Meeting Lucy is a day that I'll never forget. I just remember standing on her doorstep, with Jeanette confidently knocking on her front door. I didn't know what to expect, I honestly didn't; but when Lucy's mum opened the door and listened to Jeanette explaining that I was new to the area, and thought it would be nice if Lucy and I could meet, it was then that she called Lucy to come and meet me.

Lucy did come to the door, greeting me with her long blonde hair, twinkly blue eyes and a friendly smile. Almost right away, we hit it off. That afternoon, we played and we laughed. For once, I was playing with a normal little girl, in a normal way. I had walked back home that day, feeling so very light with happiness, because I finally had made a friend of my own outside of school.

Within days, myself and Lucy became inseparable. I would have loved to have had a sister of my own, so to me, Lucy was the nearest thing to having that. When I started at the same primary school as her, for once, I was happy about going to school. Lucy's friends there, soon became my friends. But it was home time and the weekends that I lived for. My gosh, we had fun. I could tell that Lucy's mum really wasn't so keen on mine, so she would always have me over for sleepovers at their house, and would only let Lucy have a sleepover at my nan and gramps. That pretty much became our life. In the week, I would spend as much time as I could with Lucy after school, limiting the time that I had to be at home with my mum.

On the weekends, myself and Lucy would either be at hers, or at my grandparents.

We danced.

We sang.

We dressed up.

We would explore.

Roller skate.

Make mud pies.....

......we had fun.

I truly don't think Lucy will ever know the importance of her coming into my life when she did. She taught me how to laugh and how to be silly. She showed me how to be a normal little girl. She taught me that childhood could actually be rather wonderful. Just like Ian had back at the Catholic school, Lucy further restored my faith in people.

People in my past had hurt me. Some people, were still hurting me. But having Lucy's friendship, made it hurt a lot less.

Seeing my sweet friend with her own mum, also proved to me that something was very, very wrong in my relationship with my own mum.

I think I had always known it in my young and bruised little heart, but at the age of nine, I finally had my confirmation of it.

Mum and I, we just didn't work.

I think that was maybe why mum wanted Jeanette around. She looked up to mum. She listened to mum. But me? My heart and my ears had become tightly closed to my mother.

I think that even Jeanette herself, realised that. There were even times, when I think she felt sorry for me...pitied me.

For there I was, a little girl who had a mother, but was actually without her. And then there was Jeanette, a teenager who had no mother, yet actually knew what it was to have one.

One night, Jeanette was to show me how much she wanted to be there for me, knowing that my own mother couldn't.

While my mum's nauseating sex screams were coming from her bedroom, with a guy who was considerably younger than she was; I remember just crying and crying into my pillow, with my hands over my ears.

Jeanette had heard me, and had come into my room to comfort me.

"It's okay, Mary Rose." Gently, she rubbed my arm and my shoulder that were beneath my blankets.

Still, I cried.

I cried, because it wasn't okay.

My mum was having the loudest sex, with a guy who I don't even care to remember his name. I only remember him being much younger than they usually were. He was arrogant and cocksure. I couldn't stand him. He always seemed to have a permanent sneer on his mouth, one that my nine year old self really wanted to knock right off from his overly confident face.

So to hear him and my mother having the loudest of sex, quietly destroyed me.

But upon hearing my sobbing, it was Jeanette who came and sat with me. "Listen, Mary Rose, I'm going to explain something to you." She still sat with me; comforting and consoling me. "He's not hurting your mum, he really isn't. When two people care about one another, they make love. And making love, can sometimes be quiet, or it can sometimes be noisy. But it doesn't hurt...it actually feels nice to make love."

Still sobbing, I shook my head with determined force. "I'll never make love. I never want to sound like my mum...never!"

Jeanette just smiled. "But you will, Mary Rose." With her hand warmly still there on my arm, she smiled some more. "You might not think so now, but you will one day. When you're older, you will meet someone that you really care about, and you will make love with them."

Just the thought alone, sickened me. It filled me with dread. The very idea that I, would one day, sound just like my mum, filled me with absolute dread. To even have to contemplate, that I'd one day be doing what my mother was doing in her bedroom with that arrogant slimeball, just repulsed me.

To feel that, wasn't right.

To feel that at the age of nine, was definitely not right.

But what was right, was that someone had come to comfort me. Someone, was explaining the loud sex sounds coming from my mother. Jeanette, she had done that for me on that horrible night.

And Jeanette, she also gave me Lucy.

She gave me a friend, who was kind and funny.

She gave to me, someone who wasn't going to try and touch me in ways that they shouldn't and make me do things that I didn't want to do.

I didn't want to have to imagine being the little girl down Dandelion Lane anymore, those times had to be put behind me when we moved away from the misfits, the weirdos and the misunderstood. All I wanted, was to be a little girl with another little girl; and Jeanette, she gave that to me...she gave me Lucy.

I treasure making those mud pies or mud beers with her; pretending to be Bet Lynch from The Rovers Return in Coronation Street. I also treasure the many dance routines that we learnt and the many songs that we sang together. I equally treasure the times when we got Jason to join us when we would pretend to have our very own radio station. It was silly fun; doing interviews, pop quizzes, making up daily news and singing the latest pop songs—capturing it all on a cassette tape that I have to this very day.

Yes, I treasure all of those happy, simple memories.

Even when the troubled Jeanette would eventually leave, my friendship with Lucy stayed.

The little girl I was back then, needed a little girl like her in my damaged little world.

With Lucy by my side, I had entered an happy phase of my life.

Never did I think, that my mum would also be entering an happier phase of her life, too.