Penelope

Chapter 1: Coming Home

*Picture of Penelope*

The whole plane ride Penelope Anderson felt her stomach turning in knots. She tried to soothe her mind by gazing at the clouds outside of her window. The sounds of her loud grunge music blared through her ears. It wasn't nearly enough to keep her mind off of what was to inevitably arise. She was petrified to go live with her father. The man who would take her for ice cream Friday after school. Or sing terribly off-key when he cooks dinner. She shook her head no there was no way he was. The last words she had said to him weren't very pleasant. She no longer knew if she was the same man that she had known. The deepest corner of her heart, what she knew it to be true. She wasn't the same so why would he?

From what she could tell from her older brother, Hunter's Instagram he father had a much better job now. He was no longer scraping to get by. Hunter appeared to have the time of his life in California, and she could help but feel jealous of him. That's probably one of the reasons she stopped accepting his phone calls and replying to his texts. She would've blocked him altogether but she could never find the will to do it. Without seeing the luxurious life he was granted while she was treated to conditions that even Cinderella had not to bare. It fueled her anger and destruction.

She shifted around in her seat it was a nervous habit of that she couldn't break even though she had plenty of space to get up move around. Her dear old stepdad had sent on his private plane and offered to escort her. She rudely declined his offer to escort her, with a colorful string of curse words her mother was ready to bite her head off for. Penelope knew he would only harass her the whole way there in more ways than one. She started contemplating what she might say to her estranged father or her spoiled brother.

She was mad at her both of her parents for so long she didn't know how she would look at father without wanting to slap him. She had spent many nights when she was young thinking about how he could just let her mother leave with her. Without fighting for her to stay and how he chose to keep Hunter instead of both of them. Why was she being punished when her mother had cheated? When she was only eight, Penelope was ripped from the only home she knew. Leaving a large hole filled with questions hurt and whole a lot of disappointment. Now was returning to a life that she didn't even know anymore. Penelope sat there on the plane replaying the last conversation she had with mother over and over again.

"I've had enough Penelope. I can't do this anymore! This is the second time you've been kicked out that boarding school and that isn't even on the top of the list of all the things you've done that have greatly disappointed me." Her mother shouted throwing Penelope's thing in her trunk.

"Oh really mother your disappointed! What shocked?" Penelope screamed tossing more of clothes into the trunk. "Well, that goes for both of us. I've been disappointed in you for the past eight years."

A hand with lighting quickness struck across Penelope's face. Penelope chuckled her mother had always a short temper when it came to talking back. The bitter taste of blood filled her mouth. Her mother had hit her harder this time than any of the others.

"I am done, Penelope. You are going to go live with your father in California and maybe he can teach you some respect or at least keep you out of jail long enough to graduate high school."

"Yes, because the only thing I learned from you is how to be a whore for money." Penelope spat specks of blood landing on her mother's white blouse. She knew then she had crossed the line, but she was furious pure blood-boiling anger. Another strike had landed against her face. Penelope had hoped that one of her mother's rings hadn't cut her face. The last thing she wanted was to cover another scar.

"I hope for your father's sake that he's a better equipped to handle you than I am."

"You were never equipped to handle any of your children Helen because you are a selfish inconsiderate human being who ships her kids off at the first sign of trouble," Penelope shouted leaving her room slamming the door making a thunderous echo fill the house.