Going Nowhere

Waiting for Wonderland - Prologue

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I figured I would upload something while you guys were waiting for the new NHG chapter (which I'm working on now and will update tonight)

There are four more chapters of this I'm uploading after I post this, so there's more. This is just the prologue.

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I used to think I was Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

Every night, before I went to bed, I would beg my mother to read me a chapter of the novel, by Lewis Carroll. She was too busy spending my dad’s money getting high, so I spent every waking moment teaching myself to read that worn, yellow-paged novel I’d stolen from my school library.

For my ninth birthday, my dad got me a stuffed, white rabbit with a red waistcoat. I was so excited to have my own white rabbit, and I remember quoting lines from the book to the stuffed animal. It was the best day of life.

It was also the day that my life started to fall apart at the seams.

“Oh my ears and whiskers!” I whispered, and I stroked the fake, snow white fur of my new stuffed rabbit. It was so soft, and the red waistcoat that was wrapped around the rabbit was stiff. My dad had only given it to me an hour ago, yet I was already in love. When my four-year-old sister, Phoebe, had tried to take him from me, I’d screamed so loud she’d started crying.

Suddenly, there was the sound of banging on the door to the apartment, and my head snapped up to look at my dad. He was sitting at the kitchen table, bills spread out before him, and as someone knocked again, this time louder, my dad pushed away from the table.

“Take Phoebe and go to your room, Alice,” he commanded as he walked towards the door. I scrambled to my feet, but instead of hurrying down the hall to my small bedroom with Phoebe in tow, I climbed onto the sofa and peeked over the top, which gave me a perfect view of the door.

My dad ran a hand through his messy hair before pulling the door open, and my jaw dropped when I saw the cop. “May I help you?” my dad asked stiffly.

“Are you Brian Lourdes?” The police officer asked, and I noticed his partner standing grimly behind him. My dad nodded, and the police officer sighed. “I’m very sorry, but your wife was brought to the hospital an hour ago. She appeared to have overdosed.”

My dad took a staggered step back, and I saw the tell tale vein in his forehead bulge, which meant he was either angry or really worried. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep quiet, and I watched as my dad shoved his hands roughly in his pockets.

“So she’s dead?” He asked, and my eyes widened. I wasn’t sure what overdosed meant, but I did know what dead meant.

“Yes.”

I was nine when my mother died. She’d been twenty-eight, and it was the excessive amount of a mix of alcohol and prescription drugs that she’d consumed that had killed her. My mom was young, and she was out at a club when it had happened. I remember my dad leaving Phoebe and me with our neighbors so that he could go the hospital to make arrangements for the body.

After her death, my dad fell into a deep depression. He spent a lot of time at his job working at a construction company, and I found myself at home, taking care of Phoebe. I grew up quickly, and I realized that I wasn’t the Alice from the story, and my world wasn’t like Wonderland, no matter how much I wished it was.

When I was sixteen, my dad came home with the news that he’d lost his job. His termination was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he turned to alcohol and welfare. It was really hard for me, watching someone I loved be so broken. It was a slap in the face from reality, one that I had to suffer alone because Phoebe didn’t understand.

I did odd jobs for crappy pay to make ends meet, since the unemployment just wasn’t enough to keep us in our small apartment, but we still barely scraped by. It was in desperation a couple months after my dad was fired that I found a job that made me more than enough money.

No, not stripping.

I became affiliated with a gang.

It all started when I started hanging out with some people from school. Before I knew it, I was helping them in drug deals and being the pretty girl when needed. As I got further and further into the violent world of the gang, the members became my family, and I was able to support my family without them knowing what I was doing.

However, I always found myself looking back at that little girl who thought she was so special and she was meant to live in a fantastic, whimsical world. I have never felt as happy as I did back then. It was a sobering thought.

I just feel hollow sometimes.

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