Reggie & Me

by Marie Yates

  I know that my friends did their best, and I know that if I were staying here I’d be making much more of an effort to see them, which would make things much better much quicker.

  When Mum told me about getting a dog my first thought wasn’t to tell my friends, it was whether my new friends would like him and come over to our new house.

  I haven’t even met these friends yet.

  Writing about Reggie is as exciting as talking to someone about him. I’m not sure if that makes me a bit of a loser or just a realist about the changes that are coming. Maybe I’ve just grown up in a different way because of what’s happened.

  I see things differently now and understand that there’s more to life than worrying about who is talking about you, or who fancies who. Two days to go and I’ll be unpacking in my new room. I’ll be making a fresh start and preparing for a whole new adventure.

  Five

  Today has been full of mixed emotions. I’ve gone from not wanting to leave at all to being ready to pack the car and never come back. Maybe I was naïve to think it would just be like old times. The day started off okay as we went into town. This is something we have done a million times, but sometimes it just felt fake, like we were all having a day out together because we felt we should, not really because we wanted to. We made the most of the morning though. We’d tried on outfits we couldn’t afford and put on ridiculous make up before the shop assistant came over to ask if we needed any help. Her tone of voice didn’t exactly make us think she wanted to really help us at all, and we made a very quick exit. In one shop I actually laughed so hard I cried as we were all trying on clothes that our grandmothers would be too embarrassed to wear, and wondered how I would ever cope with moving away and starting again.I wanted a fresh start when it happened; I wanted to escape. But while I was standing in that shop, laughing with my friends, I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.

  That feeling didn’t last long. We decided that we’d go for a pizza and, without the distraction of shops and grumpy assistants, we struggled to find things to talk about. We went through the usual stuff like laughing about things that had happened in school. The only thing was that I didn’t remember most of them happening as I wasn’t told at the time. Apparently the snotty head boy had been caught around the back of the PE store with a girl from Year Nine, and one of two of the girls in our year, who had been voted most likely to be pregnant before the exams (it was an unofficial vote!), had phoned up to be on Jeremy Kyle. It seems that there were lots of funny things happening while I was desperately wishing my friends would just make an effort to talk normally around me. Although, maybe if I wasn’t so busy wishing they’d act normal and just tried to act normally myself, I would have known what was going on and had a great distraction. I don’t know if knowing someone who has appeared on Jeremy Kyle should count as a claim to fame, but it would definitely have been a distraction. It took so much effort for me to get to school and get through the day that I almost then expected everyone else to make the rest of the effort on my behalf. ‘Normal‘, what is that anyway?

  I thought I’d give it a go while we were waiting for our pizza to arrive and just laughed along with them and asked a couple of questions about what happened. It was just too easy. They told me the stories, we laughed and it felt ‘normal‘. It felt good. Then as our food arrived and we got stuck in, someone asked if I was looking forward to moving. All eyes turned to me and as I looked up, it hit me that this would probably be the last time that we would all be sitting around eating pizza together without a care in the world. It also hit me that I didn’t feel too sad about that. It is time for a change.

  I told them about Reggie and how excited I was to finally be getting a dog. They looked at me like I was from another planet. Apparently having to go out for walks and picking up poo is not something that they found all that exciting. Their loss, but I was a bit gutted that they just laughed about it when getting a dog is something I’m really excited about. They didn’t even want to see the picture, so I quietly put my phone away and tried to hide behind my pizza as my eyes nearly leaked, it must have been the chili. Their complete lack of interest just showed me that I had changed, and probably grown up a bit, while they were still much more interested in what colour their nails were and how they were going to get the attention of the hot geography teacher. I have bitten my nails since before I can remember – much to the annoyance of Mum who has kept ‘stop and grow’ in business for the last few years – so I couldn’t care less about the colour of nails. I also don’t see the attraction with Mr Geography, who makes no attempt to hide the photographs of his very pretty wife, so I don’t think he’s worried about the attention of the soon to be Year Elevens.

  We ate our pizza and split the bill without any more talk of me moving away. They said that they were going to treat me to a trip to the cinema after we had eaten as a goodbye present, but I’d had enough. I didn’t tell them that, it was a nice thought, but I said I had promised to help Mum pack.

  It wasn’t the emotional goodbye I thought it might be.

  We all said we’d miss each other and promised to keep in touch, but I knew we wouldn’t. I didn’t believe their words. Never mind their words; I didn’t believe my own. I watched them all walk away and they didn’t look back.

  I didn’t feel sad, I felt strong. I was no longer relying on other people to make me feel like I fitted in. I didn’t need to fit in. I always thought that ‘fitting in’ would be the best way to be happy and have a lot a lot of friends. Today proved to me that I could be really happy by following my own ideas and not just laughing along for the sake of it. So what if I want to get up and stupid o’clock and walk a dog in the rain. They would never understand that it’s not just about early mornings and poo bags, it’s about wanting to feel safe again. As I walked away, I felt a real sense of freedom. I now have the opportunity to be whoever I want to be. I guess that if I was staying around here I would still have that opportunity and would probably just have made more effort to redevelop the friendships, but this completely clean break feels really good. I won’t have any history or anything that I need to explain. I can create my own history where I’m not just the girl who’s had a rough time. I’m just a girl who is having a fresh start. Now all I need to do is decide exactly who this all new and improved version of me will be.

  I think that today has been the first step in finding her as I didn’t feel like I had to pretend any more. I didn’t stay with them and go to the cinema simply because I felt I ‘should’ or to make them feel better. I wasn’t rude as I certainly don’t want that to be their final memory of me, but I also wasn’t the timid girl who’d been around for the last few months. I was assertive and it felt good. This has gradually been happening more and more over the last few weeks. I couldn’t even decide whether I wanted a cuppa or not when it first happened, but gradually I’ve been able to make decisions again. I didn’t need to make decisions at first. Once I told Mum and we went to the police, everything just kind of happened. At home I was looked after, fed and watered. I didn’t need to decide what to eat as Mum did everything for me, I didn’t need to decide where to go as I wasn’t leaving the house, and I didn’t even need to decide what to watch on TV as Mum was checking every programme to make sure there wouldn’t be anything that would upset me. Before, I wouldn’t have given a trip to the cinema a second thought. If that’s where everyone wanted to go then I’d happily have gone along too. Today felt different. I just didn’t want to go. Actually saying it, not being rude about it and thanking them for the thought, reminded me that I could take back a bit of control over what I wanted to do and that it was okay to do that.

  In the book I’m reading about training dogs it says that you should always remain calm and assertive so that the dog knows who is in charge. Turns out that works on humans too!

  Six

  I am sitting in my new bedroom, surrounded by boxes, and rather than unpacking I thought the most productive thing I could do was wr
ite in my journal. It could be that I really need to write or it could be that I’m just brilliant at avoiding the jobs I don’t want to do. Either way, I’m not going to be doing any unpacking in the near future!

  Today was the big move. It started off well with the removal van and a team of guys turning up. Mum was getting slightly neurotic about whether they’d be here on time so she was very reassured when they were a whole four minutes early. They must be used to slightly neurotic people though as they were very patient with Mum as she went through a detailed explanation of how important every single box was.

  Mum cried as we locked up our house for the final time. I suppose that if it wasn’t for everything that has happened she wouldn’t even have thought about moving. I know that a little part of her would be thinking of Daniel too. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe this was a good thing for both of us. Mum couldn’t spend the rest of her life in this house just on the off chance he might turn up one day. I couldn’t care less if he never turned up. I kept that thought to myself though.

  As usual, we had packed up a picnic for our journey. The search for the cheese had created a small panic this morning as Mum thought she’d put all the cold stuff in one place and we can’t go anywhere without a cheese and pickle sandwich. Luckily the crisps, jaffa cakes and Haribo had been spotted, and I can’t say I worried too much when we couldn’t find the apples. We had all of our really special things in the car with us. It was a four-hour journey and as usual, we travelled for about 10 minutes, got on the motorway and then started on the sandwiches. I don’t think we have ever actually left our picnic alone for more than 20 minutes, regardless of what time of day it is or how far we’re going.

  We had about an hour to ourselves in the new house before the removal team arrived. Mum had thought of everything though and magically produced two mugs, teabags and milk from a little cool bag. She’d even remembered to pack a teaspoon. We sat on the floor in our brand-new, empty, beige living room, cuppa in hand and continued tucking in to our picnic.

  I had remembered everything about our new house and I immediately felt safe. As it is brand new, on a new housing development it really is just ours. Nobody has ever lived here before and that feels really special. It also means that everything is beige and magnolia. That’s okay though as Mum said we can put our pictures up and make it our own. There’s a rule about not painting the walls for a few months apparently, but there aren’t any rules about posters and pictures!

  I just sat there, on the floor of my new room. It was a completely empty space. No furniture, no curtains, not even a lampshade. A brand new start.

  My special boxes couldn’t be unpacked until I had something to unpack them into, so I did what any girl in my situation would do and tweeted a picture of my empty room. Nothing is real until it has been tweeted. It is official, I have moved house and I have no idea what to do next.

  The peace was soon shattered with the sound of the removal team bringing everything in and trying to get everything in the right rooms. Mum was explaining once again the importance of each and every box. As she was getting more and more high-pitched I just wanted to apologise, but they took it in their stride. If I had a pound for every time she said, ‘Careful, watch the walls,’ I’d be a millionaire. Watching them get the sofas in was quite entertaining. In this new house, our living room is on the middle of three floors, so they had to get the sofa up the stairs and around a very tight corner. I was seriously impressed that they managed to do it without making even a tiny mark on the magnolia walls; no doubt it was thanks to Mum telling them to be careful.

  The picture I had drawn of my room was coming to life. My desk is by the window so that I have natural light and can make the most of the view into the garden. My bed can only really fit along one other wall as I have brand new fitted wardrobes, and then my little stand for my stereo fits perfectly behind the door.

  With the stereo set up and P!NK playing at full volume there was only one option. Dance around the room. This was probably the only time I’d be able to see the carpet so I made the most of it.

  All the boxes we had packed up were left in the designated rooms under the watchful eye of Mum who only took a break from her supervisory role to make more tea. I admit that I could have been more useful, but when Mum reaches that level of high pitched-ness (is that a word?!), it’s best just to stay out of the way.

  My dancing was rudely interrupted by a knock on the door and an unusually smiley mother. Our shopping had been delivered. Seriously! Mum had even done our online shopping in preparation. We found more Jaffa cakes and the fresh milk, made another cuppa and sat looking at the boxes for a little while longer.

  So this is me unpacking! I said I’d start on my room. I’ve been sitting here ever since. My desk only has my journal and pencil case on it, and it is amazing how clearly I can think without all the usual piles of paper, books, magazines and unfinished homework around me. No doubt I’ll start off with a tidy desk and a tidy room and within a week it’ll look like a bomb has gone off in here.

  Here’s to my new start. I can get my room to look any way I want it to look, and I can do the same with everything else. I thought I’d feel lonely, but I felt lonelier when I was with my ‘friends’ yesterday. There is something quite liberating about being anonymous and free to just be ‘me‘. I am so much more than what happened to me, and now I have a chance to be the person I am meant to be without also having to challenge people’s perceptions of me as a victim.

  But first…I need to unpack.

  Seven

  Waking up in our new house was quite a surreal experience this morning. At first I didn’t know where I was and I felt quite scared. Then it all came flooding back. My old life had gone. I thought about calling one of my friends, but I couldn’t figure out why. We didn’t have much to say when we were together, so I wasn’t sure what we’d say on the phone. If in doubt, tweet. I sent them a tweet saying I missed them and immediately had tweets back saying they missed me too. That was enough to cheer me up, it’s exactly the same thing I would have done if I was back in the old house, which seems a bit silly now. I can’t actually remember the last time I spoke to any of them on the phone. Mum doesn’t start work until I start the new school so we have lots of time to get settled in and find our way around. It’s not long now until Reggie will join us too. That’s currently my only motivation to get the boxes unpacked and everything sorted!

  As soon as I thought about getting motivated and doing some unpacking, Mum called me downstairs where I was greeted with a full English breakfast and a cuppa.

  Now, I could get used to this.

  She said it was to celebrate the start of our first full day in the new house and that I shouldn’t expect it every day. I was just thankful her voice had returned to its usual pitch.

  How many females does it take to figure out how to use a dishwasher? Two…plus the power of Google as we had lost the instructions. We didn’t have one in the old house and it was one of the things we were really looking forward to having here…if only we could figure out how to use it!

  There are still quite a few boxes to unpack thanks to my ability to do everything except empty them, so I was quite pleased when Mum asked if I wanted to go and explore the town. She said it would be better for us both than having a quiet day at home. She also pointed out that we may not be able to have days out in the same way we used to when Reggie arrives, so we should make the most of it now. That’s true I suppose. Although I still can’t wait to go and collect him.

  After I was raped, it was the quiet times that I found the hardest. I think Mum still worries about me having too much alone time as sometimes my head can wander back to the dark times. It’s not that I need to distract myself all the time or that I feel like I need to be busy in order to cope, it’s just that when I spend long periods of time on my own without anything to do I can struggle to focus on good things. When my mind wanders like that I sometimes find myself thinking about what happened and then t
he old horrible feeling of fear come flooding back. The word ‘fear’ is used a lot, but that really doesn’t even begin to cover it. Complete and utter terror doesn’t really explain how it feels either. A part of me just gets deflated, all of a sudden I feel like any control I thought I had has disappeared, and I don’t trust myself even to make a simple decision like what to wear or whether to have Hula Hoops or Skips to eat. I guess that sounds a bit ridiculous, always Hula Hoops right?! It just isn’t that simple when I slip back into the dark times. I just don’t see the point of anything and even though it sounds a bit dramatic, I genuinely don’t care if I just stay in bed all day. When I feel like that I don’t care that I’m on my own as who would want to be friends with me anyway? It’s more than just not caring, it’s like the part of my brain that makes me, me, has been punctured like an old bike tyre. No matter how much nice-ness people try to pump into it, there’s nothing happening. It’s only me who can fix it, stick a magic patch over it and pump it full of my own nice-ness. I love that new word. It can take a while to get myself back from there and it could be so easy just to get under the duvet and not make the effort to do anything. I remember those days though; I spent a fair few days under the duvet. We can safely say that they were not happy days. They weren’t supposed to be happy days. As everyone kept telling me, ‘It’ll take time for you to recover’ and ‘You need to deal with this in your own way so that you can recover.’ Nobody could tell me when I would ‘recover’ though and what ‘recovery’ would actually look like. So, for me, recovery is an inner tube! I’ll probably keep that one to myself as Jane would no doubt have a few things to say about it.

  When I broke my wrist a couple of years ago I remember people making similar comments to me about needing to take time to recover, only they came with timescales and tangible things that I could look out for to tell me that I was recovering. When I had the plaster off I honestly thought I would never be able to move my wrist again. I was scared and it really hurt! Yet, just as the doctor and the physio said, it was better within six months. I did as I was told, did my exercises and now I have a fully functioning wrist again. I do wish the same thing could happen this time. There isn’t a programme to follow, a simple tried and tested formula to lead me to recovery, and there’s nobody to tell me what it would look like when I got there.