A Fallen Angel

Pack Your Stuff, We're Leaving!!

Two days went by after I regrettably agreed to travel to London with my Mum and Stepdad. It felt like life couldn't have been more cruel. On my laptop, I researched different activities I could do alone to escape the hell of dealing with Alan and his family. I wrote each thing down in a notebook secretively, so Mum didn't see. She takes things very personal and would think I didn't want to be around her. To be honest, I didn't. Since we talked, she had been talking behind my back to Alan, as if I couldn't hear. She was calling me all sorts of names and excusing my behaviour by saying that I find it "hard to move on from my father." I was livid with her but I couldn't be bothered with her moaning about me not being a nice daughter or whatever.

As I was writing in my book, I heard my doorknob jiggle, telling me that someone was coming into my room. Then, in came my swine of a step-brother, Jordan. God, how I hate him; he's just as bad as his father. He's two years older than me and working with Alan, with the same people. He liked to ridicule me, call me names, slap me "accidentally" and insult me as best he could. As I closed my notebook, he decided it would be funny to snag it away from me and take a look at it.
"What the fuck is this for? What's in here?" He asked smugly, opening the book and flipping through it. I attempted to grab it back off him, but of course, he was quicker than me and moved away.
"What? Planning on stranding away from your own Mum in London?" He questioned, joking. I chuckled sarcastically.
"Nah, I'm hoping to strand away from you and Step-ass in London." I shot back.
"Cute." He responded, giving me his death glare and throwing my notebook back to me. "Wait until I tell Mum and Dad about this."
"She's not your Mum!" I called out to him as he ran down the stairs to cause mayhem, as usual. I muttered an insult under my breath as he didn't shut the door and then waited to hear what he had to say to Mum. Surprisingly, downstairs stayed quiet. I assumed that Jordan didn't say anything and tried to scare me, which failed horribly, so I just closed over my door and continued to write.

About 5 minutes later, my doorknob was shaken again, to let another person in my room. This time, Mum slowly made her way into my room. I decided to put headphones on while I was still writing and making plans so I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings, so I was unaware of this. Mum sat on the edge of my bed, startling me, causing me to close my book and open a new tab on my computer.
"What are you doing?" Mum asked calmly as I took off my headphones.
"Nothing." I mumbled, pausing my music.
"You're doing something, Crystal. Can I see?"
"Why would you want to see?" I became defensive over my notes.
"I'm just nosey, you know I like to know what you're doing." I chuckled at Mum's response. Clearly. I sighed, gave in and handed her my notebook.

"Things to do while in London..." She read aloud. I sighed and continued to scroll through the website I was looking at. A few minutes went by and Mum had finished reading my notes.
"So, Jordan was right, you don't want to be around us." Mum muttered to me, as if I couldn't hear. I quickly shot my head up and could feel a fire burning through my body.
"Oh, yeah, you'll always believe what Jordan says! He takes everything out of context, Mum!" I yelled, letting out my rage.
"Yeah because everything he says is true, all you do is lie to me!" She shouted back.
"Oh," I laughed, "I lie to you?! You're engaged to a man who lies to you about his career and how he doesn't abuse his step-daughter!" I air-quoted my point with a stupid voice to highlight his dumb lies.
"Mum, just get your head out of your ass and realise that you're believing someone else and their family over your own daughter!!" I blurted out, unexpectedly. I quickly placed my hand over my mouth after realising what I said.
"How about you get your head out of your ass because you're the one not paying attention to how silly you sound!" Mum shot back, standing and walking out of the room in anger. I was in shock at how I spoke. I said what I thought out loud, I didn't expect it. I sighed and laid back on my bed so I was staring at the ceiling. I sat and thought to myself for a moment before switching off my laptop, tidying up my bed and going to sleep. I wanted to try and forget about that conflict for a few hours.

The next morning, I was woken up by Mum calling my name. As I sat and woke up, I called back to my Mum.
"What?!"
"Pack your stuff, we're leaving!" She replied. Now?! I thought it was next week!
"Right now?!" I called down.
"Yes, right now, so hurry up, we need to leave soon!" I groaned and quickly got up out of bed. I frantically looked for the sheet of paper I had previously prepped, telling me what to pack for this journey. When I found the paper, I scanned through it. It listed:

• Shirts
• Pants
• Shoes
• Makeup
• Hair Ties
• Hairbrush
• Hairdryer
• Phone
• Laptop
• Chargers
• Toiletries
• Medical Supplies
• Tissues
• Toothbrush

I grabbed everything I wrote down and messily threw it into my suitcase. Not all of it was able to fit so I grabbed my old backpack and put in my laptop along with the chargers for it and my phone and also my hairbrush. I put on my backpack after zipping it shut, grabbed my suitcase and ran to put them by the front door, then went back upstairs to double-check that I didn't miss or forget anything. I picked up my phone, headphones and handbag then went back downstairs and sat on the bottom step to wait for the others. Finally, out came Mum, Alan and Jordan muttering to themselves about being late.
"Here, take one of these and do your hair in the car, we need to go." Mum said, handing me some chewing gum and opening the front door. The three scurried out of the door and opened the car doors to get in. They must have packed their stuff and put it in the car already because when I opened the back of the car, it was almost completely full with their things. I barely had room to place my suitcase in there. I kept my backpack and handbag with me, in front of my seat as I didn't have enough room to leave them in the trunk of the car.

After a quick morning, we finally left the house to see what London had in store for us for the next 2 weeks.