Caged

[Fourteen]

If I didn't leave my house within the next two minutes, I would definitely miss the next bus and be almost an hour late to meet up with Jace.

My mum had another one of her parties last night, so the house was trashed, and cigarette butts were scattered over the floor along with a whole lot of empty bottles and cans.

Last night I had pushed aside the Uni work that I needed to finish so that I could make sure that the house was clean when my mum got home. In the hopes that she wouldn't be in a horrible mood with me.

She did come home in a good mood, but it wasn't because of all my hard work. Which ended up being pointless anyway, when a group of her pub buddies decided to tag along and party it up all night in my house. They completely distracted me to the point that it was impossible to be able to even write a sentence on my assignment. It also made it incredibly difficult to catch up on the sleep that I so desperately needed.

As it was, I didn't get any of my assignment done, very little sleep, and I was in a horrible mood at seeing my hard work at cleaning completely destroyed. I still managed to be up early enough to be able to call in sick to work, even though I had only been asleep for three hours.

The dragon lady was still passed out in her bed with some random guy she brought home with her. Thankfully, we didn't have any unexpected guests passed out in their own vomit on the floor.

Instead of wasting my time cleaning up the mess, I just got myself ready for the day and walked right out of the front door.

I would probably get in a whole lot of trouble when I got home, but the thought of being late helped me push the fact of my impending doom right to the back of my mind.

It was clearly my destiny to miss this bus and be late today, because I didn't even get past my neighbours driveway before I was stopped again.

"Hi Ashlyn," my neighbour Sandy greeted in her soft motherly voice.

Sandy was another person who I was was my parents. She was only in her forties, but she was already a grandmother. Her oldest daughter had given birth just two months ago to a baby girl named Katie. 

I didn't really get the grandmother vibe from her. I didn't know my grandparents, but the vision I had was of two elderly people sitting in rocking chairs on the porch, yelling at their grandchildren to make sure they close the door to prevent the flies from getting in the house.

She was nothing like that though. She was more like the amazingly cool aunt that gave you junk food behind your parents back and spoilt you rotten. She was an amazing woman, and very caring towards everyone around her. Even towards people who most would think didn't deserve it.

She even defended my mother on the rare occasion that I vented about her. I definitely didn't think she deserved to be defended, but that was just the way Sandy was.

"Hi Sandy," I smiled back. I went to continue walking, eager to get to the bus stop in time, but was stopped once again by Sandy moving to stand in front of me and giving me a gentle hug.

I have to admit, it felt nice to be given a hug by a mother. Even if she wasn't my own, I still felt the way someone would when getting a hug from their mum.

After a few minutes, she stepped back and held me at arms length, her right hand coming up toe softly cup my cheek. "How are you sweetheart?" she asked. "We heard your mother yelling, and a saw a few people arrive, is everything okay?"

The worry was obvious in both her voice, and her facial expression. It warmed my heart immensely that she cared. "Yeah, everything is fine," I nodded. "Mum just got a little upset that there wasn't any coffee left, so naturally it was my fault." I tried to convince myself that it didn't bother me, but deep down I knew it did, and so did Sandy. "She was drunk, so she didn't really mean the things she said."