Paint it yellow- Chapter 2

Chapter 2
 
I suppose I should start from the beginning, not the beginning of time or the earth or of my life, but the time that my life started getting more and more messed up.
My name is Wattle Amelia Goodlin. Yes my initials spell wag, yes I’ve been teased about all throughout primary school but hey it could be worse. I have been on this earth for fourteen and a half years now but I feel like an old lady reaching the ripe old age of eighty.  I live with my Mum and Granma no, I didn't always but ever since my mum started not being able to cope my Granma decided to move in.
Anyway I have a brother, well had a brother, not sure if I would consider him one now. Not since he just took off and didn’t tell anybody. It broke my mum’s heart all over again. It was because of the day my dad died.
 
The day that my life changed was one full of sadness, shock and disbelief.  
It was a summers day, and me and my dad were busy spray-painting one of my art projects a bright yellow. It was a sculptor of the world and represented how if everybody was happy and didn’t judge people then the world would be a good place. That’s where the yellow came in. You know how yellow is supposed to be a happy and vibrant colour? Well that is what I pictured the world will be like, happy and vibrant. That was not the case for me.
That very same afternoon my dad went into hospital due to a heart attack.
I was there when he had it, the heart attack, one minute he was a happy and smiling, the next minute he was on the floor. I didn’t know what to do so I screamed for mum and then bent down to see if he was alive. He was breathing but only just.
Waiting for the ambulance was the hard thing, making sure that he was still breathing and hoping that the paramedics would get there in time.
They didn’t.
 
The funeral was the hardest part, the flowers, the black, the tears and people telling you that everything will be okay after a while.
I didn’t talk to anybody for a week after the funeral. I remember sitting on my bed, crying and feeling like shit. I felt like I was in a tunnel that seems to go on forever with no sign of an exit or an emergency lane. Well two months later, I’m still in that tunnel.
It was around a month ago that Josh, my brother, left without a trace. One day he just picked up his suitcase and walked out. No warning, no goodbye, he just left. I guess he was just fed up with all the crap around the place. So he left, I am sort of jealous of him. There are so many days when I wish I could just get up and leave. I’ve seriously contemplated doing so a few times as well. But I can never leave my mum, no matter how hard things get.
 
I gave up trying to fit in after the funeral. I just no longer gave a fuck what others expected off me or what I was expected to do. Simply because I couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort of keeping up with the latest trends. It was easier to just ignore it all and that is what I still do.  I get so angry at the world for being drawn into the ‘norm’ and their obsession with being part of it.  I just paint and read and paint and read, knowing that that gives me some peace from it all.
 
Tears swell in my eyes and I roll of the bed, landing on the floor. I lie there for a few more minutes until I start to feel an ache in my bladder, sighing I get up and go to the bathroom.
Looking in the mirror I see how pail I am, two months of solid crying, hunger and depression could do that to anyone. My eyes go to my dirty brown hair and find it in a complete mess; I don’t even bother trying to brush it. I strip off and hop in the shower. Looking down at my body I see skinny limbs and a flat tummy. Everybody was always jealous of my build but truth is I hate it, hate the way that people look and think, oh I wish I was like her, look at that skinny body. Don’t people have better things to be concerned about! 
I stand in the shower for ages after I wash myself, feeling the warm water run of my body and comfort me in a way that I can’t describe. It is something like when you snuggle down in bed and you feel all safe and sound like nobody can harm you mixed with when you dive into a cool pool after a boiling hot day and you feel all refreshed and rejuvenated. 
 
I stay in the shower just before the water goes cold, then quickly jump out, dry myself and slip into my dressing gown not wanting to freeze. Waddling into my room I try and find my tracksuit paints and jumper.  I find my jumper on my desk but the tracksuit paints are harder to find. Looking everywhere with no luck I bend down and feel under my bed. My hand hits something hard and cold, grabbling around I get a grip on it and pull it out. Glancing down at it I miss a breath in remembrance.... tears... screaming... throwing everything I could grab my hands on... my paints and pencils... throwing them down in anger and rage... kicking them and stamping on them... the images came back and my breathing increases, getting harder and sharper. I coil over in pain, knowing that it would make breathing harder but not being able to help it. Every breath I take is a gasp, a gasp so coarse that at times I’m not even sure if I took in any air. The tears are now coming thick and fast and I don’t do anything to stop them. Slowly and with much pain I reach for my puffer. Pulling it up to my mouth I go through the routine, in and out, in and out. My breathing starts to be more even and I’m able to lie down on my bed. I lie there for hours and breath, not thinking, not crying, just lying and breathing. Only to be interrupted by the chirping birds and breathing from my mum next door.
 
Around eleven at night I turn out my light and start to dream, vivid, wild and scary dreams. Nightmares really, ones that make you squirm, make you feel like you have bugs crawling all over you and wake up sweating in your own terror. I’m unable to sleep after that and toss and turn all night with so many things going around in my mind.
 
Morning came and brought that dark cloud of despair called school. After school I went to the library in need of some new books. I found a whole stuck of books and head home to read them. That was my plan anyway, but in my life I get use to my plans changing at a drop of a hat. Turned out my mum had actually gone to work, which meant that she would be hungry and that I’d have to make dinner.
I have to go the shops because of the lack of food in our house and I pick up all I need,
At home I go about it half-heartedly and don’t really get into it but frying up some chicken I feel a sort of excitement rush through my body and I start to enjoy it. I get into a sort of rhythm as I cut up tomatoes and make a salad. I decide to make a brownie, digging out a recipe from a cooking magazine, and go about sifting flour, melting chocolate, adding sugar and mixing it all together. After I put it in the oven I sit down and eat the chicken and salad. Then it’s the brownie’s the gooey, chocolaty, sweet jewels. I serve it with vanilla ice-cream and eat it with the goodness rans down my throat and into my stomach. The chocolate stays on my tongue and reminds me of a happier time. A time when I didn't cry on my bedroom floor, when I laughed and smiled, when I had a proper family and I know that I’m in love.