Free Chanelle Hayes - Baring My Heart by Chanelle Hayes Page B

are you then?’
    He was more engrossed in his toys than talking to his newaunty, so we all sat down. It was lovely to hear all about their lives and I felt a surge of empathy for Maria and Melissa as they recounted the pain of having me taken away from them.
    Melissa said she’d been in bits when I went into foster care. ‘I had to cope first with losing our mum and then you, all in a short space of time,’ she said.
    God knows how shattering it must have been for them both and Maria told me, ‘Every time I passed a little girl in the street, I’d check if it was you.’
    As for their memories of me as their new-born sister, Melissa said I was a very content baby. One of her most vivid memories of me was when our mum asked her to check on me and she said I was just lying in my cot gurgling, wriggling my hands and feet but not making any noise at all.
    They were both so emotional at that meeting and I was unbelievably touched but I felt so guilty that I wasn’t in floods of tears too. You see long-lost relatives meeting up on TV on shows like
Surprise, Surprise
and it’s like, ‘Wow! I’ve dreamed of meeting you all my life! I’m so happy we’ve found each other!’ But in reality, it churns up a lot of painful memories and sentiments that are hard to handle.
    Later, when I got home, Mum and Dad asked me how it went. I was still trying to process the whole encounter and said, ‘Yeah, it was nice – but I feel bad that I wasn’t more upset too.’
    ‘That’s understandable, Chanelle,’ Mum said. ‘You were only a tiny baby when you were split up and you didn’t know any different. So of course, coming together again was going to affect them more. They’ll understand that though.’
    Mum and Dad were both so generous in how they dealt with it all. It can’t have been easy for them to see me, who they’d raised as their own, swan off to meet these new relatives. I’d always felt so loyal to Mum, Dad and David, so the fact that Inow had another family racked me with guilt. But, as I wrestled with these feelings, I had no idea that fate would deal us yet another cruel twist in the coming weeks.

CHAPTER TEN

Old Habits
    W ith recent events constantly running through my mind like it was stuck on a loop, I made the bad move of turning back to Scott. He was now renting a terraced house in Wakefield and begged me to move in with him.
    ‘This is a new start for us, babe,’ he urged. ‘You’ve dealt with all your family stuff and I’ve cleaned myself up and got this place. Come on, let’s try living together properly. Just you and me. What do you say?’
    With my head a bit of a mess, I agreed. And my parents were obviously deeply unhappy about it.
    ‘You will regret it, trust me,’ Dad warned. ‘He’s bad news.’
    Of course, I didn’t listen though and off I went. In fairness, Scott had got himself off the drugs but, within a few days, he became as controlling as ever. He’d say things like, ‘Why’ve you got your hair like that? It looks really trampy.’
    He was critical of my clothes too. ‘Why are you wearing those tight jeans? You look like a tart.’
    Of course, I should have told him where to go but, because I’dhad such a hard time at home in the past year, I craved my independence and being with him gave me that. I was so desperate to keep him happy, even if that meant taking his constant abuse. He tried to stop me from going to school at all and then he didn’t even want me to leave the house. A simple trip to the shops would result in the Spanish Inquisition.
    ‘Where are you going? Who are you going with? What time will you be back?’ he’d ask.
    Worst of all, he told me that I was fat and ugly. ‘You need to work out more,’ he said, looking me up and down as I dressed up for a night out.
    I suppose it was a tactic to make me wear clothes that covered up more of my body. Were we living in the Dark Ages or something? I really can’t explain why I didn’t walk out straight away