Snakes and Ladders (Ziba MacKenzie) by Victoria Selman

Author:Victoria Selman [Selman, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542008792
Published: 2019-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 64

It’s so cold. Livy’s fingers have turned purple, the circulation’s gone from her toes. They feel like they’ve been sliced off at the knuckles. An open wound.

Not for the first time, she wonders if she made a mistake running away. Was it an overreaction? Was her mother really that bad? Bad enough to give up a warm bed and hot food for?

In her mind, she drifts back in time. Her mother clipping her stockings to her suspender belt, dabbing the inside of her thighs with YSL, sliding on her leopard print vest top, as tight-fitting as a second skin.

‘Can’t you stay home tonight?’ Livy asks. ‘Just this once. Please. I get scared by myself.’

‘I get scared by myself,’ her mother says, mimicking, pushing her tongue over her bottom teeth, shaking her wrists. ‘Jesus, can’t you speak properly? Have you any idea how half-witted you sound?’

Livy rubs her arms, her legs, bites back tears. Yes, her mother was that bad. But there’s another question still unresolved.

A year on the streets, a year away from her. And still Livy doesn’t understand what she did to make her mother hate her so much.

She has a fantasy that one day her mother will come looking for her. She’ll tell Livy she got it wrong. She doesn’t hate her. She loves her and will she please come home so they can try and be a family again?

It’s stupid, Livy knows that. A dumb dream. It’ll never happen. But she can’t help hoping all the same.

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