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Saoirse

 

 

 

When I woke up the morning after my birthday, there was no one else in the apartment. My ma was still out.

I tucked my journal under the mattress and slipped the twenty euro into my pocket. I told myself to remember to ask Diarmuid to drop me off at the shops after school.

As always, he was there waiting to pick me up.

“Write in your journal yet?” he asked me at breakfast.

I swallowed my eggs, almost choking.

“Told it any secrets?” He winked at me.

I wish you were mine, Diarmuid.

I felt my cheeks heat up. I shrugged. “Not yet,” I lied. I eyed the shadows under his eyes. “You look kinda tired today,” I said, glad to change the topic.

His lips pressed together momentarily before he shrugged. “Didn’t sleep very well.” That was all he’d say before he changed the subject.

Looked like we were both keeping secrets.

After school Diarmuid stopped at the local shop when I asked him to. He wanted to come in and help me carry my stuff. I had to argue with him not to help. He wouldn’t be happy if he knew that I was buying smokes for my ma.

I know, stupid to protect a woman who cared nothing for me. But she was still my ma. I think I was also a little embarrassed for her.

I convinced Diarmuid to stay in the car by telling him that I had to buy “woman’s stuff”. He took the hint and his face went a little pink before he muttered, “I’ll wait here, then” under his breath.

In the store, I grabbed a loaf of bread, some cereal and a carton of milk, calculating the total in my head. With the pack of tobacco I knew she liked costing fifteen euro, I’d just have enough. I set my items on the counter and asked for a pack of rollies, too. The man behind the counter didn’t blink as he grabbed the tobacco and rang up the total. They knew me here. They knew I was always sent here to buy for my ma.

I glanced out the glass shop window. Diarmuid was on his phone, so he wasn’t looking. I grabbed the smokes and shoved them into my jacket pocket so they wouldn’t be seen through the thin plastic bag. I hated hiding things from him.

After Diarmuid dropped me off with calls for me to have a good weekend, I watched him go from the sidewalk. Weekends were the worst. Two whole days without seeing him.

At least I could go shopping this weekend. Maybe Moina would come and help me buy my first bra.

I opened the door to my apartment to find my ma, sitting on the couch in her matching a ratty velour sweatpants and jacket, sucking on a glass pipe, her eyes as wide as a doe’s.

“Oh, ye fucking decided to come home, did ya now, you little thief.” Her words came out of her mouth in puffs of white smoke that gave the air a sharp medicinal scent. “Where ya been?”

Ugh, I hated when she got speedy. She got so chatty and followed me round the apartment asking stupid questions, picking at her arms or pulling at her eyebrows.

“At school.” Duh. I rolled my eyes and threw her pack of tobacco and rollies at her. They landed on the table in front of her, right next to the tiny plastic bag of crystals. “I got your stupid smokes.”

“Looks like you got more than that, selfish girl,” she said, indicating the plastic bag in my other hand. The lighter clicked as she took another hit of her stupid drug. “I didn’t say you could buy yourself shite with my fucking money.”

Buy myself shite? I gritted my teeth, shoving down the anger swirling hot in my stomach. I’d learned that the best thing to do was not to argue with her when she was in this mood. Just stay out of her way.

I walked to the kitchen and put away the scant groceries I’d bought with the five euro change from her smokes, shutting out her jabbering about how I was disrespectful and had notions that I was better than her.

I walked past her, smacking down the twenty-four cents change that was jangling around in my pocket. “Here.”

Then I aimed straight for my room, her still nattering away about nothing in between clicks of the lighter. All I wanted to do was to grab my shit and go to Moina’s. I couldn’t stay here while she had a fresh bag of meth. A fresh bag…

Something niggled in my head.

It had been her last twenty euro that she gave me. Where did she get the money to buy drugs?

My stomach dropped into my toes as I opened the door to my room. The bed that I had made this morning was tossed about, my mattress askew, my journal fallen onto the floor.

No.

I glanced to my bookcase. All my books had been pulled out and were scattered like fallen doves across my floor. My eyes narrowed on my old math textbook, landed on its side.

No no no.

I fell on my knees before it, reaching for the book with shaking hands. I grabbed the book and shook it out. Nothing fell out.

Gone.

My hundred euro was gone.

Fury unleashed inside me. I leapt to my feet before I knew what I was doing and ran into the living room where my ma was now on her feet.

“You took it, you fucking bitch,” I yelled. “Give it back.”

She pointed an accusing finger at me. “You took my last twenty euro. I needed a smoke.”

“I got you your stupid smokes. Give me back my money.”

“Your money? You are a little criminal just like your father.” The decrepit woman masquerading as my mother laughed. “Tell ye ma the truth. Who’d you steal it from?”

Tears stung my eyes. I was never getting my present back. No new bra. No new backpack. She’d stolen it and spent all of it on her stupid fucking drugs.

“That was my birthday present,” I roared and threw myself at her, hitting out at her.

She just gathered my wrists and held me. She was surprisingly strong, despite how gaunt she’d become. Meth will do that to a person.

“You little liar. Nobody gives a hundred fucking euro as a present.”

“Diarmuid did,” I said, my voice cracking into a sob.

I wanted to hurt her. But it was useless, the anger draining out of my body, replaced with utter despair. Hurting her wouldn’t get my present back. Hurting her wouldn’t turn her into someone who cared.

My ma let go of my wrists and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me until my teeth rattled. “You dirty slut. Are you sucking his dick?”

“What?” I screamed, my cheeks flaming red. “No!”

“No man gives a woman nothing unless she’s giving him a bit of something.”

I tore myself out of her grasp. “Diarmuid’s not like that. He cares about me.”

The dumb bitch began to laugh, her cackle echoing through the room. “You stupid girl. Nobody cares about you.”

The tears I’d been holding back broke free. I turned and ran for the door, her words echoing in my head as I fled.

Nobody cares about you.

Nobody cares.

Nobody.