GONE • jb

Chapter One

The bright Arizona sun beat down on my face as I walked up to my small one story house. Stopping for a moment, I looked down at the concrete, wishing I didn't have to go inside. I stared down at my high white top converse, and tugged at my greyt-shirt dress. The usual sense of nervousness washed over, as I contemplated if I was ready to go inside. From the outside it looked like a normal home, and I'm sure that is how all the neighbors saw my small family of three.

 Little did they know.

We had moved to Arizona about three months ago right after I graduated from high school. My step-father demanded we move because he wanted to take a different job here in Arizona, and of course my mother followed his every command like a lost puppy. We packed up everything from the house I grew up in, and moved to Arizonia within a week. It didn't exactly bother me that we had moved - I hadn't been close with any of my friends since my mother remarried. 

It had been seven years since my father had died. My mother found Michael about a year after my father passed, and they were married within a few months. I believed my mother didn't know how to be alone, and so she took what she got. Even if it meant a controlling and abusive man - she wasn't the smartest nowadays. Actually, she was hardly the loving and caring mother I used to know. I haven't seen that version of her since my father passed.

She was now nothing but cold, mean, and degrading towards me. As if I was the one who was the cause of my father's accident. I was reminded of her hate for me every day - it never failed.

Twisting the key in the lock, I pushed open the door and was met with an eerie silence. I knew that they were here, but hopefully they wouldn't hear me come in. I gathered my long brown locks all to my right shoulder nervously, and attempted to go up the stairs.

"Ella, where have you been?" My mothers cold voice spoke, making me jump slightly. I turned to see her coming around the corner from the kitchen, the usual tight lip and frown present on her face.

"I-I was grabbing your prescription for you remember? You asked me to." I quickly dug through my over-sized bag, grabbing her prescription. "Here mom."

"I don't have time for the attitude Ella." My eyebrows knitted together in confusion, wondering where she got the idea that I had an attitude. I then remembered this is what my mother does - she makes up situations in her head, just to have a reason to be against me at that moment. "Get the hell out of my face, and go up to your damn room." She spat, adding in a shove to my shoulder.

"Gladly." I muttered under my breath.

I instantly cursed under my breath, annoyed at my own stupidness. I'd fallen into her trap, and given her a reaction - playing the game that she thrived on.

"Excuse me?!" Her squeaky voice yelled. I cringed at the volume of her voice, she knew exactly what she was starting. Turning from her, I tried to quickly make my way up the stairs. I was about halfway up when I heard the loud footsteps against the wood floors.

"What the hell is going on here?" My step-dad's voice instantly made my heart begin to race, making me freeze. "Ella get your ass down here."

I contemplated making a run for it to my bedroom, but I knew things would only end up worse for me. Trudging down the staircase, I fixed my eyes on the floor, just like I'd been trained to do all of these years.

"Ella seems to think that she can talk to me however she pleases. She had the nerve to call me a bitch under her breath when I sent her to her room." My head snapped in my mother's direction, my eyes sending her a silent plea for her to just stop. I couldn't get over how my mother could just lie like that, plus it sounded like she was tattling on her little sister to her father. However, this is the stuff I was used to dealing with over and over for the past six years.