Me. Her. Him - Chapter One

I clutch the bannister, steadying myself at the top of the stairs. I can’t believe I’m late, when have I ever overslept? I race down the stairs, and reach for my denim jacket slung over the spindle at the bottom.

‘Hold on, Mum.’ I glance in the direction of the kitchen to my right, my head spinning. My seventeen-year-old daughter, Rebecca is running towards me, her chestnut hair flying behind her. She’s holding out a plate of buttered toast towards me, she must’ve thrown two pieces of bread into the toaster when she heard me panicking upstairs. ‘You need to eat.’

I take the plate from her. ‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ I say, taking a bite of the buttery toast. She’s cooked it to perfection, adding a tiny amount of salt. Rebecca steps back, brushing her hair over her shoulders. Her eyes flicker towards the front door than back to me. ‘What is it?’ I ask.                       

She bites her lip. ‘Well, erm, I just wanted to ask, Harriet’s mentioned to me about possibly going camping this weekend and I . . .’

‘Camping, when was this organised?’ I ask, dropping the toast on the plate.

‘Oh, we’ve been talking about it for a while,’ she says, shifting on her feet. ‘We’re going to go to this place not too far away; it’s twenty minutes in the car. It’ll be OK, won’t it?’

My heart thrums in my ears. I knew I was going to have to prepare for Rebecca wanting to go away with her mates at some point but she’s seventeen. She’s too young. She won’t be able to cope on her own. I swallow. ‘I . . . I don’t know, Rebecca,’ I say.

She frowns at me. ‘Everyone else’s parents are OK with it,’ she says, bitterness creeping into her voice.

Of course they would be. I stiffen. ‘Well, um, let me think about it, but I really don’t think it’s a good –’

‘Mum, we’ll only be twenty minutes or so down the road and it’s not like we’re going away for a week,’ she says, shaking her head.

‘I know, I know,’ I say, breathing in steadily. What if she has no phone signal where she’s going? She won’t be able to contact me if she needs my help. I won’t be able to protect her. ‘Um, look, why don’t we talk about this tonight? I really think we should –’

‘Why are you like this?’ Rebecca says, her face scrunching up. ‘You didn’t allow me to start going out on my own with my mates until I was fourteen, I’m practically an adult.’

She’s not practically an adult. She’s a year off from being an adult. I step towards her. ‘Rebecca, you have to understand, I . . . I worry that –’

Rebecca shakes her head. ‘What, what do you think is going to happen to me? I’m going away with friends I’ve known for years, you know we’ve always been there for each other.’

We’ve always been there for each other. That’s what my friend said to me once, all those years ago, when she turned up on my doorstep begging for my help.  

‘Look, Rebecca, let’s talk about this later, OK,’ I say, taking another bite of the toast, even though my appetite’s vanished. ‘I really need to get going, but don’t agree to anything until tonight, OK.’

I finish off the toast and plonk the plate on the hallway table. How could Rebecca say this to me now? Why couldn’t she have waited until later, when I’d finished work? I snatch my keys off the table, my hands trembling. Rebecca shifts back into the kitchen, muttering something under breath, something about me I bet. There’s no way I can let her go away this weekend. I can’t risk it.

I yank open the front door and slip out onto the driveway, the sharp wind stinging my eyes and head for the car.