Home & Away The Complaints of Ruby Buckton

I thought I had a perfect life. That was from the age of when I was first born until I was twelve when I got sent away to boarding school. I didn't really like that. I missed my home; my mum and dad and of course my sister. But everything with my sister comes later. My past year has been pretty much hell continuously. But that all comes later.

So I get sent to this really strict boarding school where there were just too many rules that I couldn't keep up with. I got a detention just about every day. I didn't really care though. What I did care about was that my mum had just died. Except the technicalities of that are actually correct – you'll see why later.

One time I got caught drinking behind a shed and the school and my dad was busy when they called him to come and have a meeting with the headteacher and myself about me. So they called my sister and like the good sister she was, she came rushing over.

She got shown to the principle's office and I was sitting outside. She came and sat on the chair beside me.

"Drinking Rubes?" she said.

I shrugged.

"Not cool Ruby."

"Well it's not like anyone cares anyway. Only Mum cared about me and now she's gone. Dad just sends me away. He doesn't care and you don't either."

"Hey come on, stop being silly. You're fifteen Ruby, you always said you wanted to be independent. I care about you Ruby; I care about you more than anything and don't you ever forget that. OK?"

"OK," I paused. "Dad seems to think I'm thirteen. For my birthday he gave me a thirteenth birthday card."

"I think that was his idea of a joke," she just said that to make me feel better. We didn't know then that he was already loosing his memory.

"Where are you living now Charlie?" I asked.

"This little town on a beach."

"Can I come live with you there?"

She raised her eyebrows at me.

Then the principle said that he was ready to talk to us and we went in and had a really boring talk with him. It was my sister who did most of the talking and barely let the principle get a word in. She said that it was perfectly natural for me to be 'lashing out' like I was – after all I had just lost a parent. She said a few other things as well.

After that she had to go again. She made me promise that I would stop drinking and try to settle down. I obeyed her. When I was little I wanted to be just like my sister.

Well I settled down all right. I fell in love with the maintenance guy. OK it wasn't real love – it was just something to do in the school of boredom and order. Then I got caught kissing him behind that same shed. Yet again they called my dad and yet again he was busy so yet again my sister came instead. She really wasn't happy this time and yelled at me in the hallway with everyone watching us.

"What is wrong with you Ruby?" she screamed.

"Nothing. I just kissed someone! It's not a big deal. You must have kissed people when you were fifteen."

"I did and look what happened?"

I looked puzzled. I felt puzzled too. "What?"

"Look Ruby just stop getting into trouble. I managed it."

"Oh well I'm sorry I'm not the perfect child then." For some reason that sentence was quite relevant to her.

The expelled me and there was nothing Charlie could do about it. So she took me home with her. I was pleased; to get away from the school and to be back with my family again. I did get homesick while I was boarding. It wasn't my dad I missed, but my sister.

I'm really lucky I have a close relationship with my sister.

When we got to what would now be my new home my dad was there and he was surprised to see me arrive back with Charlie and was even more unimpressed when I told him I had been expelled. Charlie then went off to enrol me at the school nearby. It was OK. I quickly became best friends with a boy called Xavier and then quickly realised that I never loved that maintenance guy from boarding school, because I quickly discovered real love in Xavier.

So I settled down – properly this time and I was happy and everything went smoothly for about just over a year. Well except from the fact that my dad got diagnosed with alzhimers. I couldn't loose another parent. And apart from the fact that my sister turns lesbian for a couple of months. To begin with I didn't like it, then I grew to be OK with it. But the then her girlfriend left which was a bit of a shame because I kind of liked her in the end and her being around made Charlie happy and I wanted her to be happy.

But then after that calm year, disaster and upheaval strikes. I was simple having a calm evening meal with my dad and his new wife and my sister when my sister just happens to reveal that she happened to have a baby when she was younger.

So now what am I supposed to think? I got the weirdest feeling creep over me when I heard her say that. I tried to ask her about it, but she just wouldn't say anything. All I got from her was that it was a boy and was born fourteen years ago and it had died. In the end I gave up and gave her a hug.

"I'm really sorry about your baby Charlie," I told her as I hugged her.

"Thanks Rubes."

That night when I went to bed I could not stop thinking about my sister's baby. I decided that I wanted to visit my nephews grave. Bad idea.

"Why would you want to do something like that Ruby?" exploded Charlie when I asked her about it.

"Because I do. You won't tell me anything about him, what his name was, nothing."

"Why can't you understand that I don't like talking about it, that I find it really difficult to. Look Ruby, you can't go visit his grave because he's not dead."

"But you said..."

"I gave him up for adoption. I don't know where he is and I just say that he died to make me feel less guilty about giving him up. Now I've got to go to work."

And that was that. She told me that so I would stop talking about her baby. But it made me think about it even more. I went to Angelo to try and enlist his help to find the baby. This was all out of kindness to Charlie. I thought it would be very nice for her to establish a relationship with her son. Of course I didn't know there was no son for her to establish a relationship with. But he knew, he knew before I did.

"Why did you ask Angelo to help you find my son?" she asked that evening. She wasn't angry this time.

"Because he's alive and you have a real son out there and he'd be fourteen now. Don't you ever wonder how he was brought up?"

There was silence. My sister couldn't lie anymore. For the first time in her life she was going to have to be honest. "I know who adopted my child and I know exactly how they brought him up," she said quietly.

I sighed. "Well why didn't you just say this before?"

"It was Mum and Dad." She was crying.

I hesitated. "Mum and Dad?" I repeated horrified. "Well then what happened to him? Where is he now?"

"The child wasn't born fourteen years ago," she admitted and paused before she said what was coming next. "It was sixteen years."

I think that was when I realised what she was going to tell me next and I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. I prayed she would say something else. But she didn't.

"And it wasn't a boy..."

Oh my God, no. I was getting a headache thinking about. All my life... It was disgusting.

"It was a girl," she continued.

I shook my head. Please, I begged inside my head for it to be a bad dream. For it to be a joke. For it to be anything, but the truth.

My sister – who was my sister for the last time – looked up and me from where she was staring at the floor. She gathered up the courage to say what she was going to say. She almost chocked on the words.

"You're my daughter Ruby." Was all she said.

It was horrible. My sister is my mother. My mother was my sister.

I hated her. I never wanted to see her face again.

I didn't know what else to do so I ran off and cried to then discover from her boyfriend that my mother had been raped and that was how I came to exist. That is most horrible thing to hear. Think about it, if my mum hadn't been raped that day I would not be here complaining to you right now.

Simple as that. Just because of one mistake.

I couldn't stand to hear the rest of her story, but I had to. I had to discover who I really was.

And the other way I went about doing that, was getting in touch with my biological father. It wasn't a very smart move. But anyway I did get in touch with him and went to visit him, openly accusing him of raping my mother.

He denied it.

I was a bit confused. I wanted to believe my mum because she's my mum and deep down I still loved her. But also I didn't want to believe I was the product of a rapist because that just made me feel sick.

Then he started hanging round my mum and I. She was really uncomfortable with that, I could tell and I did feel guilty about causing her the pain that I did.

Then one day both my mum and my dad go missing. I was worried for both of them. My mum because she was with the man who had supposedly raped her, and well I don't actually know why I was worried for my dad, maybe it was just because I felt I should be.

I worked out where she had taken him and being me I went to investigate, but I wish I had left them alone. I wished I had never started talking about Charlie's baby. I wished she had never had to tell me the truth. I wished I had never got in contact with Grant and I wished so many other things. But unfortunately none of my wishes were going to come true.

My mother had taken my father to this little shed in the middle of nowhere and was trying to force him to confess to what he had done to her.

I took her outside.

"After he did it," she said as she cried. "he said I was crying like a socky little kid."

We went back into the shed and a little later when she left the room, I went to untie my father.

"Just get out," I said. "Before you cause anymore damage."

Then Charlie came in and pulled me away from him.

I just wanted to forget what happened next, but I can't. I can't forget the words they said.

She said that he had to pay for what he did to her.

I asked her to leave it and it broke her and she cried once more.

"You're crying like a socky little kid again Charlie."

I stepped back in shock. I couldn't believe what he had just said. More importantly I didn't want to. My head was spinning. Everything was wild and out of control.

I turned back to Grant and slapped him. There was no way he was ever going to be my dad. Ever.

Then he left us and that was the last time we saw him.

"Charlie I'm so sorry I didn't believe you."

We both cried.

The next thing I knew Grant was dead. And they thought Charlie did it and she got suspended. She shut herself out from everyone – including me. I came up with a ingenious plan which Xavier helped me out with brilliantly. Unfortunately it wasn't a thorough as I thought it was and the police saw through it which didn't help Charlie's case at all.

In the end though, my dad – well he's not my dad, but he always will be to me – confessed to killing him. He killed the man who raped his daughter. He did it to protect both his daughters.

So in one swoop I lost two parents. But then I gained one in my sister.

But my not so mid-life crisis does not end there. During everything above I became very close with Geoff – or Geoffrey as I called him. Xavier noticed that and figured that I was becoming in love with him which might have been true. OK it was true. And this meant I was neglecting Xavier. So after many painful conversations Xavier broke up with me. I was really sad about this because he had been my first love and he was my best friend.

I started going out with Geoffrey properly which was lovely.

Then I began to feel sick. I thought it was because of all the stress I had been under recently with my parents. I had constant headaches and I would be sick. I'm not a big fan of hospitals and doctors and I assumed I could get better on my own.

Not the case.

I got diagnosed with diabetes.

I also have a phobia of needles.

So now I have to stick needles in myself every day. I have got used to it now, but it's still horrible. It's something else I have to carry round with me, an illness that will not go away. I found it really hard to tell people. I know lots of people all over the world have diabetes, but I just couldn't admit it.

Geoffrey was really good about it. He got a special cook book and made me all these healthy diabetic meals. He was so sweet. It was perfect the time we spent together.

If there hadn't been the diner fire, we might still be together now and I would not be in the love mess that I am currently in.

But there was the fire and Geoffrey heroically saved me from it only to receive an awful burn. If it hadn't been for him I would be the one with the burn.

It changed him, that night. He broke up with me a few days later. In a way it was more devastating being broken up with by Geoffrey that Xavier because with Xavier I sort of had done stuff to initiate the break up, but not with Geoffrey. He left town then as well. That was devastating.

Somehow I managed to get back together with Xavier.

Then there was that school play in which I had to sing. Oh it was terrible. I hated it. And I messed it up too. But Liam saved the day.

Oh, Liam.

We started working together to put together a demo and it was so much fun. But I started to fall in love with just as I was getting my relationship with Xavier on track again. I didn't mean to love him, I just couldn't help it.

I became obsessed with him. He was all I thought about.

Xavier noticed this and broke of our relationship and then quickly got together with the most irritating girl on the planet.

Then the most irritating girl's sister turns up and she was even more irritating. She fell in love with Liam too. I hated her. I hated her because was allowed to have what I couldn't. She was able to love Liam and he could love her back if he wanted to which he did.

And suddenly I couldn't help it anymore and I did it.

I kissed Liam.

And he pushed me away and said we couldn't work together anymore until I had got over my crush. I thought I had got over it and I told him so. Then we started to work together again. I realised I had not got over my crush after all. In fact I loved him more than ever.

I told Charlie the truth about my feelings in the end and she wasn't very helpful. She went and shouted at Liam for something that wasn't his fault. I felt so bad for him. He said we would have to stop working together again and once more he pushed me away.

The way I dealt with this was by getting drunk and going over to his house. It was a really dumb thing to do.

I'm sorry for falling in love with you Liam. I've ruined everything.

I tried to get Charlie some wine as a present, but she caught Indi giving to me and presumed I was going to drink it myself. She took me back to live with her as punishment so she could keep her motherly eye on me. And no one would believe me when I told the truth.

Liam told me that the record company we had sent our demo off to only wanted to sign him and not me. I was a bit upset, but mainly I was upset because it meant I couldn't work with him anymore and wouldn't see him as much. I told him my feelings. I was really and truly in love with him and everyone was trying to take every last piece of him away from me.

He said he didn't want to have any contact with me anymore. We couldn't even be friends. All this because of one stupid kiss.

I got drunk again.

Nicole found me and took me to Liam's house. He took me to Charlie. She sent me to rehab.


End file.

Home & Away, Hurt-Comfort