The Girl Who Gave a Damn

By Scholastica U. Lawrie

When Andrew Peterson was mentioned on the day his nemesis from school went missing, the name of this socially inadequate young man from Marias past filled her with terror.

The shallow grave had been disturbedletting loose the fear that she let rest in the interior of her mind, prompting a psychological anarchy that ripped through her subconscious, causing debilitating nightmares, and traumatizing her.

Will Marias dreamworld collide with her real life? Will she ever overcome Andrew Peterson and restore her well-choreographed and sheltered existence? Or will a single kiss given to save him from embarrassment and a friendship born of compassion become a disastrous mistake with deadly consequences?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496993397

Book preview

AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2014 Scholastica U. Lawrie. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  10/27/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9338-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9337-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9339-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

ABOUT THE BOOK

CHAPTER 1

M aria Stone jumped out of bed, still half asleep. She had just emerged from a nightmare so frightening and distressing that she, though irrationally, felt a genuine compulsion to escape from the scene and run for her life. The event in the afternoon and the subsequent mentioning of a particular name by her mother on the same day had inadvertently disturbed the shallow grave and let lose the fear that had been laid to rest in the interior of her mind. The past was back to haunt Maria, and little did she know that what manifested itself as a nightmare though terrifying it may have been, was indeed the raising of its head by a greater evil ready to rip apart what until, now had been a well-choreographed and sheltered life. A whole new chapter had opened up in the life of this former star student of Saint Francis College and the solace, that priceless reward for innocence, was about to be drained out of it.

The dawn of this psychological anarchy, awakened and ready to run amok, was so debauched, so traumatising in its character that as if Maria had just managed to out-run the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, she had leaped out of bed, dazed and bewildered, her heart pounding and beating loud and fast. The ability of her sight to adjust to the darkness was delayed by the panic, and in consequence, the blackness of the room appeared to her infinite and haunted. Her thoughts too scrambled and her legs too weak to support her bodyweight, she staggered and fell against the wall. In her terror and great urgency to evacuate her bedroom, Maria had forgotten to turn on the light, and just by luck, she had scrabbled her way towards the exit and eventually found the doorknob. She opened the door and bolted out of the room into the hallway; she turned the corner and ran into the kitchen, still choking and coughing violently. Shaping her palms into the shape of a bowl, she collected some water from the cold tap and splashed it on her face.

As if her voice box had been energised by the pandemonium, her lungs at full capacity and without any constraint, she yelled out, ‘Fuck you, Andrew Peterson!’

She screamed in a loud voice before falling to the floor on her hands and knees and weeping furiously. The scream echoed through the rented little flat on the second floor of the townhouse. The sound of her voice increased in volume as it travelled through the narrow hallway, vibrating its way through the reedy drywall material that divided the bedrooms and woke Sarah, her flat mate and best friend. She remained seated; her eyes gazed blankly at the wall as if, when her body escaped from the nightmare in such a hurry, it had forgotten to bring her soul back with it. Eventually, she went back on her hands and knees, dragged herself up from the floor, and began searching purposelessly through the drawer.

Sarah hurried into the kitchen. She was worried, her eyes wide open and her forehead crinkled up with concern; she rushed over to her friend, her hands held out in front ready to catch Maria, fearing she would break down and throw herself at her.

On hearing Sarah’s frantic entrance, Maria discontinued her rummaging; she turned round and leaned against the drawer instead, still overwhelmed by the fear that got her out of bed in the middle of the night in such a panic.

After the frantic escape from her bedroom, the loud cry, the screaming of Andrew Peterson’s name, Maria had sunk into oblivion, only to be roused from it by Sarah’s presence, but just as far as mere senselessness. Her left hand was placed on her forehead as if she needed to hold her head in place to stop it from dropping right down to her chest, and she wrapped her right hand round her upper body. She appeared exhausted and glum.

In all the years that Sarah had shared the flat with Maria, she had never seen her look in such a mess. ‘Did that scream come from you?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

Questions could have gone on and on, but something told her she was not going to get a sensible reply from Maria; she looked far too distraught for that. Maria slowly raised her head up to apologise for having woken her friend up from sleep, blinking her eyes repeatedly in an effort to repress tears, her voice weak and lacking in its usual spirit.

Sarah ignored the apology, the troubled spectacle in front of her left no time for sentimentality.

Have you been crying? She said. She was shocked at how distressed her friend seemed.

Maria shook her head, attempting a half-hearted lie, but it was obvious she had been crying; her red eyes were the give-away.

‘I am sorry to have woken you up,’ Maria repeated. These apologies seemed to be the only words that her mind could put together. Again and again, she repeated the same words: ‘I am sorry to have woken you up.’ She went on and on and on and soon was beginning to sound like a broken record. Over and over again, she repeated the apology as if the once super talented young woman had suddenly lost all ability to reason and as a result had become incapable of thinking of anything else to say. It went on and on, the same apology, time and time again.

Sarah eventually supposed that she better say something, give a reply of some sort to the constant request for forgiveness. She considered telling her to go back to her room and get on her knees and say the Lord’s Prayer and five Hail Marys, and with any luck it might turn Maria off. But she wouldn’t dare; this was no time for a frivolous remark of any kind.

Instead, she replied with a simple, ‘Don’t be silly.’ She wrapped her arms round her friend in an empathetic embrace, squeezing her firmly against herself. Using the sleeve of her pyjamas, she dried Maria’s eyes, took her hand, and led her out of the kitchen into the living room, and together they sat on the sofa facing the television.

‘I am sorry to have woken you up.’ The broken record started again. But this time it was different; the words carried with them some energy. At last, Maria had surfaced from the sea of dismay, but only to be hit right in the face by a terrible feeling of embarrassment.

‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Sarah replied.

She put her arm around Maria and pulled her towards herself for a sideward embrace. She tensed; she had had enough of being treated like a little girl and was now in a desperate scramble for some degree of self-dignity.

‘What happened to you?’ Sarah said.

‘I had a dream, that’s all.’

‘What do you mean? I have never heard that level of screaming coming from anyone simply because they had a dream. No one screams like that over a dream.’

‘Okay, I had a nightmare.’

‘And what was it about?’

The mini inquisition carried on, her eyes narrowing in confusion. Maria unintentionally reacted with anger to the intensity of Sarah’s curiosity.

‘I’m very sorry, but I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You don’t want to talk about it? What do you mean?’ Sarah pressed Maria further on the matter. ‘For goodness sake, you were in a state.’ Her determination to get to the bottom of it was proving more and more invasive, albeit unintentional. ‘If it bothered you so much that you got up in the middle of the night and screamed the flat down, don’t you think maybe it is best that you talk to someone about it?’

The serious embarrassment masking Maria’s face in regard to the subject was not lost on Sarah, but she believed that sharing with someone else, whatever it was that manifested itself in that nightmare, was the way to go. She thought of it as opening the window of Maria’s mind and allowing fresh air into it. She had to air her mind; she was absolutely convinced about that. Maria contemplated for a moment and then turned and looked in Sarah’s direction. Their eyes met, and she could see terror in Maria’s eyes. The senselessness of a moment ago had given way to deep reflection.

Where do I start? she wondered. She herself was still trying to get her head around it. Still trying to understand what in the name of God could have brought on such a nightmare. The last time she saw Andrew Peterson was three years ago; that was in the past. Andrew Peterson was in the past. How dare he torment her sub-conscious? How dare the bastard still have an effect on her? How dare he? The thought of sharing such a secret with someone was causing Maria a very considerable level of distress. She couldn’t, she hadn’t got her head round it anyway, not yet, and maybe not ever. She was not going to be compelled into revealing a secret that she at the moment at least found impossible to bring herself to talk about. On realising that she has revealed something deep within her, that she had not intend to, that she had allowed herself to appear frightened, to appear broken, she became furious with herself, an emotion that manifested itself through a defensive anger towards Sarah, though somewhat muted. Maria was not one for harsh words, but this time she tried. Attempting a little war of words with her friend, she lashed out at Sarah.

‘The last time I knew you were studying English language; when did you suddenly become an expert in psychology?’ she asked angrily.

Sarah did not rise to her attack but recognised the outburst for what it was, an indication of how distressed Maria was, and so she excused herself, went back into the kitchen, and reappeared five minutes later with two cups of hot chocolate.

‘Have a cocoa,’ she said and handed one of the cups to Maria.

‘Thanks,’ she replied with a smile.

That at least is an improvement, Sarah thought to herself, and they sipped the hot cocoa with Maria hoping that she could put the nightmare behind her, and Sarah trying not to rock the boat any further. Side by side they sat, Maria trying to resist sinking further and further into deeper thought, and Sarah sitting next to her, just being there for her friend.

After some time, Sarah broke the silence. ‘Mind if I turn on the television?’

She could not understand why Sarah would want to turn on the television at that time of the night or why she needed her permission to do so in the first place, but she replied, ‘Go ahead.’

Sarah turned on the television to check the time; it was almost four o’clock in the morning. She turned to face Maria, who had finished her cocoa and was sitting on the sofa with her legs folded in a yoga position.

‘I think we should go back to bed,’ she suggested.

Maria replied in affirmative. She got up from her seat, slid both hands through her hair, and gathered it together to put it in a pony tail, She gave Sarah a hug, bid her good night, and they headed off to their rooms. As soon as she got into her room, and before she could shut her door, Maria turned on the light. At least for the rest of the night, she was afraid of the dark. She did not wish to go back to sleep and indeed tried to stay awake by putting in her earphones, turning on her i-Pod, and listening to some music. She lay in her bed under her cover, coiled up in a foetal position, but soon without her consent, she was wedged down in a deep sleep under the weight of an emotional fatigue. Weeks had gone by without a reoccurrence of the terrible nightmare and yet she was still not comfortable in the dark. Since the incident, she had continued to go to bed with her bedside lamp on and would often feel her heart sinking hopelessly, her determination to go back to positive thinking facing a serious challenge. Fear had thrown down the gauntlet, and every day since that night had become a constant battle to overcome it. She was determined to treat the episode of weeks ago as a one-off occurrence and rid her mind of dread. She was in the right, Maria did the right thing, and she did right by Andrew. She would remind herself of this again and again and again, but all the talk of right and wrong did not stop her from torturing herself, from feeling afraid. It did not stop her heart from missing a beat whenever she remembered the name Andrew Peterson, nor did it stop her shoulders from shivering with fear whenever she was alone in public, especially after dark. Her fear of Andrew, whether it was irrational or genuine, would be left for those whose job it was to debate such matters.

To Maria, the fear that Andrew Peterson could appear behind her and rest his creepy fingers on her shoulders, or that his hand could grip her wrist in a cruel tight fist, so tight that she would find it impossible to escape from, the fear of his hand clamping over her mouth, making it impossible for her to shout for help and then drag her away to God knows where, was as real as real could get, and during such moments, she would feel her scalp prickle, her hands coiled into a tight fist, and her fingernails digging into her palms like the blade of a penknife. She was an intelligent young woman and could understand that this was her, diving head first into that deep, dark, debilitating sea of unreason, that her fear of Andrew Peterson had become superstition, and although she understood this very well, she was unable to stop herself.

CHAPTER 2

A t the age of twenty-five, after having qualified and worked for four years as a midwife, Magdalene Crawford resigned from her job and took up a post with the World Health Organisation. She was sent to Bauchi to take charge of a small clinic; within her jurisdiction was the job of identifying and persuading sufferers of vesicovaginal fistula to come to the clinic for medical care. A task more difficult than she could have comprehended, as the sufferers, about 80 percent young girls made pregnant at too early an age, had sustained the damage during childbirth and were ashamed to show their faces in public by a culture that blamed them for their predicament, by an ideal designed to maintain the status quo regardless of the harm that this practice was causing the young mothers. The difficulty was compounded by a society that regarded them as unmentionables, as pariahs. Treated as unclean, by the very men whose babies they suffered injury giving birth to, by men who preferred to see these damaged girls as ill luck on their part and regarded themselves as innocent victims in a relationship with girls cursed from birth. A perverted sense of right and wrong, its rationalisation verified and its continuous practice given impetus by superstition and myth. These fallacies were commonly used as justification for abandoning these mothers, and by so doing, their husbands were free to move on to the next young girls, far too young to share their beds.

Magdalene’s effort changed many lives, and in turn, the experience of working in the clinic and witnessing the abuse and neglect influenced her deeply; it moulded her into a strong and determined woman who was prepared to devote her adult life to working in developing countries. Her efforts were focused on the least privileged children and therefore most susceptible to abuse. Magdalene’s background could not have been more different from the work that she chose to do and the people she happened to meet, but she could not break away from it. Compelled by a force deep in her very being, an integrated and dominant element of her composition an instinct to make a difference was so strong she had no choice but to succumb, and whenever her struggle helped to improve a child’s life, she would experience such a rush that she had become a better world junkie, and a change for the better became her fix.

She had chosen to do work that meant she had to travel round the globe and live in some of the most undesirable places. Her work meant that she often had to interact, try to reason, and hopefully convince some of the most ignorant and sometimes outright evil people of the harm that their beliefs caused young children. She had to challenge dogmas and confront standard practices for the sake of fundable youngsters who were mostly the victims of these practices, and for the sake of these youngsters, Magdalene would often meet, shake hands, sit down with, and attempt to have a rational discussion with people whose conduct often made her feel physically sick. She often recalled coming home from meeting with some of these perpetrators of the most heinous acts against juveniles and rushing straight to her bathroom to wash herself. She would often scrub her body so hard and for so long, as if by so doing, she may be able to wash away the horrible memory.

She had chosen her path, and as she followed it, her strong belief in a higher purpose snowballed, and Maria as her only child was brought up to believe in this too. Magdalene was her daughter’s mentor and deemed it necessary to draught Maria from an early age into her way of thinking. Often at night and before Maria could go to sleep, she would go into her bedroom and tuck her in. She would pull up the chair from under the table, and what would begin as a mundane conversation about her school work, her friends; and their well-being soon escalate into a lecture on the principles of life, right and wrong, and how much more advanced we could be as a species if only we were prepared to invest more of our mental energy into positive and constructive thinking.

"If only the world’s assets were distributed more fairly, and if only nations would invest more of their resources into the education of all children,’ she would say, ‘then the world would be garnering all the bests intellects that nature has got to offer, and we would be much better placed than we are today.’

She believed that life should have a purpose, and that in whatever capacity individuals find themselves, it was imperative they strive to leave a positive impact. She found exasperating, the fact that the world had continued to be run by individuals she regarded as short sighted and unscrupulous. This was her way of letting off steam; it was better than punching the wall or kicking in a door. Magda was aware of the high level of responsibility set on a young mind by her philosophy, but for it to endure, it had to spread. She was sowing the seed of progressive thinking in her daughter, and in Maria she had a fertile ground in which to cultivate her belief. Magda Stone was not one for having many children. She believed that there were more than enough children in the world as it was, who needed her support, and she preferred to spend her life campaigning for a better life for those children who were already here, than to populate the world even further. This decision was by no means a criticism of parents with many children. She was a lover of children, a champion of children. Many weeks later, and without a reoccurrence of the horrific nightmare, and as anxiety subsided, Maria’s life had begun to return back to normality.

‘Thank goodness that is over,’ she said, meaning the end of her third year at university and the final year for Sarah.

Sarah looked up at Maria; for quite some time she had sat on the sofa in a carefree manner, pressing the button on her Kindle and flicking through its pages without reading its contents, not thoroughly anyway. She appeared delighted with herself and, as if treating herself to a private joke, wore a cheesy grin across her face.

‘Having some fatuous thoughts again,’ Maria assumed in private. ‘It has to be something fatuous to put such a silly smile across anyone’s face.’

Something Maria would regard as fatuous, anyway, which seemed to be most points of view that could not be regarded as rational or philosophical, which happened to be the sort of thought most likely to bring a cheesy grin to Sarah’s face. Sarah was anything but philosophical, and if she ever had been, she had long decided to keep it to herself to avoid any unsolicited and wearisome debate with Maria, whose opinions and sentimentality ran like a river through her veins. Engaging in a debate with her was comparable to rain water rushing into a river and causing it to break it banks. As far as Sarah was concerned, entering into any serious debate with Maria was to be avoided like the plague. Maria was her mother’s daughter through and through, and like Magdalene; her beliefs did a lot to isolate