Page 58 of Waiting Game

“About Dad?”

She nodded, “about Dad.”

I nodded.

Mum searched my face, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to explain it to her, the things that her husband had exposed me to. The danger that he put his child in multiple times. I knew that it was nowhere near what Antoni had experienced, but instead of being hardened by it like he was, it only broke and weakened me.

“I get it now, Valerie. I can’t blame you anymore, but I will always be disappointed that you’re gone,” she tucked a stray curl behind my ear.

Her eyes wandered down, falling on the scar that reached from my shoulder to my collarbone, and her fingers reached out to touch it.

“I’m sorry, Val,” she said, running her finger along the raised and always red patch of skin.

My own hands reached up to touch my ringlets. They had always been a point of argument between my mother and I. Trying to brush through them every day ended with me in tears, and Mum frustrated.

When I was a little older, she started to straighten it for me so I would look ‘more polished’, and less like a ‘commonstreet rat’.

One day, she had enough of my arguing and fighting against it, that she whacked me on the shoulder with the burning hot straightening iron.

The scar never faded.

Then her fingers returned to my hair, “your curls are beautiful. I never should have told you otherwise.”

I pulled her in for another hug and held her tight.

“I love you, Valerie,” she said against my hair.

We stayed like that for a little while, and I felt the need to cry building inside of me. I had spent most of my life convincing myself that I didn’t care that my Mum didn’t love me - but god, it felt good to hear the opposite.

When we pulled away, she turned around and picked up the rest of the clothes from the floor and folded them neatly before putting them on top of the other scrunched up clothes already stuffed into my suitcase, and zipped it up.

“Goodbye, Vallie girl,” she cupped my cheek as I let her out of the hotel room.

I smiled, and watched her walk down the hall with her head held high.

* * *

I flopped into my assigned seat, and looked around the plane. It was near empty, and I was glad. I had the whole row to myself. As the plane ascended I looked out the window at the lights in the city getting smaller as we got further and further away.

I thought that the conversation with my Mum, and her support of my decision, would make me feel better about the choice I made - but I still felt that pit in my stomach.

The uneasiness that maybe I made the wrong decision.

There was guilt, for once again breaking my promise to Ren and leaving him when he needed me. But there was something else too, a nagging uneasy feeling about leaving that I didn’t feel at eighteen. I wasn’t someone who usually trusted in my decision making, but when I first fled Melbourne, I didn’t feel like this. There was a touch of anxiety, and a split second of hesitation, but at the same time I was confident in that decision. I had been planning my escape for so long, that I knew the move was inevitable. This time, the nerves were strong and the second thoughts were loud inside my head.

I was hoping that when I landed back in Perth that I could get back to normal. That my emotions were just on a high from the past few days.

I would go home, I would go back to work, I would work things out with Pete.

I could be happy again.

I would forget about Ren again, just like I did before.

It was silly of me to give in to my teenage fantasies in the first place. It wasn’t fair to me or him, though I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. But it wasn’t practical, it wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t sane. I couldn’t be with him, as much as I might’ve wanted to be. I hadn’t even been there for a week, and I had murdered a man.

Imagine the things that I would have done if I had been there for any longer.

It might have been the more painful choice, but I knew that it was the right one. Maybe I would never be as happy with anyone as I was with Ren. But maybe I could learn to be happy enough with Pete, if I really tried.

---