Hannah said goodbye to Dan at the school gate. It always felt like an awkward moment. She liked Dan. Hated the fact that he had the same name as her little brother, Daniel, but she liked him all the same. Dan, not Daniel. Shortening his name made all the difference.

There wasn’t anymore to it than that. He never pushed himself forward onto her, and she never led him on. Would it always be this way, she wondered? Life seemed to be getting very strange these days. Having recently turned 15 Hannah no longer had a secure vision of her future.

It had all seemed to start when her mum started wearing that stupid necklace. Hannah had known it’s meaning straight away, Queen of Spades. The school playground wasn’t as innocent as parents thought. Pictures, videos, stories. They all went around even if, like Hannah, you didn’t really want to know.

Hannah wasn’t sure if her mum actually knew what it had meant. She hoped that was the case anyway, and she didn’t want to embarrass her by mentioning it. Anyway she had stopped wearing it recently, so that was something.

But then there had been that day her mum had freaked out about her friend Lucy being at the house over the road, where the black guy used to live. That had really got Hannah thinking, but despite asking Lucy about it repeatedly, she said she was just delivering a letter that had been left at her house by mistake. Nothing more than that, so she let it go. It was probably just her mum being stupid and not understanding anything as usual.

The black guy had gone now. Dad had been pleased. He made the close look a mess with his dirty van. He should have never been allowed to live there anyway.

Mum had been acting strangely though. These days she was always looking at her phone. She never used to do that. One day Hannah had been about to enter the kitchen when she realised something was going on in there. She had peeked in and saw her mum on her knees with her dad’s dick in her mouth. So that’s what a blowjob looked like, she thought as she watched. Sex didn’t shock her, but seeing her parents doing this did. It really wasn’t like them.

But then her mum had been ill recently. Hannah wondered if it was the change. She didn’t know what that was like. She didn’t want to know. She had read that it made people act moody. She hoped she would be too old before it happened to her.

Hannah reached the bus stop and said “Hi”, to Daniel, her brother who had got there first. He didn’t seem to notice anything either. He was like Dad. Hannah seemed to be the only one who thought anything was weird.

The bus home arrived and they both got on and sat down together.

“What do you think’s for dinner tonight?”, asked Hannah.

Daniel looked at her but didn’t answer.

“Pizza?”, said Hannah.

Daniel giggled and Hannah smiled.

Such was Life.