21)

My mother is sober when I fetch her. Which means she throws ever insult and snide remark she can as we drive to the house.

I’ve learnt to ignore her. I suppose that’s how I’m so good at ignoring everyone else.

My former friend group tried to ‘fix it’ but I shut all of that down very quickly.

Chiara and Danika’s group then had their attempt which had the same result.

Hadley attempted to ‘collect the date you owe me’ but I turned him down which resulted in a lot of anger, him grabbing me and the two of us fighting in the halls.

“Those bruises are very ugly, Freya.” My mother coos from besides me. “How do you expect to find a husband looking like that?”

No concern for me. Never any concern for me. Not “is it a boy who did that too you?”, “do we need to file a report against someone?” Or simply “are you okay darling?