Cinderella After Midnight

Chapter 2

Amelia was kneeing on the cold floor to look under her bed. No rope. Where the hell was her rope? She was certain that she put it in her small commode. How could it be gone? She needed it to get out of her room through the window. She had heard Diana tell Julia that she would lock her up in order to hinder her from attending the ball and she couldn't let it happen. She had to get into the castle. She knew she was no angel, and she didn't expect anyone to think of her that way either. Yet, for some reason they always did. They would look at her in disbelief if she'd swear or if she'd laugh too loud. No, she was no angel. She was just simply a quiet girl who preferred to listen than to speak. She didn't mind people misunderstanding her, but they didn't know who she really was.
The young girl sighed, stood up and almost fell on the floor again.Luckily, she had made it to the bed. Feeling too dizzy to stand up again, she just sat there, unmoving. Her head hurt from the loud yelling of her stepmother and on top of that her stomach was hurting from hunger. Diana hadn't let her eat anything the whole day, since she returned to the market late and all the fish had been sold.
Amelia looked up when she heard Diana calling her loudly. Standing up quickly, she ran upstairs, and found her stepmother and her stepsiblings in the kitchen, well dressed.

"Here you are, finally. What do you eat that you're so slow? Oh wait, you ate nothing," Julia said and laughed at her own good joke. Amelia rolled her eyes, ignoring her stepsister.

"You," She heard Diana call, telling her to come closer. "Look at this."
Amelia came closer and saw a dish full of lentils in the ashes. "I want you to pick the lentils out of the ashes. It will be done when we're back or else you are going to sleep on the kitchen floor tonight."
Then she signaled to the twins that they were leaving.
Amelia bit her lip, holding back the tears that were threatening to flow down. This woman never failed to make her life worse than it had already been.

"Wait, mother." Amelia looked up as she heard Alex's voice. The younger boy went to the fireplace, picked up a handful of ashes and put the ashes on the dish, smirking.

"Have fun picking them out," he said. His mother and sister smiled proudly at him.
Amelia took the dish silently. She was about to go to her room when her stepmother slammed the door shut, locking it. The poor girl widened her eyes in shock and ran to the closed door.

"What are you doing? Open the door!" she yelled.

"You will stay here until we're back. And don't waste your time looking for this," Diana said, showing Amelia the rope she had been looking for earlier. She threw it into a corner and went towards the front door. Amelia let her body fall on the dirty floor, giving up, hearing wicked laughter as her stepfamily left.

"Alex, what happened to you?" she murmured in a broken voice.

The 10-year-old Amelia was playing with her mother when a little young boy called her. The younger boy was standing next to a beautiful woman and an adorable girl, his older sister. Older, in this case, meant 15 minutes.

"Amy," the boy waved at her cheerfully. Amelia looked up at her mom, asking if she could play with her friend.

"Of course, go and have fun. I'll tell you when we need to go home," her mother said, smiling.
Amelia nodded and ran to the younger boy. She had missed her friend so much. Her mom was busy, so she couldn't go to the castle with her. She hadn't seen her best friend for over a week.

"Alex!" She called the boy by his nickname. His full name was Alexander, just like her father. She used to think that if a child had the same name as an adult, you were supposed to put "Junior" after it. Therefore, she had called him Alex Junior for a while, until her father explained to her that you only added the Junior if the two were related.

"Amy, look, my mom bought me a new toy, isn't it cute?" Alex showed her his new toy.

"It's so cute," she replied before turning his mother, bowed. "Good morning, Mrs. Albinson."

"Good morning, Amelia," said Mrs. Albinson, giving her a friendly smile.

Mrs. Albinson was Diana's name when Amelia first met her, before she married her father, the husband of her best friend.
When Amelia was still a child, her mom went to the castle every day to bring her dad lunch and they often met Diana, together with Julia and Alex there. Her mom had always let her play with the kids while she talked to her best friend. She had told Amelia that Diana wasn't only her best friend but they had grown up together and used to be like sisters.
There had been a time when Amelia had understood why her mother liked Diana so much. Her stepmother had been kind, friendly and really nice to her when she was still young. Now she couldn't recognize her mom's best friend anymore. Diana had turned into a complete monster. And not only she, but also her old friend, Alex, had changed. After her mother's death, Alex had stopped talking to her. They had lived in the same house for over five years and the younger had never spoken to her, until today. Yet, all he had to say were words that were like blades cutting her heart into pieces.

"What have I done to you, Alex? What did I do wrong?" Amelia thought, throwing the dish full of lentils and ashes against the wall as tears ran down her face.