Phoenix: The Beauty in Between (A Beautiful Series Companion Novel) (3 page)

Perhaps that’s
why it all started. Perhaps they treated me differently because I
look so unalike them. I suppose it was embarrassing for them when
people actually questioned my parentage… I really don’t know.
However, I do know that I’ve never felt wanted, and I’ve never felt
included.

My brother and
sister used me as their scapegoat. It was always so easy for them
to point their fingers and claim that I was the one who broke the
vase, or dropped the mobile phone in the sink full of water.

Often, I would
get home to find the house empty, and they’d all gone out to some
dinner or family event without me. While it did upset me, I
eventually got used to it.

I did try
though. I did everything I could to be a part of the family. Once,
I even had my hair bleached to try to fit in more. But all that did
was earn me a month’s grounding, another trip to the hair dresser
and a very short haircut that caused my already curly hair to look
like a frizzy ball of darkness surrounding my head.

I followed the
rules of the house, worked hard at school, hoping that somehow, it
would make my parents notice me. That it would make them decide to
love me.

Eventually, I
did do well in one of my classes. I placed first in my art class. I
remember the day I was to receive my award. I felt so proud and
actually thought my parents would attend the special assembly, put
on to honour the best students in my grade. But when I looked out
into the sea of delighted smiling faces, no one was there smiling
for me. No one cared enough to be proud along with me.

After that, I
stopped trying. I stopped caring. It didn’t matter if I came first
or last. I wasn’t going to get a smile. I wasn’t going to get a
kind word. I’d just get… nothing.

Three months
has passed since I went home and found that note. I spent the first
two weeks walking past my family home, waiting on the doorstep,
hoping to find them there and have them tell me it was all a
mistake. Some ridiculous joke gone awry. But it’s not a joke. They
were never there, and on the last day I visited, a ‘For Sale’ sign
had been erected.

They had moved,
and I had lost my last shred of hope. It meant that I needed to
move on too. So, I stopped visiting and focused on what I needed
most – a bed.

To get by, I’ve
slept on every spare bed, couch, rug and open garage belonging to
my friends that I could talk or sneak my way into.

Although, when
word started to get around that my parents had kicked me out; it
made staying with school friends a lot more difficult. Their
parents wanted to turn me in to social services. It was as if they
thought a fifteen-year-old girl would find a loving foster home. I
don’t think so.

Slowly, I’ve
moved further away from Miranda, which is the suburb I’ve known my
entire life. I’ve done my best to meet new people, to make new
friends. But those who don’t know you, aren’t always sympathetic to
your cause.

The first night
I slept outside, was the worst night of my life. Winter was just
around the corner and while Sydney isn’t the coldest place in the
world, night time is still fairly chilly. I ended up sleeping in
the tunnel section of children's play equipment in a park near
Jamisontown.

Every sound I
heard sent my heart racing. I felt that any moment, the wrong kind
of person would come along, and do unspeakable things to me. I
cursed myself for heading out west. Everyone knew Western Sydney
was a dangerous place. But I had travelled there, hoping to,
somehow, make my own way – something I wasn’t able to do in the
Sutherland Shire.

When I woke
from what little sleep I had managed to get, I thanked my lucky
stars. But I was hungry. A feeling that was becoming all too
familiar to me. The two hundred dollars my mother gave me, stopped
paying for my food weeks ago. My choices had become severely
limited.

With no money
in my pocket, I had to resort to taking what I needed. Although
sometimes, I could order food during a busy period and claim that
I’d lost my wallet. If I became visibly upset, then most of the
time, someone would either pay for me, or the clerk would tell me
not to worry.

I bathed in
public washrooms, and reduced my clothing to what would fit into a
small backpack, so I didn’t look quite so conspicuous walking
around with a large sports bag.

I was getting
by. I was surviving. I spent an entire week sleeping in different
children’s parks, undisturbed, until one night a group of people
turned up where I was huddled.

At first, I was
really frightened. I held my breath as I listened to them all
talking and laughing. Having no idea who they were and what they
were like, I prayed that they wouldn’t find me. But when I heard
the sound of a shoe hit the metal step of the play equipment, I
yelped and alerted them to my presence.

“What the
hell?” a guy’s voice said from just outside the tunnel’s entrance.
I could hear the shifting of his feet as he crouched down to peer
inside.

“Is someone in
there?” a female voice asked.

“I think so,
it’s dark though. Chuck us your phone,” he said.

The phone made
a slapping sound as it landed in his hands, and I scrunched my body
up tighter, squeezing my eyes shut tightly – it was as if I thought
it would make me disappear.

“Hello?” he
called out quietly.

“What if it’s
an axe murderer?” the girl asked in a hushed tone.

“Why would an
axe murderer be hiding in a playground? I might be a lost kid or
something,” another voice responded.

I felt trapped
and started to make my way out the other side, hoping that I could
make a run for it. The only way I could go was toward an area that
was a makeshift lookout point, with one of those pretend telescopes
and metal steering wheels. It led to a yellow plastic side, which
would be my sole chance of escape.

Moving as
quietly as I could, I crab walked toward the slide and placed my
hands on the safety bars beside it. Feeling slightly panicked, I
leapt off the side, with the plan to run until my legs gave
out.

My plans were
short lived however, because my first step led into the chest of
another person. Arms grabbed hold of me, and I started screaming,
thrashing my body to try to make them let me go.

A hand clamped
over my mouth, my eyes opened wide, suddenly terrified that all my
worst nightmares were about to come true.

“Calm down.
We’re not going to hurt you,” he told me. It was too dark to
properly make out his features, but his voice was calm and
kind.

As my eyes
darted from side to side, the others gathered around to see what
was going on.

“Were you
sleeping in there?” the girl asked.

My eyes moved
from her to the guy covering my mouth, and I nodded. “Are you going
to scream if I take my hand away?”

I shook my head
‘no’. I was starting to calm down. They all seemed to be around the
same age as me, and I didn’t feel as though I was in danger
anymore.

Slowly, he took
his hand away. “No one’s going to hurt you,” he repeated. “We were
just here to hang out for a bit.”

Nodding, I
scanned the faces of the group huddled around me. One guy took a
drag from what smelled like a joint, and passed it to the person
next to him. As he blew out the smoke, he asked, “Did you take a
bad trip or something?”

“No. I just
don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Well that
sucks,” he commented.

I was still a
little concerned by them. But, they were more inquisitive than
anything. We sat around the play equipment, passing the joint
around, while they asked me a lot of questions about who I was, and
what I was doing curled up in a tunnel.

With nothing
left to lose, I told them all about my situation. The girl who had
been speaking earlier, named Tahlia, ended up offering me the couch
in her garage.

“You can crash
there as long as you like. My parents won't give a shit,” she told
me. I don’t know if it was the wisest thing I’ve ever done in my
life, but I found myself nodding and thanking her.

So that’s where
I am now - living in a garage that smells like oil and car fumes,
sleeping on an old couch with scratchy material and broken springs.
I, at least, have a comfortable pillow and blanket to keep me warm.
So, I can’t really complain. It’s better than the park. Anything is
better than the park.

Tahlia is
probably the most outlandish person I’ve ever met. She’s a little
older than me at seventeen, with long straight blonde hair that
ends in the middle of her back. She’s taller than me, has blue eyes
and is as curvaceous as a cartoon character.

She has this
great confidence about her that I can’t imagine I’ll ever have. Her
hips sway from side to side when she walks, and everything she says
seems bold and untethered.

Her dad used to
be a biker, and still wanders around looking like he’s in a gang –
black leather jacket, old band shirt and a bandana covering his
long straight and slightly greying hair that is always secured into
a pony tail by a rubber band – not the hair ties, those thick
rubber ones that they wrap your newspaper in.

He fascinates
me when I watch him talk as he constantly has a cigarette hanging
from his lips that bounces around as he speaks in his gravelly
voice. Somehow, it never falls, and never seems to burn out.

Her mum looks
like a hippy. She always wears long flowing dresses with no shoes.
She has long dark, dead straight hair and speaks very softly, like
she is always in a state of bliss. She probably is, because hidden
in their laundry is a row of well-tended cannabis plants.

No one seems to
notice that I’m staying in the garage, or else they don’t really
care. Tahlia left school in year ten, and hasn’t decided what she
wants to do with her life yet. I don’t have a school to go to, so I
tag along with her wherever she goes.

Most of the
time we spend our days, laying about in her house passing a bong
between us as we watch lame daytime TV, and help her parents bag up
the pot for those who visit with the intent to purchase. It seems
to be a very lucrative business, as they have every mod con that
you can imagine. No one wants for anything here.

Every night is
like a party at Tahlia’s house. Consistently, there are at least
ten people sitting around, eating some sort of stew or BBQ that her
mother has cooked, and always, we’re passing a joint or the bong
between us all.

I’ve learnt a
great many ways to make a bong while I’ve stayed with Tahlia – from
using an old water bottle and a piece of hose, to the more
elaborate teddy bear honey bottle. Smoking weed has become a very
normal thing to me now, and I can’t imagine getting through my day
without it. It relaxes me and helps me forget about what’s missing
in my life.

“I was thinking
Paige,” Tahlia says to me one day while we’re doing our usual
thing, laying around the house. Today we’re in her bedroom,
flicking through fashion magazines and styling our hair to match
the models. “You’re almost sixteen. I should take you to get your
learner’s permit.”

“Why? Who’s
going to teach me to drive?”

“Me. I can
drive.”

“Yes, but
you’re still on your provisional license. You can’t teach me until
you’re on a full license.”

“So?” she
laughs, focusing on her image in the mirror as she twists up her
hair and pulls at strands around her face. “We’ll drive somewhere
quiet.”

I end up
agreeing, because it’s hard to argue with Tahlia’s logic. She has
an answer for everything.

Without much
else to do, we head into the city to the building that houses the
office for Births, Deaths and Marriages.

As with every
government office, the line is huge, and we wait for nearly an
hour. When I get to the front of the line, I hand over my form, and
empty out all the cards I have with my name and old address on them
to prove who I am.

“Don’t you have
a copy of your parent’s ID? It’s a lot easier with that,” the lady
behind the counter says to me as I offer her the entire contents of
my wallet.

“I don’t have
any parents to ask,” I tell her flatly. Her expression softens
immediately, and she apologises to me like I just told her they
were dead, and I'm an orphan.

Thinking over
what I said, I guess it kind of sounded that way. I don’t bother
correcting her. I actually prefer her thinking that.

She goes
through all of my cards and counts up the point value of each one.
I need a hundred points of ID to obtain my birth certificate, and
I’m lucky that I have just enough. God only knows how I’d get my
birth certificate without it.

Tahlia pays for
the printout, and I’m handed my birth certificate, folded up in an
envelope.

Tahlia takes it
out of my hands and looks over it.

“Let’s find out
about Paige Larsen,” she says as she reads over the document. “Why
does your dad have a different surname to your mum?”

“What are you
talking about? They’re both Larsen.”

“No,” she says,
pointing at the paper and showing it to me. “Your mother has Larsen
as her surname and Collins as her maiden name, but your dad’s
surname is Ashdown.”

“What?!” I spit
out, snatching the paper from her hands and looking at it properly
myself. “Who the hell is Daniel Ashdown?” I ask, more to myself
than anyone else.

“Well, he’s
your dad. It says right there,” Tahlia says, pointing to the paper
again.

“No. My dad is
Oliver Larsen. This guy doesn’t even live in Australia. Look – his
address is in the UK.” I jab at the page, indicating his address at
the time of my birth. “There’s some sort of a mistake. I’m lining
up again,” I tell her, heading back to join the queue