This is a short story I wrote for a class. It's inspired by the music video for Ed Sheeran's "A Team"
After a long night of wasting herself with a bottle of vodka, Alice fell sound asleep on a park bench. It wasn’t that comfortable, but she put up with it as always. Some nights she didn’t even sleep and instead just stared at the sky and watched the night turn into day.
The cool wind woke Alice up. She grabbed her bag, full of only a tooth brush, her wallet holding twelve pounds, half-a-pack of cigarettes with no lighter, and made her way to Piccadilly Circus. Of course, she never forgot her old guitar strapped to her back.
Alice had dreamed of becoming a singer, so at age 18, she made the mistake of dropping her life in Essex and moving to the city where she believed it could all happen, London. But for her, it didn’t happen. She didn’t have much money and rented a closet-sized flat. Instead of getting a job, Alice started out by auditioning at local pubs to be night singers. One night, while she was still whole, she attended an open house party at a flat in her building, hoping to make some friends and get familiar with the town, because as she was told in the music business, “It’s all about the people you know.” It went great at first, and she acquainted herself with a small girl with long black hair named Kelsey. Kelsey knew everyone at the party and they stuck together that night. They laughed and shared beers throughout the night, but when it turned into the darkest hours, things took a change.
Kelsey dragged Alice into the bathroom and showed her a bag filled with a white substance.
“You wanna hit this?” Kelsey asked.
If Alice had been sober, she would have probably said no to the offer. But Kelsey kept going on about how singers in the area were doing it all the time. Alice finally gave in and since that night, her mind revolved around cocaine. After months of spending all her money on drugs and failed auditions at local pubs, she got kicked out of her small flat.
Alice was so hooked that she didn’t care where she was living, just as long as she got her “stuff”. The fact that Alice was in trouble never hit her until one night; the night she was taken advantage of. It was right on the streets, and nobody was around to help.
…
Spotted walking down the streets in ripped jeans, sneakers duct taped together, and a figure so unhealthily thin, Alice gives the impression that she struggles to pay her rent. Her lifestyle is the last thing she, or anyone else, would want, but she learned to live with it. She’d much rather be on the streets, playing guitar, starving, and begging for food, than be living with her heroine addict mother back in Essex. When Alice was fourteen, her father moved out and her broken-hearted mother turned into an abusive junkie who eventually shut everyone, even Alice, out. When Alice moved out she didn’t even give a proper goodbye to her mother. Instead she took her things, stormed out, and said, “I’m not coming back, ever!”. They haven’t been in contact since.
She continued walking and made her way past a fruit stand. When the cashier was looking the other way, Alice snuck an apple and kept on walking. She did this every morning as it was her only breakfast. On days where she had absolutely no money, Alice resented herself to stealing food. On most mornings, Alice stole a few magazines from the newsstand and sold them to people on the street. Very few people approached her, afraid that she would steal their wallets or worse. That, of course, was never her intention. Sure, Alice stole from the Tesco shops and newsstands, but she didn’t like it.
