Fairy Tale

Chapter 1: New Situations

"Would you hurry up!" Ava's sharp voice cut through the empty house making Emily wince.

Emily was sitting in her bedroom. Well, her old one. The one she grew up in. The one when it was her and dad. When she smiled and laughed. Dad and her had bought the house together. He had let her pick out the paint, and helped paint the walls. He let her pick her furniture...her bedroom was all packed up in the movers truck. Now it was an empty room. All the jokes and laughs, all her dreams and fears, all her goals and dreams, now it was all memories.

Mental snapshots.

"You know, mother is losing her klunk."  Teresa had poked her head in the door. Her bright electric blue eyes scanned around the room quickly, and then landed on Emily. She rolled her eyes and cluked her tongue.

"What are you doing?"

Emily closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. "Just... remembering and saying good bye."

Her step sister rolled her eyes again, "Why? It's a stupid small room and there wasn't anything good in this awful little house. Good riddance." She sniffed.

She spun on her heel and marched out of Emily's empty room, her sun dress flouncing around her thighs. With a last look she shoved her emotions back down and got up. Holding the little heart necklace in her fist she hesitated at the door. This place, her room, was one of the last things in her life that still tied her to her father. The last thing, being the Boxing Gym. Fitz's Fighting Gym.

Once dad had gone Ava made quick work if getting ride if almost everything in the house that belonged to her father. It was whatever she had grabbed and saved that still belonged. Ava had tried a few times to get her hands in the gym. It was in prime real estate location, and she wanted to sell it and knock it down. But she had no ways of doing it. Dad had been smart about that.

Fitz's Fighting Gym was run and operated by her godfather. Jorge had been Dad's best friend since they were children. But Emily technically owned the gym. In her father's will she was named owner of the business and building, held in trust by Jorge until she was 18. Ava had taken the will to a lawyer to try and get around it, but dad made it impossible for her to get her manicured hands on the Gym. The gym was Emily's life.

School and kick boxing. Study and train. Nursing and fighting. That's how she was able to live with her step mother and sister. Because she punched a bag and not their faces.

The moment her father passed Ava turned into the evil villain, the wicked stepmother. It had been five long years. At first Teresa was nice, they got along, but then Emily's dad got sick and he passed away and she turned on Emily too. Her friends at school started to drift away, believing all the lies and twisted truths from Teresa. She wasn't outright mean, she was secretive, manipulative and when she wanted something she always got it.

Emily slowly walked down the hall, running a hand along the walls. Remembering the wild pillow fights with her father. Playing tag with Jorge and dad. She stood in the empty living room hugging herself. She smiled sadly at the memories of all the Friday night pizza and pillow forts. Jumping up and down cheering and yelling at the TV with Dad, Jorge and Alby on Sunday night fight nights, watching all the MMA fights.

"It's about time! Let's go!" Ava stood in the doorway tapping her high heeled shoe on the hardwood floors.

Emily nodded. Ava spun around and clicked her way out of the house and down the path to the car. Teresa was already in the front seat, her phone out texting away.

Emily swallowed the deep sadness in her heart and slid into the back seat. It was starting to cool off, the leaves were turning yellow and red early. Emily pulled her sweater over her head and looked out the window one last time before the car pulled away from the house, following the moving truck.