Decisions
by Cats eye

A/N: This story is about why Quistis left home to go to SeeD, please R&R and if you have time please Read Why? But you don’t have to thanks.

 I walked through our front door, I’ve lived here all my life but I’ve never got used to the smell. My whole stomach convulsed at the smell, a mix of alcohol, drugs and mould. I picked my way carefully over to the sofa, making sure not to step in the boxes full of shredded newspaper and bits of old wallpaper that fell off the wall during dad’s last drunken night. Hundreds of needles scattered around the floor threatening to pick my feet.

 I stepped over to where my foster mum was sitting, her nibble fingers shredding old newspaper into strips and dropping them in yet another box. ‘’Packing’ that’s what she called it ‘packing’ she’d sit there all day and most of the night. When I first arrived and she was in a good mood she’d take me outside and tell us that we were moving. Bringing out hundreds of the boxes but collapsing in tears when the taxi driver told her that they did not take newspaper money. Then her mood swings stopped and she’d just sit in front of the broken TV watching a show that only she could see while she was ‘Packing’.

 “Mum” She look up briefly hardly even noticing me, it’s weird calling her mum, I’ve never had one and this is not quite how I imagined it, I tried again, “Mum, listen, I…I want to leave for SeeD, will you be okay on your own?” At first I thought she hadn’t heard me, then I wished she hadn’t.

 “You’re leaving me,” she said in monotone, then “you’re leaving me, you all are, you’re all against me, I hate you, you ungrateful little wrench! After I took you in, form that horrible orphanage” She grabbed hold of me, shaking me violently, “I was right, when your father said we should have you do you now what I said? Send that one back, that’s what I said, she’s a rotten one, send her back” People always said our eyes look alike but now they are as different of possible. Her blue eyes boring into mine, her eyes full of hate and anger, my sea blue eyes full of sorrow but there was one thing in common between our eyes a look of fear a fear of being left to live the rest of our life in this hell hole.

 “Get out of my sight before I send you back to the orphanage where you came from.” I ran, I believed her, I still had the bruises from the time I broke her cup.

 I stayed in my bedroom hours, just thinking. I got to get out of here; I have to life my own life if I do not get out now I never will. I f I stay here I’ll end up like mum or an alcoholic like dad. But they are my family how would I fell if they all left me? Who would look after them, who would cook them food or collect the giro? They need me but I need my life.

 “Hey, Quistis get your scrawny butt down here now!” Great, dad’s here and by the noises coming from downstairs. Oh well, got to face the music.

 “Dad, there is something I’ve got to tell you,”

 “She’s to good for us, little miss snooty is going to join SeeD,” sneered mum. Silence, just silence then,

 “I see” murmured dad, “just because you got ‘qualifications’” he spat out the words like it was something to be ashamed of, “You can leave your family in their hour of need, your like a rat running from a ship. You disgust me, haven’t you ever heard of family values? Huh?”

 “Dad, its not like that,” I protested in vain, “I need my own life and it’s not as if it’s the family hour of need it’s more like years of need, I can’t be expected to forget my life to make sure you have enough money for drink”

 “Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you’re a selfish pig, do you know that, you have no right to say those things or be part of our family”

 “I don’t want to be part of the family I hate it, I hate you, I hate the fact that you drink all our money away, I hate the fact that you can see that mum isn’t alright but you do nothing to help her, oh it’s Quistis job, well I hate it, I hate you and I hate myself for not being able to stop it, happy now!?!” I ran to the room ignoring the shouts down stairs.

***

 I groaned as my cheap alarm clock went off. Great, my family are going to love me this morning after last night. I tiptoed down stairs not wanting to wake up my family provoking more arguments.

 I turned the taps on in our small kitchen, what I would do to have a bathroom, I don’t know. I pulled my hair into the sink and let the water run through the long blonde strands. Imagine spending all your life never having a bath. The thought made me cringe, growing old in a house, which is just about big enough for one extremely small person with no friends to live in. Five rooms including the outside toilet, no one could call this home. I’m surprised that I’m even alive with the amount of food I get. No wonder people in my class call me skinny I’m 5ft and I weigh five stone. I f I could go to SeeD learn to protect myself maybe I could actually afford some decant food but I can’t leave my family,

They took me in when no one else would, god it’s not fair! I pulled my soaking hair out of the sink knocking the radio off the counter.

‘I’m torn

I’m all out of faith

This is how I feel

I’m cold and shamed

Lying naked on the floor

Illusion never changed into something real

I’m wide-awake and I can see the perfect sky is

Torn’

I slammed the off button on the radio, great even the radio is preaching to me. I grabbed my school bag and slammed the door as I walked out of my house.

***

I ran down my road. The smell of burning reached my nostrils as I saw smoke from my house hovering over the roofs of the houses nearby.

 Hundreds of fire engines surrounded our house but that wasn’t what scared me an ambulance had just driven off sirens wailing.

 “I’m sorry you can’t go any closer” A fireman’s arm pulled me back.

 “What happen, why was the ambulance here?”

    “Well, it seems that the old woman off the house went a little haywire and set the entire house on fire, its lucky that everybody escaped alive but the entire house is ruined and I bet they weren’t insured” he then moved on to battle the flames from invading the house next door.

 I just stood there watching as the flames engulfed our house, my life.

 A sudden gust of wind caught the slightly burnt flowers in the hanging basket outside the door, making one petal float towards me. I grasped it in my hand. Ran to the end of my street and took the bus to Balamb. The last bit of fire consuming the petal as I sat down on the bus, the last sign of my old life gone. And my new one just starting.