All That I Need

Episode 10

Lily’s POV

So I’d made a friend. And nothing made me happier than that. Klarissa was such a lovely person, and I liked her a lot. She seemed like the perfect person to be my first friend.

I absolutely hated that I had to lie to her about my life, but I was embarrassed. If she knew about me, about how I came about, about how I’ve lived on the streets most of my life, and even the condition I was still in at home right now, she would definitely change her mind. No one wants a mess for a friend.

So I’ll just have to keep up my lie about a life I used to have in Sydney. I wish that was my past, not what it actually is. But, unfortunately, you can’t change your life.

We spent recess and lunch chatting, talking about our lives. She told me about her brothers and sisters, and even introduced me to her twin brother, Kalvin. He seemed just as sweet as her.

I told her lie after lie about Sydney. About the huge job my mum had working as a lawyer. About my dad. My horrible dad who was always violent and rude to us.

I knew it was so bad. But I kept digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole of lies. I felt bad. But it was better that she heard about this past, and not the one I actually have.

———

“I finally got to the doctor’s today,” mum said to me when I got home from school a few days later, and we were sitting on our mattress. It doubled as a couch.

We had been talking for hours. I had told her all about my first few days at school. How nice the teachers in the support class are, and how much I was enjoying learning. I also told her about my friend, Klarissa.

She was so happy for me that she had tears coming out of her eyes. And that’s when I knew I could never tell her about what almost happened to me on my first day. She would be absolutely heartbroken.

What happened still haunted me, but I knew I just had to try my best to suppress it beneath other better thoughts.

Right now, I looked at mum. I knew she was hoping to make enough money soon enough to get to the doctor’s. But she hadn’t told me she was going today.

“Are things alright?” I asked. Years and years on the streets hadn’t done good for our bodies. I was lucky, as she was always caring for me. Making sure I was okay and not getting sick. As a result; she had hardly cared about her own health.

But she had noticed skin marks popping up all over her body. It started with a few, but it was slowly getting worse.

“It should be. The doctor told me that they look like nothing more than non-cancerous skin marks,”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I was glad it was nothing to worry about. I couldn’t lose my mum so soon. Especially when I had no where to go.

“However; they are going to do a scan to make sure that they aren’t indicators of something else within my body. In some rare cases they could be an indication of something worse. There’s a chance they still could be cancerous. They also want me to get them checked once a month,” Mum said.

“And will you be making enough money to afford all the check-ups? And the scan?” I asked. I was nervous. If they wanted her to come back, it must mean that they’re worried about the marks.

“Hopefully. But you don’t need to be worrying about that, darling,” she said, patting my shoulder.

“I hope they’re just skin marks. And that they don’t indicate something bad. I love you mum,” I said, embracing her in a warm hug. We stayed like that for a while. My mum meant the world to me.