My Personal Hell, D. Richardson [ebook reader browser txt] 📗

Adrian looked slightly worried. Asher on the other hand gave me a little smirk. Yeah, he had noticed that we seemed to be wearing almost the same thing. I just shrugged.

“It’s fine,” I said, when she still looked worried I gave her a half smile, and she relaxed. Drake sighed in relief. I guess he was expecting a teenage girl blow up.

“Well, what about you Ailith, do you need some more clothes for school?” Becca asked conversationally. I gave her a confused look.

“I bought clothes yesterday.” I told her. I had already done my shopping. Why would I want to do more. I still needed some traditional school supplies, but I had all of the clothes I needed. Of course, that got everyone’s attention again. My god, how much money did these people spend?

“Yes, but you might need some more for school. You only had a few bags yesterday, and you didn’t have anything when you got here.” I shrugged again.

“But I have everything I need.” She eyed me for a minute then nodded turning to Lori.

“What about you, Hon? Would you like to go shopping with us? We could get you a little bit of makeup. Maybe a couple pairs of shoes to match all of your outfits? I bet we could find some clips, so you can pin your hair back.” Lori looked at me then back at her, like she was torn.

I wasn’t into the whole makeup and hair stuff, but I knew Lori was. She would eye the magazines that the Others brought home. I knew part of the reason she kept her hair short, was because she couldn’t do anything with it. And if she couldn’t do anything then she wouldn’t want to.

“Go ahead,” I told her and her head snapped at me.

“Are you sure? I mean…” I cut her off.

“Go, have fun.” I knew she was always trying to be like me. So she wouldn’t cry when she needed to, or she would withstand things she shouldn’t have to. The last thing I wanted was for her to be like me. She met my eyes, and I kept my gaze straight. She was looking for any sign that I didn’t want her to go. When she didn’t find anything she nodded.

“Can I go too?” Kadi asked softly. She was looking at me, but Becca answered.

“Of course you can! Come on we’ll make it a girls’ day out.” I smiled down at Kadi and she smiled back. If I had said no, she would have declined. “So let’s go! Ailith are you sure you don’t want to come?” She asked as she grabbed a light jacket, and the girls got up to leave. I shook my head and she smiled at me. They left and I turned to eye the coffee.

I hadn’t had anything to drink yet today, and I really wanted a cup. I hadn’t had coffee since I was ten though. What if I didn’t like it anymore? What if I try it and I don’t like it then it ruins some of the good memories I have? Drake interrupted my internal debate to refill his own cup. He offered the pot to me, and I took it hesitantly. A minute later he put the creamer on the counter in front of me.

So I grabbed a coffee mug and filled it three quarters of the way full. Filling it the rest of the way with the creamer. It was French vanilla, it used to be my favorite. I stirred the creamer in and took a sip. It was wonderful. I was half way through my second cup when Drake said my name.

I turned to see the kitchen almost empty. Only three of them stayed sitting at the table. Drake, Asher, and Adrian. Drake motioned for me to sit in Becca’s empty seat. I sat hesitantly and gripped my coffee cup with both hands.

“I think we should explain a few things to you.” Drake said, he looked like he felt awkward, but to be honest I felt a little relieved. I would finally get to know what it is they expected from us. He looked like he was waiting for me to answer, so I nodded.

“We didn’t bring you here so you could work for us.” I looked at him confused and he sighed. “We don’t want you to cook and clean for us.”

“Then what do you want?” I asked.

“Nothing. Or more appropriately, we don’t want anything from you. We brought you here so you could live. Go to school, have friends, do what you want. Within reason. We want to be here for you. I understand you’re too old to be expected to accept a new family, but that’s what we want to be for you. We will treat you and the girls just like we treat our own kids.”

“But what if I want to cook and clean?” I asked. He gave me a skeptical look.

“Why would you? I’m forty eight years old, and I don’t want to.” I shrugged.

“I don’t know how to do anything else.” That was obviously the wrong thing to say. I thought they would understand. But they didn’t know about what I did before going to the Others. The look of sadness in all three of their eyes had me backpedaling. “I mean, how can I earn my keep if I don’t?”

“You don’t have to earn your keep. Get good grades, stay out of trouble and we’d count our blessings.”

“I prefer to earn what I have. I don’t do handouts very well,” I explained and he nodded.

“Okay, well then, how about you can do all of the housework you want. But only if you want to. You’re under no obligation to do anything but keep your own room clean. If you feel the need to help out around the house then we’d welcome it.” I nodded. That I could handle. For a brief moment I wondered what they would do if I got a job. He did say I could do what I wanted within reason. I assumed the within reason meant against the law, or house rules.

That led me to thinking about school. I knew it would be more complicated than he let on to get us back in. Kadi had never been, Lori and I had it on record that we were dropouts.

“How are you going to get us into school?” I asked abruptly. He apparently wasn’t expecting the sudden change in topic, but he went with it.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. The few school records I have on you guys are from years ago. Junior high most of them, and I have nothing on Kadi.” I nodded, it figured that my father wouldn’t even give the Others updated records, and the last grade Lori completed was eighth grade.

“I had to drop out right before my sophomore year, Lori barely made it through eighth, and Kadi has never been to school.” He nodded.

“Does Kadi know anything. Has she had any education at all?” He asked. He wasn’t mean about it, just mostly for reference. But I nodded.

“She can read and write. She knows most of the basic math. She has most of her multiplication tables memorized.”

“Do you think Lori will test into sophomore or is she on more of a freshman level?”

“I think she can get into her sophomore year. We tried to keep up as much as we could.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to the principle and try to get the tests you need by tomorrow. The quicker we get this done the better. I’m doing all I can to make sure you guys can pick up where you left off.” The level of sincerity in his voice was heartwarming. But I knew something he didn’t.

You can’t erase your past. You can’t undo what you or anyone else has done. You can try to live like it never happened, but it always comes back to bite you in the ass. No, me and the girls will still have to deal with what we’ve been through. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to make us normal, we never would be. Kadi had a better chance of it. With any luck she would just have a handful of bad memories. But the details would always stick to me and Lori. And I learned the best way to cope was to look forward. Do what we could at the moment to survive, and work to make things better in the future.

“I do still need to get some school supplies though,” I added and he chuckled a little.

“You can take one of our cars. Becca has her own bank card, so you can have mine for the day. Don’t worry about how much you spend, I run a very successful business. You might consider picking up a laptop too. The kids have found that it makes school a bit simpler if you have papers due or you need to do research about something. We have wifi throughout the entire house, so you don’t have to worry about internet access.” When he finished I just stared at him. “What’s wrong?” he asked when I didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know anything about computers. What if I get the wrong one?” I asked. I was more worried about wasting his money on something I couldn’t even use.

“I can help,” Adrian replied and I nodded in relief.

“Here you can take my car,” Asher said pushing some keys across the table to me. Adrian and Drake stared at him in disbelief.

“Where is it?” I hadn’t seen much of the grounds besides what I could see when we pulled up, and what I saw from my balcony the night before. He pointed to the only other door in the kitchen. I had seen it before, but had steered clear. Their kitchen was eerily similar to the Others’, and that door led down to the punishment room. I felt myself pale.

“It leads to the garage.” Adrian said quickly. He hadn’t missed the similarities. I nodded and stood and walked to the door pushing it open quickly. Sure enough there was a garage with several cars parked in it. All in a single line so none of them were blocked. The garage looked like it was the same length as the house to fit them all. I used the key pad to see which car I would be driving and when I saw the lights flash my jaw dropped.

Sitting there all nice and pretty was a black convertible Lamborghini. It had silver rims and just looked delicious. I stared for a minute then said the only thing that I could to express my amazement.

“You’ve got to be shitting me!” I heard a few chuckles from behind me. Then out of nowhere it seemed like my seven years of no caffeine caught up to me. The two cups that I had had rushed through me, and I spun quicker than I thought I could. I rushed to the table just as Adrian stood, and grabbed the bank card that Drake had left on the table.

“Okay, thanks, bye!” I said as I ran out the door. I vaguely heard Asher yell at me to be careful with the car, but I was already sliding in behind the wheel. Asher was considerably taller than me, and it looked like he drove while laying down. I adjusted the seat as Adrian slid into the passenger seat.

“Do you know how to drive one of these?” he asked with a nervous lilt. I looked at him and grinned.

“It’s about time I found out isn’t it?” I started the engine and slammed it into reverse while stomping on the gas. The car surged backwards and I spun the wheel so I was facing the driveway. I got another surge of adrenaline and smiled bigger than I had in years. I slammed it into drive and stomped on the gas harder. By the time I made it to the actual road, Adrian