the rooftop girl
a life remembered in pieces.
a new entry every sunday.
follow Vaea's story as it unfolds.
001
There are so many things I wish I could tell you...
002
She believed stories weren’t invented…
003
Home once felt like the safest place in the world…
004
To her, it was just another afternoon...
005
Eli was Vaea's little brother. Technically...
006
The dinner table was one of Vaea's favourite places...
007
School was difficult for her in ways she couldn't always explain...
008
The girl she trusted became the person she feared most...
009
Their bond was unbreakable, and everyone who knew Vaea knew Missy...
010
Space fascinated her in a way she couldn't quite explain...
001
There are so many things I wish I could tell you.Not to change your path, because I wouldn't. Every joy, every mistake, every goodbye becomes a part of the person you're still growing into. But if I could sit beside you for a little while, beneath that same sky you love so much, there are a few things I'd want you to know.One day you'll discover that hearts don't always break all at once.Sometimes they unravel quietly, in ordinary moments, until you wake one morning and realise you're carrying pieces of yourself you no longer recognise.The hardest part isn't always losing someone.Sometimes it's losing the version of yourself that existed while they were there.You'll spend days wondering if you'll ever laugh the same way again. Whether the lightness you once carried simply disappeared. You'll search for the person you used to be, not yet understanding that she isn't gone.She's becoming.You'll learn that love is both the gentlest and the fiercest thing you'll ever know. It will teach you how deeply you can care for another person, and just as quickly, how deeply you can ache when they leave.You'll discover that the people who shape you aren't always the ones who stay.Some will arrive only to teach you something. Some will leave without explaining why. Some will love you imperfectly. And some will remind you that you are worthy of being loved exactly as you are.There will be days when the world feels unbearably heavy, and others when it feels impossibly beautiful. Somehow, they'll both exist at the same time.I know that sounds confusing now.One day, it won't.So keep looking at the stars.Keep asking impossible questions.Keep believing there's more.
002
There was a girl who grew up believing that the books she read, the movies she watched and the stories she was told weren’t just that.They existed somewhere. Maybe not exactly as they were written, but somewhere.She looked up at the sky and dreamed not of impossible things, but of places she hoped she might one day reach.She watched birds. She watched planes disappear into the clouds. She watched ants crawl between blades of grass that must have seemed enormous beside them. She watched leaves surrender to the wind—a wind so soft it barely announced itself as it crossed her skin, cool enough to wake her, warm enough to make her stay.She listened.The birds would sing. Or laugh. She never truly knew which.She wondered what they were saying to one another. Whether they had thoughts like hers. Whether they carried invisible sadness. Whether they had their own version of music that helped them escape for just a little while. Songs that spoke the words they couldn’t.Maybe not with language. Maybe with the tapping of a foot, the sway of a shoulder, the quiet movement of a body remembering what freedom felt like.On warm summer nights, she’d gather every pillow and blanket she could carry, drag them through the house, climb to the second floor and push them, one by one, through the window that had no flyscreen.They’d tumble onto the flat timber roof below with a soft thud. She’d climb out after them with a bag of lollies tucked beneath her arm.Then she’d lie on her back beneath a sky so crowded with stars it felt impossible that people could look at it and not ask questions.Because she believed stories weren’t invented.She believed they were remembered.Every fairy tale. Every impossible adventure. Every whispered legend.Someone, somewhere, had simply forgotten where it really happened.She would stare into a sky so impossibly endless that it almost felt alive. Billions of stars. Some radiant. Some barely there. The kind of sky that made questions feel louder than answers.She never searched for constellations.She searched for meaning.And every time her thoughts grew too big for the girl lying on that rooftop, she’d find herself returning to the very same place.There has to be more.
003
There was a time when home felt like the safest place in the world.
Not safe in the way Vaea would come to understand the word years later. She didn't think about locked doors or money in the bank or whether there was food in the fridge. She was a child.
Safety was simply the feeling of never having to wonder.
She never wondered whether there would be dinner that night. She never wondered who would pick her up from school. She never wondered whether there would be clean clothes waiting somewhere in the house, or whether someone would notice if she was sick, sad, hungry or hurt.
Those things simply happened.
To Vaea, home felt almost magical because of it. At the centre of it were Teresa and Jace.
Her parents.
When Vaea was young, she believed her father could fix anything.
Not most things. Anything.
Something could break. Something could go wrong. A problem could appear that Vaea couldn't begin to understand, and somehow Jace would know what to do.
At least, that was how she saw him.
There was a certainty about her father that made the world feel a little less frightening. Jace worked hard. He was at the family butcher shop by six and wouldn't finish until six that evening. Twelve hours beneath fluorescent lights, only to wake the next morning and do it all over again.
Vaea didn't yet see the responsibility he carried. She simply saw her dad, the man who left for work every morning, came home every night and always seemed to know what came next.
Teresa was a different kind of certainty.
Her mum worked too, but somehow her days seemed to stretch themselves around everyone else's. She was there in the mornings, taking the kids to school before heading to work herself, and when the school day ended, Teresa was there again.
Then came everything else. Sport, appointments, washing, the things that needed remembering, the things children forgot, and the hundred tiny jobs Vaea never noticed because she had never needed to.
And at the end of the day, somehow, there was still dinner on the table.
As a child, Vaea didn't stop to wonder how her parents managed all of it. They simply did.
That was the magic of them. There was something incredibly safe about believing that the people raising her simply knew how to keep the world turning.
Vaea wouldn't understand until much later that childhoods like hers didn't simply happen.
They were built.
Quietly, day after day, by people who woke up tired and went to work anyway. By people who remembered what needed remembering, showed up where they needed to be and somehow found enough of themselves left at the end of the day to do it all again tomorrow.
As a child, Vaea saw none of that.
She only saw home.
And perhaps that was the greatest thing Teresa and Jace had given her: a childhood in which safety felt like something that simply existed.
004
After school, Vaea would come home, leave her bag somewhere inside and head back outside. Before anything else, she always said hello to the animals.
The house was always full of them. Star, Lexi and BJ were the three dogs, each with their own way of greeting her. Vaea loved them all. She loved animals in a way that seemed to come naturally to her. It didn't matter what they were or whether anyone else thought they were worth noticing. If they were alive, Vaea noticed them.
Once she'd said hello to the dogs, she'd go looking for Missy.
Vaea had been nine when Missy came into her life, and she was still the best birthday present she'd ever received. Her Nan and Pop had surprised her with her, and Vaea had cried the moment she realised Missy was hers.
From then on, the two of them were rarely far apart. They grew up side by side, year after year, through all the ordinary afternoons and everything else that came with growing up. Missy wasn't simply Vaea's cat. She was her best friend, her constant companion, the little presence that always seemed to find its way back to her.
And if Missy was home, Vaea would always find her.
Once her afternoon routine of saying hello to all the pets was finished, Vaea would head outside to play.
Some afternoons she would ride her bike around the neighbourhood, disappearing for hours without ever really going very far. Other days, she and Eli would take their RipStiks outside and race each other up and down the street, laughing when one of them inevitably lost their balance and went flying.
There was always something to do.
The backyard could become anything they wanted it to be. A game could start with no real plan and somehow last until someone called them inside. They didn't need much. A bike, a RipStik, a few ideas and enough time before dinner was usually all it took.
And there always seemed to be enough time.
Childhood had a way of making an afternoon feel much longer than it really was.
Eventually, Teresa would call them in for dinner.
The house would fill with the sounds it always had. Plates being moved across the table. Conversations overlapping. Someone laughing. Someone talking loudly enough that everyone else had to talk louder.
She didn't know she was living inside the kind of childhood people spend years trying to remember.
To her, it was just another afternoon.
Just another dinner.
Just home.
005
Eli was Vaea's little brother. Technically.
In reality, he was her best friend, her partner in crime, her shoulder to cry on and, as she liked to think of him, her left-hand man. Whether Eli had ever agreed to that title was largely irrelevant.
Growing up, the two of them did almost everything together. They made scary movies, usually with very little plot and far more confidence than production value. They cooked imaginary feasts, which held far more arguments than they should have. They built cubbies out of blankets and furniture and continued doing so well beyond the age either of them would have admitted that they still did.
They played murder in the dark. They played mermaids.
Well…
Vaea played mermaids.
Eli was recruited. Some convincing was occasionally required.
Friday nights belonged to their kids club. They'd pile themselves in with junk food, board games and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! playing on the television, perfectly content with the little world they'd made for themselves.
There were secrets told in that room. Arguments too, probably. The kind siblings had over things neither could remember an hour later.
But mostly there was laughter.
There was always a lot of that with Eli. He had a way of making people laugh without seeming to try very hard.
He was cheeky. Annoying. Easily distracted. And almost completely incapable of telling a short story.
A simple explanation could become an event. There would be an um. Then another um. Then a completely unrelated detail that apparently needed to be established before he could continue.
He'd lose his place. Remember something else. Start again. Get distracted halfway through.
Sometimes, by the time Eli reached the end, Vaea had forgotten what he'd been talking about in the first place. There was also a reasonable chance Eli had too.
People loved him for things like that.
He had a lot of friends growing up. He could walk into a room and somehow make himself part of it. There was something naturally bright about him, something easy.
And then there was football.
Eli was bloody good at football.
They played at the same club, and Vaea loved watching him play. She was proud of him in the uncomplicated way children are proud of the people they belong to.
Because that was how she thought of Eli.
As one of her people.
Perhaps even her person.
She was protective of him to a degree that was, occasionally, unreasonable.
When they were in primary school, Eli approached her one day with devastating news.
His girlfriend had dumped him.
Eli was nine. Vaea was twelve.
The relationship could not possibly have been particularly complicated.
That did not matter.
Someone had hurt her little brother.
So Vaea found the girl.
And punched her in the face.
Years later, this would probably not be the story she'd choose as evidence of what a loving older sister she had been. At twelve, however, the logic seemed perfectly sound.
Eli was hers to annoy. Everyone else was expected to behave themselves.
That attitude didn't disappear as they got older.
When Eli eventually reached the age of bringing girls home, the family would warn them that his parents weren't the ones they needed to worry about.
It was Vaea.
She watched them. Quietly assessed them.
And probably made at least a few of them considerably more nervous than necessary.
It wasn't that she believed nobody was good enough for him. She simply believed Eli deserved someone who understood what they had been given.
Because Vaea knew.
She had known almost her entire life.
She knew the boy who would sit beside her through Friday-night games. The boy who built cubbies with her long after they should have stopped. The boy who listened to her secrets and trusted her with his own. The boy who played football and made friends everywhere he went and could take a thousand years to finish a story that should have taken thirty seconds.
She knew the annoying parts. The cheeky parts. The parts that drove her mad.
And she loved those too.
There are people you love because they came into your life. And then there are people who seem to have always been there.
For Vaea, Eli was the latter.
Her childhood was full of him.
And when she thought of those years, it was difficult to find a version of them in which he wasn't somewhere nearby.
Her little brother. Her best friend. Her left-hand man.
Eli.
006
The dinner table was one of Vaea's favourite places.
Not because of the food, though there was usually plenty of it. It was the noise she loved. Everyone talking over everyone else, conversations crossing from one end of the table to the other, stories being interrupted and picked up again. There was always something happening.
Vaea didn't always join in.
Sometimes she was content to sit and listen, letting the conversation move around her while her mind wandered somewhere else entirely.
She had always been like that.
There were things people talked about that made perfect sense to everyone else. Then there were the things that made Vaea stop and wonder why the world had to work that way at all.
Animals were usually responsible for those questions.
Not just the ones people thought were cute or the ones they were happy to have around. She loved the snakes people ran from, the spiders hiding in quiet corners, the tiny geckos clinging to walls and the birds most people never bothered to notice.
If something was alive, Vaea thought it mattered.
She couldn't understand how people decided otherwise.
Sometimes the subject would come up at the dinner table. Her dad saw things differently. He was practical about the world, about animals and about what happened when there were simply too many of them.
“But why?” Vaea asked.
Jace looked at her. “Because sometimes there are too many of them.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“Because if we don’t control the numbers. More animals can end up suffering.”
Vaea frowned, trying to make sense of it. “But why are we the ones to decide?”
Jace explained it again, this time in a way he thought she might understand. There were too many animals. They needed space. Sometimes things simply had to be done.
Vaea listened.
She understood what he was saying.
She just didn't like it.
To her, there had to be another way.
There always had to be another way.
She didn't know yet that some problems didn't have easy answers.
She only knew that if something was alive and needed help, someone should try.
One afternoon, she found a tiny gecko.
It wasn't moving much, and Vaea was certain she'd found it just in time. She carefully wrapped it in a soft tissue and placed it on a ladder where she thought it would be safe while she went to school.
She left believing she had done the right thing.
She didn't know the afternoon sun would find it there.
When she came home, the little gecko was exactly where she'd left it.
It hadn't moved.
Vaea stood there for a long time, staring at it.
She'd only been trying to help.
That was the part she couldn't understand.
She hadn't meant to hurt it. She'd thought she'd saved it.
Instead, it had died.
She took it into the garden and buried it beneath the soil. She made it a little tombstone and planted a flower beside it, something small enough to mark the place without disturbing it.
Then she watered the flower.
Every day.
She didn't know what else to do, so she made herself a promise.
If she ever found another creature that needed her, she would do everything she could to help.
007
By the time Vaea had reached year seven, she had already begun to understand that being surrounded by people didn't necessarily mean you weren't alone.
School was difficult for her in ways she couldn't always explain.
She wanted friends. More than anything, she wanted to feel like she belonged somewhere. She watched the other kids move through the playground in groups, slipping easily into conversations, laughing as though they had never once had to think about where they should stand or who they should sit beside.
Vaea thought about those things all the time.
At lunch, she would sometimes sit by herself and pick at whatever Teresa had packed from home. Around her, the playground carried on without her. Girls crowded around tables, boys chased one another across the oval, groups formed and re-formed as naturally as breathing.
She watched.
Sometimes she would hear laughter and glance up, wondering whether it had anything to do with her.
Sometimes she'd catch someone looking in her direction.
Sometimes she'd look away before she could find out.
There were days when she tried to join in.
She'd walk towards a group, listen for a moment and wait for a space in the conversation. Sometimes the space never came.
Other times, she'd say something and immediately wish she hadn't.
She became too aware of herself. How she sounded. Where she stood. What she was doing with her hands. Whether she was talking too much or not enough.
The other kids seemed to know things she didn't.
There was an invisible set of rules to friendship, and nobody had thought to give Vaea a copy.
She didn't have many playdates.
There weren't many afternoons spent at someone else's house, or sleepovers she could count down to, or weekends filled with plans made by other people.
Mostly, she went home.
And home was still home.
There were animals waiting for her. There was Eli. There were the familiar sounds of the house and the people who knew her without requiring her to explain herself.
School was different.
At school, Vaea was still trying to work out who she was supposed to be.
Then she met Layla.
At first, it wasn't anything extraordinary.
They talked.
Then they talked again.
Somewhere along the way, talking became sitting together. Sitting together became walking around together. Before Vaea realised it, there was someone beside her at lunch.
Someone who saved her a seat.
Someone who looked for her.
Someone who wanted her there.
It was a strange feeling.
For the first time in a long time, Vaea didn't have to wonder where she belonged.
She belonged beside Layla.
The difference was almost immediate.
The days didn't feel quite so long anymore. Lunch wasn't something to get through. She had someone to tell things to. Someone to laugh with. Someone who understood the little jokes that didn't make sense to anyone else.
Vaea started looking forward to school.
She started looking forward to seeing Layla.
There was relief in it.
She could breathe.
Maybe she'd finally figured it out.
Maybe this was what everyone else had known all along.
Maybe this was what it felt like to have a friend.
For a while, it was easy.
And because it was easy, Vaea trusted it.
She didn't notice the first little changes.
A joke that landed differently.
A laugh that didn't quite feel like laughter anymore.
A conversation that stopped when she walked over.
A seat that wasn't saved.
They were small things.
At least, that's what Vaea told herself.
A joke that didn't feel quite like a joke.
A look that lingered a little too long.
A comment she wasn't sure she was meant to hear.
Sometimes Layla would laugh with the others, and Vaea would find herself wondering whether she was laughing with them or at her.
She never knew.
So she watched more carefully.
She started thinking about the things she said before she said them. Wondering whether she had done something to make Layla change. Wondering if she'd somehow become annoying without realising it.
But whenever Layla smiled at her again, Vaea would forget about it.
Because she wanted things to be the way they had been.
She wanted her friend back.
Even though she was still standing right there.
And perhaps that was the hardest part.
Vaea didn't know how someone could be beside you one day and feel like a stranger the next.
She only knew that something had changed.
And she was already starting to wonder if it was her fault.
008
The days at school began to feel the way they had before Layla.
But Vaea couldn't forget what it had felt like when Layla was her friend.
For a while, Layla had been the person Vaea looked for as soon as she walked through the school gates. The person she wanted beside her at lunch. The person she could whisper things to that she hadn't told anyone else.
They had secrets.
Stupid little ones that probably wouldn't have mattered to anyone else but mattered to Vaea because they belonged to the two of them.
They had jokes that made no sense outside of their little world. Conversations that could stretch for hours. The kind of friendship where Vaea didn't have to think about what she was saying before she said it.
She trusted Layla.
Completely.
And that trust had changed something in Vaea.
For the first time, she hadn't felt like she was trying to find her place.
She had felt like she'd already found it.
That was why what happened next was so difficult to understand.
Vaea could have understood someone being cruel to her if they had never liked her. She could have understood being left out by someone who had never cared whether she was there.
But Layla knew her.
Layla knew the things Vaea had whispered when nobody else was listening.
She knew the parts of Vaea that she had only shown because she believed they were safe.
And somehow, those were the very things that started to hurt the most.
It didn't happen all at once.
There was no single moment Vaea could point to and say that was when everything changed.
It started quietly.
A joke made in front of someone else.
A comment about something Vaea had told her in private.
Something that made the other kids laugh.
Vaea laughed too, at first. She wasn't sure what else to do.
Then she noticed Layla watching her.
Waiting to see if it had hurt.
Vaea looked away.
Maybe she'd misunderstood.
Maybe it was still a joke.
Maybe Layla didn't mean anything by it.
But it happened again.
And then again.
Things Vaea had once whispered to Layla became things she heard repeated in front of other people.
Little pieces of herself that had once felt safe suddenly didn't.
She started keeping things to herself.
Not because she had stopped wanting to talk to Layla.
Because she no longer knew what Layla might do with the things she told her.
And still, somehow, Vaea kept looking for the girl she remembered.
The friend who had saved her a seat.
The friend who had made her laugh.
The friend who had made her believe, for a little while, that maybe she finally belonged.
It didn't stay that way.
What started as comments became something Vaea began to expect.
Layla would say something about her in front of the others, then laugh as though it were nothing.
Sometimes it was her hair.
Sometimes it was the way she spoke.
Sometimes it was something so small Vaea couldn't understand why everyone was laughing.
The more Vaea tried to ignore it, the more comfortable Layla seemed to become.
Vaea would go home and replay the day in her head, trying to work out which part had gone wrong.
She still couldn't find it.
And that was what made it so difficult.
There was no moment Vaea could point to and say, this is why she hates me.
Layla had simply stopped treating her like a friend.
And Vaea had no idea how to make her start again.
Slowly, she began keeping her distance.
Not because she wanted to.
Because she was learning that being close to Layla came with a cost.
She stopped telling her things.
Stopped trusting her with the little pieces of herself she'd once handed over so easily.
But even then, Vaea couldn't completely let go.
Some part of her was still waiting for Layla to become the girl she'd been before.
Some days, keeping her distance was enough.
Other days, it wasn't.
The first time Layla tripped her, Vaea wasn't even sure it had been deliberate.
She stumbled forward, catching herself before she hit the ground, then turned around.
Layla was already walking away.
Vaea said nothing.
She kept going.
The next time, she knew.
Layla caught hold of the strap of Vaea's backpack and pulled hard.
Vaea stumbled backwards, the bag slipping from her shoulder as Layla dragged it away from her.
Her books spilled across the ground.
Vaea froze.
Layla laughed.
There was no audience this time.
No group to impress. No reason for it that Vaea could understand.
She had simply wanted to hurt her.
That was when Vaea began to realise that whatever had changed between them wasn't something she could fix by being quieter, kinder or giving Layla more space.
Layla had chosen this.
And Vaea didn't know what to do with that.
-
It wasn't long before Vaea learned that the backpack hadn't been the worst of it.
Layla began finding other ways to get to her.
Sometimes it was a shove as they passed each other.
Sometimes a hand against her shoulder, pushing her out of the way as though she wasn't there.
Vaea tried to ignore it.
She told herself it would stop.
It didn't.
One afternoon, Layla caught her by the arm.
Vaea pulled away.
“Leave me alone.”
It was quiet, but it was the first time she'd said it.
Layla didn't.
Instead, she grabbed her again.
Vaea tried to pull herself free, but Layla was bigger than her. Stronger too. The difference between them had never mattered when they were friends.
Now it did.
For the first time, Vaea understood that this wasn't something she could simply laugh off.
She was scared.
She didn't want to be.
Vaea had always thought of herself as tough. She knew how to stand up for herself. She knew what her family would tell her to do.
But knowing she should stand up for herself and actually doing it were different things.
Especially when the person standing in front of her was someone she had once trusted.
So she tried to stay out of Layla's way.
She changed where she walked. She kept her head down when she saw her coming. She stopped lingering in places where she knew Layla might be.
It didn't matter.
Layla seemed to find her anyway.
The next time she grabbed Vaea, there was more force behind it.
Vaea pulled back immediately.
“Stop.”
Layla laughed.
Vaea looked around, but there was nobody nearby who seemed to notice.
Or maybe they noticed and simply didn't care.
She hated that thought.
She hated even more that she was beginning to understand that Layla wasn't going to stop just because Vaea asked her to.
Then, one day, it was quiet.
Vaea hadn't seen Layla all morning.
No comments.
No grabbing.
No footsteps behind her.
Nothing.
For the first time in weeks, Vaea started to wonder if maybe it was finally over.
Maybe Layla had lost interest.
Maybe she'd found someone else to bother.
Vaea didn't want to think too much about it. She was afraid that if she did, she'd somehow ruin it.
So at lunch, instead of staying inside or finding somewhere she could keep out of the way, she decided to sit on the oval.
She wanted to sit somewhere open.
Somewhere she wouldn't have to spend the whole lunch looking over her shoulder.
The oval was quiet that day.
Vaea sat down and let herself relax for the first time since the morning began.
She watched the other kids moving around in the distance and thought, perhaps for the first time in a while, that maybe she could just have a normal day.
She didn't hear Layla coming.
The first thing she felt was a hand closing around her arm.
Vaea turned sharply.
Layla.
Her stomach dropped.
“What are you doing?”
Layla didn't answer.
She pulled Vaea to her feet.
Vaea tried to pull away.
“Let go.”
Layla tightened her grip.
Vaea looked around.
The oval was empty.
No teachers.
No one close enough to hear.
She realised then that Layla had chosen the place carefully.
There was nowhere for Vaea to disappear to.
Nowhere to pretend this wasn't happening.
She tried to pull herself free again.
“Layla, stop.”
But Layla didn't stop.
She pushed Vaea backwards.
Vaea stumbled, trying to find her balance, but Layla grabbed her again.
And then her hand moved to Vaea's throat.
Everything inside Vaea seemed to stop.
She froze.
For a second, she couldn't understand what was happening.
This was Layla.
The girl who had once made her feel like she belonged.
Vaea tried to pull Layla's hand away.
She couldn't.
She tried to speak, but her voice caught.
Fear took over where words should have been.
And somewhere underneath that fear was something almost worse.
She still couldn't understand why.
Why her?
Why had Layla chosen her?
Why had the person who once made her feel safe become the person she was now trying to escape?
Then the bell rang.
The sound seemed to come from somewhere far away.
Layla let go.
She turned and ran before Vaea had even found her balance.
Vaea didn't move.
She sat there on the oval for a long time, staring at the ground and trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Eventually, she got up.
She didn't go looking for Layla.
She didn't tell a teacher what had happened.
She walked to the office instead and told them she wasn't feeling well.
The school called Teresa.
-
The car ride was quiet.
Vaea sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window as the world passed by.
Teresa didn't ask too many questions.
She knew her daughter well enough to know when something was wrong, but she had never been the kind of mother who forced words out of her before they were ready.
So she waited.
Vaea was grateful for that.
She wasn't ready to talk.
She wasn't even sure she knew how.
By the time they got home, she had convinced herself she could forget about it.
She couldn't.
That night, Vaea tried to convince herself that tomorrow would be different.
Maybe Layla would leave her alone.
Maybe what had happened on the oval wouldn't happen again.
Maybe she could just get through another day.
But when morning came, the thought of walking back through those school gates felt impossible.
Vaea stayed beneath the covers.
When Teresa asked if she was ready, she didn't move.
“I don't feel well.”
Teresa looked at her for a moment, but Vaea kept her eyes down.
She couldn't tell her the truth.
Not yet.
So Teresa left for work, and Vaea stayed home.
For one day, she didn't have to see Layla.
She didn't have to watch where she walked.
She didn't have to wonder what might happen next.
She could breathe.
But when Teresa and Jace came home later that day, they noticed something.
Maybe they had been noticing for longer than Vaea realised.
Teresa asked her what was wrong.
Vaea hesitated.
Then she told them.
Not everything at once. The words came slowly, awkwardly, as though saying them aloud made them more real.
She told them about Layla.
About the comments.
About the things that had happened at school.
And eventually, she told them about the oval.
About Layla grabbing her.
About her hand around her throat.
Teresa listened.
Jace listened.
Neither of them interrupted.
When Vaea finished, the room was quiet.
Teresa looked at her for a long moment.
Jace's expression had changed.
They were angry.
Not with Vaea.
With Layla.
With the school.
With the fact that their daughter had been walking into the same place every morning and carrying this with her without them knowing.
There was frustration there too. They wanted to fix it. They wanted to make it stop.
But they also wanted Vaea to know that she couldn't let someone treat her that way.
They told her she had to stand up for herself. She had to stand her ground. She had to tell Layla no. She had to make it clear that she wouldn't allow someone to push her around.
They reminded her that she was stronger than she realised. That she couldn't spend her life backing away from people who tried to make her feel small.
Vaea listened.
She understood what they were saying.
She even knew they were right.
Her family had never raised her to be afraid of people. They had taught her to stand up for herself, to speak when something wasn't right, and to never let someone convince her that she was worth less than they were.
There was nothing wrong with what they were teaching her.
The problem was that Vaea didn't know how to separate the person who was hurting her from the person she still remembered loving.
Everyone else seemed to be able to see Layla for what she had become.
Vaea was still trying to understand where her friend had gone.
Her parents spoke to the school.
They told them everything they knew. The comments. The bullying. The way it had gradually become more physical. They told them about the things Vaea had come home carrying, even when she hadn't been able to find the words to explain them.
The school listened.
Or at least, they appeared to.
There were meetings. Conversations. Explanations.
Layla was a troubled kid, they were told.
Her home life was difficult. There were things happening outside of school that Vaea didn't know about.
She drank.
She smoked.
She was dealing with more than most kids her age.
Vaea listened to the adults explain it all, trying to understand.
She knew that Layla's life wasn't the same as hers. She knew that difficult circumstances could shape a person.
What she couldn't understand was why those circumstances seemed to make everyone hesitate when it came to what Layla was doing to her.
There was always a reason.
Always another explanation.
And somehow, while everyone was trying to understand Layla, Vaea still had to be the one walking through those school gates every morning.
She still had to see her.
She still had to wonder what might happen that day.
Her parents kept reminding her of what they had taught her.
Stand your ground. Don't let someone push you around.
Vaea tried.
She really did.
The next time Layla said something, Vaea told herself she wouldn't look away. The next time Layla came too close, Vaea reminded herself that she could tell her to stop.
She tried to walk with her shoulders straight.
Tried not to look afraid.
Tried to believe that if she stood her ground long enough, Layla might finally back down.
But knowing you should be brave didn't make you any less afraid.
And the school knew.
That was the part Vaea couldn't understand.
They knew what was happening.
Her parents knew.
And still, there were days when Vaea felt like she was the only person watching for Layla.
Until the afternoon she realised she wasn't.
-
Vaea was walking towards Teresa's car when she heard Layla behind her.
“Bitch.”
Vaea knew the voice before she even turned around.
She kept walking.
Layla followed close behind, her voice pressed into the space beside Vaea's ear as she called after her. Her hand reached for the strap of Vaea's backpack again.
Vaea pulled it away.
“Leave me alone.”
Layla laughed.
Vaea kept walking.
She could feel the other students around her. She knew they were there. A teacher was nearby too.
Surely someone could see what was happening. Surely someone would stop it.
But nobody did.
Vaea kept her eyes fixed ahead. Teresa's car was getting closer. She only had to reach it. Then she would be safe.
At least, that's what she thought.
She didn't know Teresa had already seen them.
The car door flew open.
Teresa didn't say a word.
She ran.
Vaea looked up.
For a moment, she didn't understand what she was seeing.
Her mother was coming towards them.
Fast.
Teresa ran straight past the fence without slowing down.
Vaea froze.
She had never seen her mother run like that.
Teresa reached Layla within seconds.
She grabbed her firmly by the throat and shoved her back against a tree.
Layla was nearly the same size as Teresa, but Vaea had never seen her mother look so fearless.
Vaea's breath caught.
Everything seemed to go quiet around them.
Teresa wasn't choking her. She didn't need to. Her hand held Layla firmly enough to make sure she understood that she had finally pushed too far.
Teresa leaned closer.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she said, her voice low and furious. “You come near my daughter again, and you will have me to deal with.”
Layla stared at her.
“I will bring Jace with me, and we'll have a conversation with you and your parents ourselves.”
For once, Layla didn't laugh. Fear shone across her face.
Vaea had never seen her mother like that.
Not once.
Teresa held Layla's gaze for another moment before letting her go.
The nearby teacher reached them.
Teresa turned towards him.
“And what the fuck were you doing?”
The teacher looked startled.
Teresa pointed towards Vaea.
“You all know about this.”
Her voice carried across the grounds.
“You know what's been happening to her, and you're standing there watching it?”
Nobody answered.
For a moment, it felt as though the entire school had gone still.
Students stood watching from across the grounds. Parents had stopped beside their cars. Even the people who had been walking past seemed to have paused, drawn into the silence.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
They simply watched.
Vaea looked around at all of them and wondered how many had seen enough to know what had been happening long before that moment.
How many had heard the comments.
How many had watched Layla follow her through the school grounds.
How many had seen Vaea trying to get away.
And still, nobody had said anything.
Teresa shook her head, furious.
“What the fuck are you doing watching this shit and doing nothing? You call yourself a teacher?”
Vaea stood completely still.
She didn't know where to look.
She didn't know what to say.
She had spent so long wondering whether anyone would see. Whether anyone would believe her. Whether anyone would finally understand.
And now her mother was standing between her and the person she'd been afraid of.
For the first time in a long time, Vaea didn't feel like she had to be brave.
Her mother was doing it for her.
-
Layla never bothered Vaea again.
Not after that day.
The teachers became more watchful. The school could no longer pretend they hadn't seen what was happening.
But Vaea remembered something else.
She remembered the way her mother had run towards her without hesitation.
She remembered the anger in her voice. The way she had stood between Vaea and the person who had made her afraid to walk through the school gates.
For so long, Vaea had thought being strong meant standing on her own.
That afternoon taught her something different.
Sometimes being strong meant knowing when you didn't have to.
Vaea would carry that lesson with her for the rest of her life.
Loyalty wasn't always loud.
Sometimes it was simply knowing that when everything went wrong, someone would come for you.
Teresa had come for her.
And Vaea would never forget it.
009
Missy shaped so much of Vaea's childhood.
Their bond was unbreakable, and everyone who knew Vaea knew Missy.
She wasn't just her cat.
She was her best friend. Her companion. A constant presence throughout the years when so much else around Vaea seemed to change.
Missy was simply there.
And somehow, that was everything.
As Vaea grew older, Missy become woven into the ordinary parts of her life.
She was there in the mornings Vaea was getting ready for school, there when she came home, and there at night when the rest of the house had gone quiet.
Vaea talked to her about everything.
Sometimes it was something that happened that day. Sometimes it was something she couldn’t bring herself to say to anyone else.
Missy never needed an explanation.
She just listened.
When Vaea first brought Missy home, she was a tiny grey kitten who seemed to have endless energy.
She was constantly getting into something, racing from one room to the other with the kind of determination only a kitten could have.
She had the zoomies one minute and was into something she shouldn't have been the next.
It didn't take long for Vaea to realise that the little grey kitten was always up to something.
She also quickly learned that Missy had a habit of bringing her little gifts.
Vaea lost count of the times she would come home from school to find something waiting for her. Snakes. Mice. Whatever else Missy had decided was worthy of being brought home.
And then there was the bat.
That one arrived in the middle of the night.
Vaea woke to the sound of screeching and with the love she had always had for animals and all creatures, immediately jumped out of bed to turn the light on and make sure whatever it was, was okay.
When the room filled with light, she looked towards the end of her bed.
There was Missy, sitting perfectly still with her head tilted slightly to the side and a bat hanging from her mouth.
Vaea stared at her.
Missy stared back with those big, beautiful green eyes, as though she had been patiently waiting for Vaea to wake up.
Look, Mum. I got this for you.
Vaea had never been more terrified of a gift in her life.
But that was Missy.
Always finding something to bring home.
Always keeping Vaea guessing what she would do next.
And maybe that was where the name Missy came from.
But as the years passed, Missy became more than the little kitten who was always getting into trouble.
She became part of Vaea's everyday life in a way that was so natural, Vaea hardly noticed it happening.
By then, Vaea couldn't go to sleep without her.
Missy would crawl underneath the blankets and curl herself up beside Vaea, settling in as though that was exactly where she was meant to be. She would sleep facing the same way Vaea did, their bodies tucked together beneath the covers.
They would snuggle in like that every night.
It became their routine.
There was one night, only a couple of months after Vaea had brought her home, when Missy didn't come inside.
It was the first time she had ever been outside on her own, and suddenly the whole family was looking for her.
Vaea's relationship with Missy had touched everyone around her. They all knew how much that little grey creature meant to her, and the thought that something might have happened to her was one no one in the family wanted to entertain.
Vaea couldn't bear the thought of not finding her.
So when Missy finally came home, Vaea realised just how much she wanted her to be able to look after herself.
From then on, she started playing with her a little differently. She would tease her, poke at her and let her chase and pounce, always making sure it was play and never hurting her. Eventually, Vaea would let Missy attack her arm, as though the two of them had their own little agreement.
Some might have called it an unusual way to play with a cat.
Vaea didn't see it that way.
She wanted Missy to be confident. To know how to defend herself if she ever needed to.
And Missy certainly seemed to learn.
She became an absolute badass.
Vaea saw just how much one afternoon when a Bull Terrier named Jackson was at the front of the house.
Vaea was standing at the end of the driveway with Jace, Samson, Lainey and Teresa, while Lexie, BJ and Star were behind the fence. Jackson was in the driveway on a lead held by Samson, and for a moment everything seemed completely ordinary.
Until it wasn't.
Jackson suddenly sprinted towards the fence, heading straight for the dogs.
Missy was inside the house.
At least, that's where everyone thought she was.
Somehow, she must have heard the commotion between the dogs.
Before anyone had time to react, Missy came flying from inside the house, sprinting around the back of the fence and straight towards the chaos.
She launched herself over the dogs and went straight for Jackson.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Right across his face.
Everyone froze.
But Missy wasn't finished making her point.
When she finally dropped from Jackson's face, she didn't jump back over the fence.
She stayed right there.
Within reach of a Bull Terrier who was easily four times her size.
She didn't even look back.
She just gave her little bum a wag, turned around and casually walked back towards the house through the open front door.
As though nothing had happened.
Everyone stood there staring after her in absolute shock.
What the fuck just happened?
Nobody could believe what they'd just seen.
Vaea couldn't either.
But underneath the shock was something else.
Pride.
So much pride.
That tiny grey kitten who had once needed everyone to search the neighbourhood when she wandered outside had just thrown herself between three dogs and a Bull Terrier without a second thought.
And then she'd walked away like she'd simply finished a job.
That was Missy.
-
But Missy wasn't only there for the funny moments.
She seemed to know when Vaea needed her, too.
There were nights when Vaea would come home from school upset, climb into bed and try to make sense of everything that had happened.
Sometimes she didn't want to talk about it.
Sometimes she didn't even know how to explain what she was feeling.
Missy never seemed to need an explanation.
Somehow, she would just appear.
She would climb onto the bed, curl herself up beside Vaea and settle against her as though she already knew.
Vaea would run her hands through Missy's fur and let herself be quiet.
And Missy would stay.
Looking back, Vaea realised that Missy had been doing that for years.
She had been there for the days that felt too big, the nights when Vaea couldn't settle and all the moments when she needed someone beside her without having to say why.
Missy never needed know what was wrong.
She just knew Vaea needed her.
And perhaps that was the thing Vaea loved most about her.
No matter what was happening around her, Missy was always there.
She had been there when Vaea was little.
She was there as Vaea grew older.
And somehow, through all the changes that came with growing up, Missy remained the same.
She was home.
She was Vaea's constant.
She was the one place Vaea could always return to without having to explain herself.
Missy simply loved her.
And Vaea loved her right back.
For all the years they had together, Vaea never needed Missy to be anything more than what she already was.
Her best friend.
Her companion.
Her little grey shadow.
Her girl.
010
As Vaea grew older, life began to feel a little more complicated.
There were things she understood, and things she didn't.
Some days felt heavier than others, even when she couldn't quite explain why.
When that happened, Vaea had a way of disappearing without ever really going anywhere.
Her imagination would take over.
She could sit colouring in, make little things with whatever she could find, or put music on and disappear into it.
They were small things, but they gave her somewhere else to go.
As she got older, though, Vaea began to understand that not everything she imagined as a child could be real.
The creatures she had invented, the worlds she had created and the stories she had built inside her head belonged to her imagination.
At least, that was what people told her.
But Vaea had never been very good at accepting things simply because someone told her they were true.
How did anyone really know?
How could anyone be completely certain about everything that existed beyond what they could see?
There were still so many things nobody could explain.
And the more Vaea thought about it, the more fascinating it became.
Maybe the worlds she imagined didn't exist.
Maybe the creatures she'd dreamed up never had and never would.
But maybe they did.
There was no way for her to know.
And that was enough to keep wondering.
Those questions followed Vaea into the night.
The more she thought about what could exist beyond the world she knew, the more she found herself looking towards the sky.
Space fascinated her in a way she couldn't quite explain.
It was so vast that there was no way for her to understand it completely. There were planets she would never see, places she would never visit and things that might exist far beyond anything she could imagine.
And that was what made it so interesting.
Nobody knew everything.
There were still questions without answers, things that hadn't been discovered and possibilities that couldn't simply be ruled out because nobody had seen them yet.
Vaea liked that.
She liked knowing that there were things in the universe that she couldn't explain.
It meant there was still room to wonder.
Sometimes, when Vaea talked about the things she believed might exist, people would tell her she had her head in the clouds.
Maybe she did.
But Vaea never understood why that had to be a bad thing.
How did anyone know what was impossible?
The world was full of things people had once thought couldn't exist. Someone had to imagine them before they could ever be discovered.
So, Vaea kept wondering.
She didn't need to be right.
She just didn't want to stop asking questions.
Maybe that was what made the unknown so exciting.
She could believe in something without knowing whether it was true. She could imagine something without needing proof that it existed.
And if someone told her she was wrong, she would wonder how they could be so certain.
Maybe they knew something she didn't.
Or maybe they were simply comfortable with the things they already understood.
Vaea wasn't.
She wanted to know what was beyond what she could see. What might exist beyond the places she had been, beyond the world she knew, beyond everything people had already decided was possible.
The older she got, the more she realised how little anyone really knew.
And instead of making the world feel smaller, that made it feel enormous.
There was something comforting about that.
No matter how much she learned, there would always be something left to discover.
Vaea's questions didn't always make her the easiest person to understand.
While other kids could spend hours talking about whatever was happening at school that day, Vaea's mind could wander somewhere completely different.
She liked the questions that made people stop and think.
What would you want to know if you could have one question answered?
Would you want to know when you were going to die?
Vaea knew she wouldn't.
Why would she want to know when her life was going to end?
She would rather know what came afterwards.
What was there beyond this life?
Where did people go when they died?
Was there anything else?
She didn't necessarily expect anyone to have an answer.
That was almost the point.
The questions themselves fascinated her.
Sometimes she would bring them up in conversation and realise, usually by the look on someone's face, that she had taken things somewhere they hadn't expected to go.
Vaea didn't always understand why.
To her, they were just questions.
Big ones, maybe.
Strange ones, sometimes.
But questions all the same.
Looking back, she could understand why some people might have thought she was a little strange.
She probably was.
While other children were figuring out where they fit in, Vaea was busy wondering what happened when everything ended.
She didn't think of death as something frightening.
To Vaea, it was one of the biggest unanswered questions there was.
If a person lived an entire life and then died, what happened to everything that made them who they were?
Did their thoughts simply stop?
Did they go somewhere?
Was there another life waiting beyond this one?
Maybe there was something else entirely, something humans didn't have the ability to understand yet.
Vaea found herself wondering about it in the same way she wondered about space.
The universe was full of things she couldn't see, and death seemed to be another doorway into something nobody could look beyond and come back with a definite answer.
What was the point of everything if there was nothing beyond it?
And if there was something beyond it, what was it?
Was this life the beginning of something else?
Was it one part of something much bigger?
Or was the whole thing simply something nobody had figured out yet?
Vaea didn't know.
Nobody did.
And somehow, she liked that there was a question so enormous that no one could simply give her the answer.
It left room for possibility.
Maybe that was what Vaea had always loved most.
Not knowing didn't make the world feel uncertain to her.
It made it feel endless.
Vaea didn't want to grow into someone who stopped wondering.
She knew that, as she got older, some of the questions she'd carried since she was little would eventually have answers. Others might change as she understood the world differently.
But she didn't want to lose the part of herself that could still look at something she didn't understand and wonder what might be there.
The what ifs never felt childish to her. They were simply part of how she saw the world.
She didn't need to know that every possibility was real.
She just wanted to leave room for the possibility that it could be.
And perhaps that was something Vaea would carry with her for a very long time.
The world didn't need to have every answer for it to be worth exploring.
the rooftop girl is a life remembered in pieces.
A literary collection of memories, personal reflections, people and places that shaped a girl long before she understood they were shaping her.Some memories are ordinary. Some are beautiful. Some are painful. Others only reveal their meaning years after they've passed.At the centre of them is Vaea, a girl who spent much of her life looking at the world a little differently, searching for meaning in things other people seemed able to accept without question.This is her story.Not told all at once, but piece by piece.
if something here stayed with you...you can leave a thought, share a story, or simply say hello.
write to the rooftop girl