Busy. Bustling. Hustling. Lights and shops on every corner. Densely packed streets of people. Red double-decker buses inching along the traffic-polluted roads. London.
We were here.
The area we were living in was nothing like the heart of London. It was relatively quiet on our street. The stretch of pavement adjacent to ours led to a parade of take-aways, corner shops and a pharmacy. There were no more people than a couple of straggling adults, cramming in a small Saturday buy.
"Hmm." Mum mused as she stepped out of the car, grasping two cardboard boxes in her arms. "It is a nice area, see, Simon? It's nice, isn't it, Ashley?"
"Yes, mum." My bad mood still hadn't shifted an inch through the long journey. Had I seriously just moved to a different city? Just like that? I'd left behind Marcus... And Zayn... I'd left behind the source of answers to his mystery... I hadn't even mentioned anything to Bridget...
"Oh, stop saying that, Ashley!" She snapped crisply. "See, this is why you need that English tutor, hopefully she'll re-widen your vocabulary."
"Wahey. How very witty of you, Mum. With wit like that, you should make a career of it."
My mother stared at me sternly. "Ashley, can you stop being so smart and grab a box to take inside?"
"Stop being so smart?" I questioned irritably. "Isn't the whole of me getting a tutor is so that I can be smarter?"
"ASHLEY, JUST TAKE A BOX-"
I threw up my hands in immediate surrender and snatched the storage box from underneath my seat before walking round to the boot of the car where some more of the boxes were kept. In an attempt to be a bigger nuisance, I grabbed the two lightest binbags (labelled 'Soft Toys' and 'Pillows') and commenced to drag them all the way to the front door.
"ASHLEY, DON'T DRAG THE BAGS AGAINST THE GRAVEL-"
"So-rry." I huffed as I picked the bags a centimetre of the ground and walked through the green front door to dump them in our new hallway.
Our house was beautiful, no aspect of denial included. It was in obvious need of some interior modernisation and a touch of our family spirit, but it was perfect all the same. It was a three bedroom, two bathroom, one large kitchen, living room, dining room plus a garden piece of heaven.
But it wasn't our old house. There was no attractive boy living a short walk away.
Maybe that was the reason I took every scenario available to annoy my mother.
"Ashley, can you not loiter in the doorway? I need to get past with these suitcases."
"Ashley, get off the banister, honestly why don't you try helping out?"
"Ashley, did you just BREAK my vase? For God's sake, child! Can you at least clean it up?"
My dad cornered me at the foot of the stairs as I was insisting on sliding down the steps on my arse instead of walking.
"Are you deliberately trying to wind your mother up?" He asked with the slight lilt of a laugh in his voice.
I shook my head no.
"Then what are you doing?"
I shrugged my shoulders and curled my knees up to my chest. "I didn't realise how massive it would be to not only move house, but move city. I feel kind of sick... I miss Marcus. I almost miss Z... Marcus, yeah, I miss Marcus. I may have been suffering at William Morrison but at least I had one friend. What if no one at Datcers likes me? What if it's worse here? What if someone attempts to kill me-"
YOU ARE READING
My Beautiful King
FanfictionI think--I think when it's all over, It just comes back in flashes, you know? It's like a kaleidoscope of memories. It just all comes back. But he never does. I think part of me knew the second I saw him that this would happen. It's not really anyth...
