"Here we are," Chase said as he stopped the car. I looked out my window to see Victoria's house.
"Thanks for driving me here," I told Chase as I unbuckled my seat belt."No problem. I'll be back in ten minutes," he said. "Don't forget."
"I won't," I said, opening the car door and stepping out. I slammed it shut behind me as Chase sped off down the road.
I spun myself to face Victoria's mansion. At night it looked fun, but now it seemed a little taunting.
I walked up the path way to the front steps and rang the doorbell. I heard the beautiful chime echo through the inside of the house.
After a minute of waiting, the door opened and a tall, gorgeous woman stood there in a maid outfit. "Oh, hello," she spoke with a French accent.
"Hi, is Victoria here?" I asked. The woman took a second to think."Not yet. But she will be here in a few minutes. Would you like to come in and wait for her?" the maid questioned.
"Sure," I responded, stepping into the house.
It looked a whole lot different on the inside. I didn't even recognize it. "Did this house just get remodeled or something?" I asked the maid. She looked around.
"Oh, yes. It looks very much different on the inside. Just about everything got remodeled and changed," she told me. The stairs even looked different. It was weird. Well how would I have known what it looked like on the inside? I mean I was so intoxicated that only night I was here, of course it'd all look different to me.I just shrugged it off and followed the maid farther into the house. We stepped into the parlor. "Would you like a Danish pastry?" the French maid questioned me as I took a seat on a red velvet couch.
"Uh, sure," I answered. The maid left the room. I peered around and admired everything. It was all delicately decorated. There wasn't a speck of dust sitting around. I felt like if I moved around much, I'd screw things up.
After a minute of sitting alone, I heard the front door shut. "I'm home!" I heard Victoria's voice yell. A rush of excitement overcame me. I was finally going to see Victoria again after what, three weeks?
I stood up from the couch and brushed the lint off my jeans. Once my head tilted back up, whoever was standing in the doorway of the parlor was definitely not Victoria. "Amelia? What are you doing in my house?" Darn, it was Victoria. She still had her same sweet voice. But her appearance didn't look anything at all what I had suspected she'd look like. I believed she would be wearing a cute little top with a really, really short skirt and high heels strapped to the end of her long, smooth, tan legs. I imagined she would have her blonde hair perfectly brushed and hardly a speck of make up on her face, since she didn't need that much to compliment her features.
But instead, the girl who I believed was Victoria had her hair chopped all the way above her ears almost and died a terrifying black color. Her skin was pale-looking and she had major dark circles under her eyes like she hadn't slept in weeks. Black eyeliner clouded around her eyes and dark lipstick was slopped onto her lips. The clothes that she was wearing looked cheap instead of the usual high fashion and expensive clothing she usually wore. Her posture was slumped over like she didn't give a shit about anything at all. What happened to her in those three weeks?
"What did you do to yourself?" I blurted out. I didn't mean to be rude or anything, I just wanted to know what the heck was going on with her.
"What do you mean?" she asked."I mean, why do you look so trashy?" I slapped my hand right over my mouth after that last word slipped out.
"Excuse me? I like looking like this. It's not trashy," she spoke defensively. I began to grow nervous. I didn't want to make her mad; I just wanted to see her again because I missed her.
"I didn't mean to say that. I meant why did your die your hair and everything?" I asked cautiously. She sighed. And then she looked like she was about to cry. She walked over to me and plopped herself onto the red velvet couch. I sat down beside her.
"Victoria?" I said. Immediately after I spoke her name, she began to cry. Tears began to pour from her eyes and they never seemed to end.
I put my arm around her shoulder and began to rub it. She leaned her head against my shoulder and stopped her crying. After a few seconds, she lifted her head back off my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.
"Do you really want to know why I look like this?" she asked, wiping the smeared eyeliner from her eyes. I looked at her with concern. She sat back up straight.
"I-I just don't know how else to look. After that picture of us kissing was put up online, I just dropped out of Charleston because I was afraid of going back and getting teased. So now I'm going to public school and I wanted to dress like this because everyone else didn't accept me the way I already was. They didn't like me being the peppy blonde girl. So I just made myself look like this. And see," she pulled up her arm sleeves, "I've been cutting myself." I looked at the scars on her arms. Those scars reminded me of the big scar I had on my stomach from my surgeries. "How are you able to handle the crap coming from everyone at Charleston?" Victoria asked, sniffling.
"I didn't," I said quietly. I lifted up my shirt just enough so you could see my stomach.
"Where did you get that?" Victoria asked pointing at the stitches on my stomach."At my house, I tried killing myself with a pair of scissors." More sadness swept over her face.
"You tried killing yourself?" she asked. I quietly nodded my head as I set my shirt back down. "I'm so, so, so sorry I put you through this. I should have never kissed you," she said, looking down at the floor in shame. I put my hand on her thigh. She looked up at me.
"If you didn't kiss me, I would have probably ended up kissing you," I told her truthfully. She began to smile.
And then almost automatically, the both of us began to lean into each other for a kiss.
"I've got Danish pastries!" I heard the maid say.
Victoria and I backed away from each other to see the French maid standing in the doorway with a few pastries on a plate. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt." She quickly turned around and left the doorway. I moved my eyes back to Victoria. "I have to get going. My brother is probably waiting for me," I said. Victoria nodded her head and stood up. I stood up also.
Then she gave me a gentle kiss on the lips.
"Bye Amelia," she said, giving a slight smile."Bye," I said back.
I stepped past her and went out of the house. I didn't know if I felt hopeful because I finally got to see Victoria, or if I felt sad because I had to leave Victoria. Why did life have to be so tough for me? I quickly strode down the walkway to Chase's car parked at the end on the road.
Once I got in the car, Chase asked, "Is this going to be a routine?" I looked up at him and smiled.
"Why not?" I said. I buckled myself up as Chase began to move the car. My mind wanted to go home but my heart wanted to stay at Victoria's. Oh how love can sure be confusing... very, confusing. And speaking of love, something else popped into my mind.
"Uh, Chase?" I asked, getting into more of a serious tone now. He glanced over at me then back at the road.
"Yeah?" he responded."Did Mom and Dad actually get divorced?" I questioned him. His face expression turned to disappointment. He wasn't looking at me, but I could just tell that he wasn't that happy after I asked those few words.
"Why do you want to know?" he stalled.
"Did he die?" I asked suddenly. Chase didn't answer me. He sat in silence, staring at the street in front of the moving car. "Chase, did our dad get killed?"
"How do you know that he was killed?" he leaked.
"Because, that time I was in the hospital, I saw a vision of Dad getting stabbed." I knew I was really pushing his "sensitive" buttons on a really touchy subject, but I wanted to actually know if what I saw about my dad was true and why it happened.
"So you saw Dad get-?" he choked on the last word.
"Yeah. I don't remember much of what happened though. It was more of a dream rather than a vision. I don't know what the heck it was. Do you think Dad was trying to communicate with me, or try to explain to me how he died?"
Chase sighed, "I don't know. But yeah, you're right. He was stabbed after trying to make a deal with this guy who promised us a whole lot of money. Since Dad was an archeologist, he found this really cool diamond and made a deal with that guy that if he got that diamond, then Dad would get ten thousand dollars in return. But as you know that didn't happen at all." I sunk into my seat.
"Why did no one want to tell me this?" I asked.
"Because who would want to tell a little seven year old girl that her father was stabbed in the heart and left to suffer until death?" I looked down at my hands and twiddled my thumbs. I never thought of it that way. I missed my dad though, a lot. But he died such an odd way. Random guys just don't stab other guys just so they can take an expensive diamond. Why did Dad have to meet the guy secretly anyway? Was it illegal to do something like that? Questions bounced around in my head. I wish I could just back time and talk to my dad again and be held in his arms again. But that wasn't going to happen. What had happened had happened. And no one could change it. Just like I can't change the things that had happened to me. So maybe my dad was trying to spread a message to me after all. He wanted me to just look ahead instead of keep looking back.
I just need to look ahead... period.