last chance to get it right. I know you can do it so pair up please, I waved for the music, and I held Gillian’s hand. Ellie danced with the nippers and Samantha did the music. We started with the Tango, I moved around the floor with Gillian with the greatest of ease, she smiled at Sam who smiled back at her and he waved his hand at her, that choked me a little, but I managed to finish. We did the Foxtrot next and I switched with Samantha, to do the music. I couldn’t see him from here. Lee had come to give me a twirl on the dance floor; he knew I needed it.

  “Oh, why are the best men gay or married, or in my case fucked right royally in the head.” He kissed my cheek, holding me close as we danced, Lee guiding me into the tight corners, the gentle dips the perfect foot movements the perfect tempo and step count, the heel rise and falls, and we got lost in the dance and were perfect. As the music came to an end I smiled as he left me to do his class downstairs.

  “Stiff upper lip Michelle, you Michelle, you are fabulous oh so fabulous and someone’s great loss babe.” He shouted, loud and proud as he disappeared down the stairs.

  “Right class you need to be here at One o’clock for pre exam dance through downstairs, exams are up here. You need to be smart, boys you need to be in shirt and tie, girls you need to be in a dress or flowing skirt, I won’t say good luck you don’t need it your all my little perfect dancers.” Gillian was questioning me.

  “Why are you and Sam so sad Mishy?” I picked her up hugged her gave her a kiss.

  “We’re not anymore, see you Sunday pumpkin.” I ran to the toilet for a bloody good cry. I wet my hair, the curls now danced on my shoulders. Deep breaths and carry on, he was here and sat with her talking, as if I wasn’t even in the sodding room. I went to find Paul sat with the others. I walked across the dance floor to the changing room working the legs, and sexy heels in Sam’s favourite dress, wolf whistles nice. Bet he’s thinking the underwear’s under here too. I re did the makeup, and the music played. I went out and walked up to Paul.

  “Dance with me then?” He held my hand and though not a patch on Sam, he could hold his own with the simple dances. He said I looked nice. I wasn’t that interested in what he thought I looked like, I was using him, cruel really and so not his fault. Sam was watching with her sat by his side, and they were talking. Paul asked did I want to go to Heaven. I had remembered my first time in there with Sam I felt a pang of regret that I wouldn’t be going in there with him. Shane wasn’t there anymore he had gone to Ireland to marry. I had no backup plan should things go wrong, though I did however get along with Chris and Colin the other two bouncers, and he wasn’t that stupid he k
new who my dad was, he told me he did. Great he knows if he messes up he gets a smack, I’m not messing around this time if I can’t handle it my dad can.

  “Yes that sounds ok, give me a minute to change shoes I will be ready in a minute go sit back down, this is a friendship thing Paul, I’m still a little angry and confused at the moment.”

  “Right friends, I can do that and win you over with my charm and wit Michelle, get a wriggle on we’re wasting time here.” I ummed why did I think he wanted more?

  I changed and put my shoes on, putting my dance shoes away, ready for my exams on Sunday. I went back out and overheard Karen ask Sam to take her. I hoped they wouldn’t turn up, that would be just too hard. This way I could go for a quick dance and slipway back home, after telling Paul I’m sorry he’s not the one for me. I needed to get out of here she wasn’t going to see me cry.

  “Ready? Sorry it took me so long, Heaven it is then.” He got up so fast I thought his neck would snap. I wanted to get out of here leave them to it. I looked at Sam’s face he still had feelings I knew he did, but why was he with her again, why didn’t he talk to me? Why Sam, why did you do this, oh why with her, her of all people?

  We got in the club and Paul went to get the drinks. I stood like the odd nail in a bag of screws I didn’t want to be here. Paul gave me my drink, coke laced with vodka, I drank a little and at Paul’s insistence I drank the rest in one go as instructed it was followed by a few more. I wasn’t thinking straight, he said it would make me feel better. It worked for Zoë; yes I remembered drinking helped her forget. Oh my head was fuzzy, how did she do this every bloody week? Paul got a bit touchy feely.

  I was actually repulsed by his touch and cigarette breath as he pulled me closer, roughly and greedily. Paul grabbed my hand and we danced, the alcohol rid me of any practical sense I had, fears and inhibitions I had, I wished I was dancing with Sam and for a short minute, I imagined I was. Then Sam walked in… With her… Paul went for more drinks. I couldn’t face them, so went to the toilet and she followed me there, I ignored the bitch.