Read Indigo Blue for Free Online Page B

hi…’
    ‘Hi!’ I try to stop my face from grinning, but fail. I’m pleased to see him. Scared but pleased. Sick but happy.
    ‘So… how’s your mum? Calmed down a bit, d’you think? I mean, Indie, it was just a row, you know, grown-up stuff. Nothing to make such a big deal of. No reason to go uprooting you and Misti…’
    I’m still smiling, but I can remember the night of the row pretty clearly, and the morning after. I remember Mum’s face. Nothing to make a big deal of.
    ‘Look, Indie, pet, I love you and Misti. I love your mum. She’s made her point, so why can’t she just come home now? Why don’t I give you a lift back to wherever you’re staying, talk to her?’
    Max reaches out to throw an arm round my shoulders, but I flinch away. Mum doesn’t want to talk to him. Mum doesn’t want to see him.
    I don’t want him to know where we live.
    ‘Come on, Indie. We’ll get chips on the way, surprise the girls…’
    ‘ No!’
    Max takes a step back, still grinning, holding his hands out in surrender.
    ‘Just an idea. Another time, maybe. Hey, just tell your mum you saw me, OK? Tell her I miss her. Tell her it’s OK to come home. Will you do that for me?’
    I nod, staring at my feet.
    ‘Look, I’ve gotta go, Indie, but I’ll see you again. It’s OK, really. Just a silly row, nothing serious. We’ll get it sorted out. Tell your mum.’
    I give him a shaky wave and start walking. I feel sick, I feel bad, I feel scared.
    What was I supposed to do? Ignore him? Take the lift?
    What do I tell Mum?
    I look back as I turn the corner, and Max is sitting at the wheel in his van, watching me. He waves as I tear my eyes away again.
    Why didn’t Mum tell me this might happen? Why didn’t she tell me what to do? Will she be cross I didn’t bring him home? We could have had lemonade and chips and Mum and Max could have talked things through, made it up. Max could have rescued us from damp walls and brown lino, taken us back home in the back of the blue builder’s van.
    Maybe. Maybe not.
    Mum loves him, she said that the other night. But she doesn’t want to live with him. She doesn’t want him to know where we live, I know she doesn’t.
    I’m halfway round the dodgy estate before the bad feeling starts to fade. It’s OK. Max had a job near the school, that’s all. It wasn’t like he was lying in wait for me. He was just being thoughtful. Mum won’t be cross.
    He wouldn’t follow me, he wouldn’t .
    But when I look behind, there’s a blue van, way, way in the distance, parked in at the kerb. Too far away to see if it’s Max. It can’t be.
    I start to hurry, walking fast, but when I reach the next corner and look back the same blue van is crawling closer.
    I’m running then, faster than I ever would in any race, dodging between the cars, thumping along the pavement, hurtling round the corner into Hartington Drive.
    I look back and there’s no blue van, no Max, and I’m into the driveway of number 33, round to the back, down the steps and into the flat. I’m shaking and my breath comes in great gasping sobs that burn my lungs and throat.
    My face is wet with tears.

Mum strokes my hair and hugs me tight, and tells me I did the right thing. She wipes my face with a tissue and makes me hot chocolate.
    I let its sweetness seep through me, calming, warming. Mum sits across the table, drinking black coffee, and Misti sprawls on the carpet, unpacking my school bag and swishing books, papers and pens across the floor.
    ‘Maybe you were wrong about the blue van,’ Mum says. ‘Could you have been wrong? It was far away, you said. Maybe it was a different van.’
    ‘Maybe,’ I say. But I know it wasn’t.
    ‘Max wouldn’t follow you. He wouldn’t want to scare you. He wouldn’t want to hurt us.’
    Her fingers stray to the faded bruises along her cheek and jaw.
    ‘He says he loves us,’ I tell her. ‘He says it was just a silly row, and we can come back any time.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Mum