One.
Alanna Reed
With my dark brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, I slid my tan sweater over my head. Acknowledging the weather change between the new place and home, I still decided to keep it simple. Dark colored skinny jeans accompanied my sweater, and my matching tan boots. My eyes caught site of myself in the full length mirror leaning against the cream color walls of my new room. In the midst of all the unopened boxes, I picked my way over to the mirror, and looked at myself.
My reflection peered back at me, and it was the first time I noticed how my dark brown eyes seemed to be harboring so much sadness. Looking at them made me remember the awful night, the night my mom and stepdad told my older stepsister and I that we were moving here, Los Angeles. That same night, my boyfriend of two years, Drew, broke up with me over text message after hearing a bad rumor about me.
***
"Wait," Rachel, my step-sister, insisted,"we're moving?"
Her dad, Brian, stood behind my mom. His arms were wrapped around her waist protectively as if Rachel and I were a pack of hounds ready for attack. I was in so much shock that I didn't even think to respond. The only thought running through my head were my friends, and my whole life. After my mother and father got a divorce, the only thing they didn't take away from me was my school life which included all my friends. They were the only thing that had remained stable in my life, and now my step-dad wanted to take me away from that?
Anger seemed to boil in me until finally I looked up at them. "Where, huh? Where are we moving?"
Brian swallowed, and looked down at my mom who was only shaking her head at me. His green eyes met with my eyes, and his mouth was frozen in mid-sentence as if he didn't know what to say. "Well - uh - actually my job -."
"Where are we moving?" Rachel butt in. She didn't seem happy, but she wasn't angry either. "Out of the state?"
Just the thought of that, made me want to cry. I wanted to run in my room, slam the door, and refuse to leave the house for the rest of my life if that's what it had to take to get them to stay. My eyes frantically searched my mother's, looking for some sort of agreement between us. She loved it here, why was she settling for this?
"Los Angeles," Brian answered quickly, smiling. He seemed pleased that Rachel was taking it so easily.
Her face lit up. "California?"
I rolled my eyes, and threw my hands in the air. "Why, Brian, why are you doing this? You think you can waltz into our lives, and expect us to move away with you to a whole different state?"
"Alanna!" my mom snapped, clearly appalled by what I had just said. But, I couldn't care less. He wasn't my dad. "What's the matter with you?"
"What's the matter?" I laughed sarcastically. "I just don't understand how he thinks he can just take us half way across the country to a state unknown by me in my junior year of high school. If you guys want to move when I graduate, by all means, do it. I don't care what you do once I'm gone, but, what I do know, is that I refuse to move across the country with a guy I don't even know, and his daughter who doesn't even like me."
All three of them stared at me, eyeing me as if waiting for another outburst. I breathed hard, avoided blinking, and hoped my eyes weren't becoming glossy. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Brian, my mom, and Rachel. Especially not Rachel. I soon realized that I probably just sounded like an annoying, whiny little child. That's exactly how they treat me.
