My Life in Hell

Chapter 2

The morning we had to leave, the goodbyes to my grandparents were long and tearful. Because my father died from cancer when I was three and my grand parents welcomed us into their home, they were like my parents. We couldn’t tell anybody about our new life, not that anybody would believe us anyway, so we just told them that we had to move because mom got offered a job in a big esoteric center, in New York City, and the offer was just too good to pass.

Not too far from the truth. According to Mr. Belzie, we had a new life waiting for us in New York City. My step-father left us his entire fortune and we had to life in his house to be able to inherit. And we had no choice but to move because of the nature of his... work, we could be in danger, if we chose to stay with my grandparents. We would be living in an big house and have no more money trouble. Both very attracting to mom and I, considering the actual state of our lives.

In the limousine that was driving us to the airport, I started to feel anxious. Maybe it was the presence of Mr. Belzie, who kept breathing hard and ruffling papers from his leather case. Or maybe it was because he really looked...odd.

I am not a tall girl by any means, but I stand at 5’5’’ and I loved to wear high heels - despite the fact that I am often badly judged about it because I am only sixteen. Today, I was only wearing jeans, flats and a white T-Shirt featuring a picture of Marilyn Monroe. I went with comfortable since I didn’t really know how the day would play. My brown hair was in a ponytail and I kept playing with it. As for my eyes, I was hiding them behind big sunglasses because people always, always were uncomfortable when they realized that I had one brown eye and one green.

As for Mr. Belzie, he was smaller than me, standing at about 5’1’’. He was obviously cheating, because I could see the higher heel of his ugly worn out shoes. His face was round and his skin was blotchy, with a big bulgeon nose. His small brown eyes kept on looking right and left, not at the same time, and everytime he looked in my eyes direction, I could see him shudder.

I sighed and sat back in the comfortable seat. I took the pile of paperwork I was given and read them again, for the nth time.

I still couldn’t believe what my mom had done. I didn’t tell her, but I was very upset at her. I never believed in Hell, or in Heaven, for that matter. If such places really existed, my father would never have left us and my mom would never have gone crazy with her card reading, hoping to talk to my dad.

When we arrived at the airport, I was left speechless. We were not taking a plane. We were to ride in a private jet.

As soon as we approached the TSA line, Mr. Belzie muttered something I couldn’t hear and left us. It was a funny sight because he was waddling and trying to run at the same time. I sighed and made sure my mom was following me in line. A good thing I had the gate number written on my ticket because I had no idea where I was going.

When the TSA officer saw what my mom looked like, the whole bohemian look, he rolled his eyes.

“Anything to declare?” he asked in a voice that clearly indicated that we were distracting him from his very important job. His big belly was hanging on top of his belt and he kept on scratching the side of his nose.

“No, nothing,” as usual, I was the one to talk because people always had a bad opinion about my mom.

“Passport.” I handed him our passports. He took one look at them and handed them back to me so quickly that I dropped them.

“Good to go.”

“That’s it? We can go?” I asked, surprised by how easy it had been.

“Yes. GO!” I jumped and said thank you. I took my mom’s hand and left, almost running.