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Chapter11
It's been almost two weeks now and tomorrow I have mediation with my family. In those two weeks, I have managed to go shopping for some clothes for myself and also layby the things I will require for my dorm room next year. I could have brought them but this way I won't need to store them and will pick them up when I need them. I also saved $1200 from the emergency payment to help buy my laptop for uni. I decided to get a MacBook and will need to save another $1000 in 3 months. I can get a loan from Centrelink for $600 as well to help with the costs of textbooks. I had 7 more payments coming through before uni started to continue to save for my computer and textbooks which I would need.
During the last two weeks, I have been hanging out with Harley and his mates. They have been around a few times when I have gotten panic attacks and had to grab the social worker on duty. Jarrod suggested I let them know why I get the panic attacks and how to help so 2 days ago we each opened up. Levi told me how they were kicked out of home for being gender fluid. Levi is 17 and will be turning 18 in February. Levi is an apprentice hairdresser and has asked me if I would allow them to do my hair. Levi also expressed that they prefer the pronouns they/them. I told them that I would allow them to wash my hair and maybe when they were experienced to trim my hair. I hadn't had a proper haircut since I was 13. Levi pretty much pinned me down straight away to wash my hair and it was so relaxing. They also changed their hair colour and it was now green. Brad had just got a painting apprenticeship and he is 16. He is the youngest in the group and left home after becoming sick and tired of watching his mother being a punching bag. When he tried to help his father blamed him for bashing his mother. The police helped him get into the youth off-the-street program. Tommy was turning 17 in December and was looking for an electrician apprenticeship. He had a shitty home life, both his parents were drug addicts and he had enough of it. Harley was turning 18 in March and was doing a mechanic apprenticeship. He was second year. He spent time in juvie when he was 15 for theft and when he got out his parents had taken off without him. He bounced around friends' couches for a while until he managed to get into youth off the street. The group were looking for a house together as they had all got close to staying at the Addison.
I told them about starting my law degree next year and they were impressed especially Harley because I completed my HSC while in juvie. They wanted me to live with them but I let them know I was getting a room at the dorm. I also told them a bit about what happened in my home after my mother was murdered and what happened in juvie which caused me to have panic attacks. I showed them the scar on my hip from where a chick stabbed me cause someone told her I had used her shampoo. I let them know I snapped the chick's wrist and that she was in the hospital wing for a week.
Harley was the only one who got it. In juvie you either had to join a group so they had your back, learn to fight back or become a target. When I first got there I was a target because my family paid people to make me one. After the first three months, I was a target cause I didn't join a group and I didn't fight back. After 9 months I finally started fighting back so the beatings were less but that didn't mean that new chicks didn't try to target me to build their status. Jackie wanted me to join her group but I didn't want to have to do anyone favours for them to have my back. The favours could be things like extra food, having someone's back in a fight, smuggling contraband, sexual, letting them use your buy-up, getting your family to pay cash into their accounts and being a decoy. My mates were horrified by what my family had done. Yes, I consider Harley, Levi, Tommy and Brad my mates.
I had started to go to the uni gym to keep up my training because you never knew when you had to defend yourself and it kept me busy during the day which kept me out of trouble. Harley also took me to work with him twice and showed me how to change the oil and spark plugs on a car. Don't know why I needed to know that. It's not like I would be owning a car any time soon but it got me out of the Addison and my mind for a bit.
Jenny had kept in contact with me daily checking how I was doing and if I needed anything. I had spoken with Greg twice in those two weeks when we met up for lunch and each time he stocked up my junk food. I accused him of trying to make me fat but my group of mates at the Addison always helped me eat the junk food so I wasn't eating it by myself. I'm currently lying in my bed watching some random show on TV to stop thinking about tomorrow's meeting with my family. I laid my clothes out already and have written down the points I want to cover to the mediator. Jenny said it would be helpful to have it written down. She will be coming in with me and if I can't talk, she can use what I have written down to communicate with them what I wanted. I got Paris to help me with it and once I had got it typed up she hugged me like a mother would hug her child to comfort them. I just hope I can get through tomorrow without a panic attack because I need to show the court I can function in society without a legal guardian.