Close Your Pretty Eyes Read Free

were all too messed-up to live in families. They were all bigger than me. And they were all scary. Loads of them drank or used drugs. Loads of them used to run away and live on the streets. One threatened to kill me with a knife. Another told me that if I ever went near her stuff, she’d break into my room and set fire to my bed with me in it. Loads of my stuff got nicked while I was there. Really stupid things, like the trainers Dopey Graham and Grumpy Annabel bought me, which were far too small for the big girls to wear. And precious things, like my necklace with a heart on it that was a present from my sister Hayley.
    Fairfields had lots and lots of rules. Rules about not being allowed to ask for seconds until you’d eaten everything on your plate, even if you wanted seconds of sausages and were never ever going to eat your manky beetroot, no matter how hungry you were. Rules about chores and rules about homework. Rules about stupid group therapy sessions, where we all had to sit in a circle and talk about how we felt. Rules about smacking other kids in the face even when they started it and they were bigger than you, and you were only punching them in self-defence anyway.
    Some things were OK. There was a big garden. And I had my own room. But mostly I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the big kids bossing me around. I didn’t like the staff, who kept getting new jobs and leaving. It made me tired, getting used to someone and then them just leaving. And I didn’t like all the stupid activities, like sport, and making things out of cardboard and paint, and cookery classes. I didn’t like that if I was angry or sad or rude, nobody cared, not really.
    My other families used to care. Grumpy Annabel, who nearly adopted me, cared when I called her fat and stupid. Liz cared when I had a panic attack in Asda. My first adoptive Mummy and Daddy cared when I screamed and screamed and wouldn’t shut up. Here, no one minded. I was just one of lots of kids and their shift finished at ten and they went home to their real children, who were well-behaved and clever and loved them.
    At Fairfields, I used to worry all the time about disappearing. About what would happen if I didn’t come home from school, or just vanished, if anyone would even notice. I felt like I was slipping away, all the time. I started doing that thing I used to do when I lived with Violet, where my body would be in the TV room, but my head would be floating somewhere else. Sometimes I’d float over my body. Sometimes I’d still be there, but I’d stop feeling anything. I had to be careful, though. Sometimes it would go wrong and I’d be back standing in the cold shower at Violet’s, or getting smacked into the wall by my mum, or having cigarettes burnt into my arm. I could never escape, not really.
    I was scared a lot of the time at Fairfields. I was scared that the big girls would break into my room at night and suffocate me with a pillow. I used to start crying for no reason at all. I started getting nightmares again, and I used to wet the bed too. The care workers didn’t mind, but I always hated it.
    Liz came to visit me a couple of times. The first time I screamed and screamed and wouldn’t let her into the room. The second time I threw my remote control at her and told her that I hoped she got eaten by werewolves. Both times she just turned straight around and left. But she kept coming back. And the third time I let her stay.
    â€œI still hate you,” I told her. “I still think you’re a liar and a loser.”
    Liz got up like she was about to go and I felt like I was choking, like I was dying, like everyone I ever loved was always going to leave me.
    â€œDon’t—” I said. It came out of my mouth without me even realizing it. Liz stopped.
    â€œCome on, love,” she said, and she gave me a hug. I liked it at first, but then I stopped liking it and pulled away.
    She