“Great, how long will it be? Would you be able to do it today?” I asked hopefully, as I handed over the money.

“Sure sweetie, I’ve got no others in, so I can do it within the hour.” She put the money in the till and handed me a little ticket. I glanced at the clock and went to go have a coffee upstairs in the café for an hour while I waited for it, deciding to start my homework to kill some time.

I called my Mom while I was waiting, to see if she could cancel dinner, but as I thought, she refused adamantly. I knew she would, so did Mark, which is probably why he didn’t say anything to me about it all afternoon. He knew he’d have the whole evening to work on getting me back.

After an hour I went back to the Photoshop to collect it. “It came out great!” the lady enthused.

“The line is so faint that if you didn’t know it was ripped, you wouldn’t even be able to tell.” She held it out to me, obviously proud of herself.

I looked it over, she was right you could barely see the line down the centre of the little girls face, the hole at the bottom was a little noticeable where it had obviously been coloured in to match the yellow of the girls dress. Jamie was going to love this, I could see how upset he was when he saw it last night. He was trying not to show me, but he looked totally devastated.

“This is incredible! Thank you so much,” I gushed, grinning.

I was actually really excited to give it to him, I wanted to call him and see if he wanted to meet up but that didn’t fit in with the whole letting him call me first thing. Hopefully he’d call or text me tonight and I could arrange to give it to him tomorrow or something.

“You’re welcome sweetie. Here’s the disk so you can make more copies too if you want, and the original,” she said, handing me a paper bag.

“Awesome, thank you so much,” I chirped happily, skipping back to my car.

When I got home I went straight up to my room and pushed the bag into the back of my dresser drawer, before heading into the shower. When I was dry I pulled on a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top and scraped my hair up into a messy bun. No need to dress to impress tonight! I headed downstairs to help my Mom with dinner.

“Ellison, shouldn’t you get changed?” my Mom asked, looking me over disapprovingly.

Oh yeah of course she would want me to change. For my Mom everything was about looks, money and status. She believed you had to look your best all the time, she wouldn’t even do housework without a full face of makeup. This is why she approved of Mark, Mark’s father was a big time lawyer and she liked the idea of us being together because she got to associate with a different class of people. She was shallow and I worked my hardest so that I would never end up like her.

My Father on the other hand was incredible, he supported me wholeheartedly and I was a complete daddy’s girl and could do no wrong in his eyes. His attention made up for the years of disapproving looks I’d gotten from my mother, when I climbed a tree or played football with the boys, instead of playing tea parties with my dolls.

“No, I’m fine in this. Do you want help with dinner?” I asked politely, ignoring her death glare.

She sighed and nodded towards the vegetables, “You could chop those up. You do know the Barrington‘s will be here in an hour, right?” she asked coldly.

Bitch.

“Yeah I know. You do know Mark and I have broken up, right?” I countered, trying to mimic her hard tone but failing miserably.

She waved her hand dismissively. “You two will get back together,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I didn’t say anything, let her think what she wanted. Tonight was going to be extremely awkward, Mark always did know how to twist me around his finger and get me to do what he wanted, I just prayed I was strong enough to say no this time.

Chapter 7

After another ten minutes, my Dad walked in the door. I squealed and threw my arms round his neck, hugging him tightly, I hadn’t seen him since Saturday morning when I left for Stacey’s. “Hey pumpkin, how was your weekend?” he asked, kissing my forehead grinning.

I smiled happily, “It was awesome actually. What about yours?” I asked, biting my lip as my thoughts instantly flicked to Jamie, I could feel the blush creeping up in my cheeks and I prayed my Dad didn’t notice.

“It was ok, quiet without you here making your usual amount of noise and causing trouble,” he teased as he flicked my nose.

“Michael, you should get changed, the Barrington’s will be here in about half an hour!” my Mom called.

My Dad turned his nose up at me playfully, making me laugh. “Come help me close a shirt for tonight.” He winked at me, nodding towards his bedroom.

“Sure. I’ll be right back to help with the vegetables, Mom,” I called over my shoulder, skipping off after my Dad before she could stop me.

I flopped down on his bed, watching as he opened his briefcase and pulled out a bar of white chocolate and threw it at me. I laughed and instantly tore it open while he sat down next to me.

“Nice choice,” I told him, breaking it up.

My Mom didn’t allow candy, it wasn’t good for the ‘healthy body image’ that she was so keen to portray, so my Dad bought it for us in secret. This was a regular thing, us sneaking into his room to eat when he got home from work.

“So, you and Mark got back together?” he asked, shoving in another piece and chewing quickly. We had to eat it quick in case we got caught, the lectures were relentless but to be honest the risk made the chocolate taste better, it always had done since I was a little kid.