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Back My Spare Heart Save as PDF
Chapters (25)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. PRAISE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CHAPTER 1
  5. CHAPTER 2
  6. CHAPTER 3
  7. CHAPTER 4
  8. CHAPTER 5
  9. CHAPTER 6
  10. CHAPTER 7
  11. CHAPTER 8
  12. CHAPTER 9
  13. CHAPTER 10
  14. CHAPTER 11
  15. CHAPTER 12
  16. CHAPTER 13
  17. CHAPTER 14
  18. CHAPTER 15
  19. CHAPTER 16
  20. CHAPTER 17
  21. CHAPTER 18
  22. CHAPTER 19
  23. RESOURCES
  24. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  25. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I dragged myself out of bed and went through Mum’s fridge. I made myself a ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich and went back to my room, where I sat cross-legged on my bed to eat it.

It was boiling hot so I threw on some shorts and turned on the air con. That’s when I realised that even though there were lots of good things in my life, I was within my rights to be angry about Mum. And as I sat with that thought, allowing myself to feel the anger, I wanted to punch holes in the walls.

I decided that when Mum got home, I was going to go off at her. And I was going to do it again in the morning, when she was sober. I was determined to tell her that she couldn’t keep breaking her word to me or else I wouldn’t see her anymore. I wanted to tell her that she had to get her shit together.

I’d never really yelled at Mum before but I knew I needed to, and god was she going to get it.

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

I heard a taxi pull up in the driveway a little after nine and braced myself to go the hell off at Mum. But as soon as she opened the door I realised she wasn’t alone. There was a man’s voice and the two of them were talking and laughing.

‘Phoebe must be asleep,’ I heard her say. ‘Teenagers, they sleep like logs, don’t they?’

‘I must still be a teenager then,’ the man joked.

Bottles clanged together as they were plonked on the coffee table and then Mum turned on Fleetwood Mac, flat out. God, I hated it!

I couldn’t go off at Mum about her drinking while the man was there, but I could shout at her to turn down the music.

I shot out of my room and stormed into the living room. The music was so loud that they hadn’t even noticed me walk in.

The man had a spotty head shaved to hide the fact that he was going bald. He wore a grey V-neck T-shirt beneath a baby blue dress jacket, blue jeans and shoes that looked like slippers. He was pouring glasses of wine and Mum was facing the stereo, looking at playlists on her phone.

‘Can you turn it down?’ I screamed. But they couldn’t hear me. ‘Turn it down!’ I screamed again. Mum swung around and fumbled with her phone, eventually turning down the volume.

‘Oh, hi Pheebs,’ she said with a goofy smile. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘Well, obviously I’m not,’ I said, as bitchy as possible.

‘This is Simon,’ she said, gesturing to the man.

I could feel him staring at me before I even turned my attention to him.