1
Meadow
Girls like me are supposed to live a life similar to a fairy tale. I don’t. I hate my life. That’s a secret nobody knows about me. Anyone looking from the outside in would probably call me spoiled and maybe they’d be right but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I hate my life. It’s just how it is.
Recently I turned twenty and I still live at home with my parents in their ice castle. Mostly to piss off my dad who’s a high ranking politician and only cares about his career and doesn’t think I’m a good daughter. Neither of my parents think highly of me and they have no problem showing it either.
They hate me.
And maybe that’s why I hate my life.
I swallow before arranging my features, pretending that I’m carefree as always.
“Open up,” I say, with my head out the window of my brand new Bentley and the iron gates flare open. We live like American royalty in a giant house that looks like a cream cake with a fountain at the front and impeccable lawns at the back.
When I was a kid, my sister and I were never allowed to play on that lawn, or run around or talk to loud or laugh in case we’d give my mother a nosebleed. At times it felt like growing up in a mausoleum. Desolate. Lonely. Bleak.
But at least I had Melody back then. I no longer do and I brace myself, tossing the end of my silk scarf over my shoulder and walk up the wide staircase to our house.
A cold wind puffs me in the face, as soon as I cross the threshold as if the inside is colder than the outside. Everything is immaculate around here, no dust in sight, no cheerful music playing anywhere and the help is so quiet they could be mistaken for ghosts.
Removing my sunglasses, I chew on the ends, calling, “Hello, I’m home.”
Nothing but my own echoes greets me. Nobody answers. Nobody cares and I shrug, trying not to care either. Dropping my swarming shopping bags on the shiny checked floors, I walk over to the round table that’s in the middle of the foyer and I glance at yesterday’s paper.
There’s a photo of me, dancing on a bar and holding a champagne bottle over my head with a text below reading, “Politician Burton Michaels very own enfant terrible.” I smirk and I’m pretty pleased with myself because I know this will infuriate my father.
His political career is the only thing that matters to him. Not his children and sometimes I doubt he even loves my mom. When Melody and I were younger we would do all kinds of crazy things just to get our parents attention.
We never really managed to get it though. All we got was the cold shoulder and when we got older our trashy tabloid, party girls reputation was difficult to erase.
Everyone knows about the Michaels sisters; young, pretty socialites who have a flare for the more libertine side of life. At least that’s what everyone thinks. Truth is a little bit different...
Tensing, I turn my head at the sound of footsteps and my mother and father walk into the room, together with dad’s bodyguard in tow. My parents barely acknowledge me. No glances and no smiles. All I ever get is ice.
“Good afternoon,” I say, only to earn a stern look from dad and on the inside I wince.
“Child...,” is all he replies, a chill coming off of him, his eyes raging and I know he’s mad about the article. I lift my chin. Good, then my job is done.
Mom doesn’t say anything either and they pass by me like we’re strangers. When I was younger, tears would have burned in my eyes from their treatment but I’m older now. Not that I’m immune. Their indifference still fills me with shame and I bite my lip, not really knowing where to look until my eyes land on dad’s bodyguard and they narrow.
Dominic Slade has been working for my father for about a year now. He’s thirty years old, controlled to the point of it being annoying because he barely ever says a word to me. He always acts like I’m not there and it bothers me to a degree it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t care about him or how he treats me.
Compared to me, Dominic Slade isnothing. Anobody. I don’t know much about him, because he’s a mystery like that but I know he didn’t grow up rich and privileged since he seems uncomfortable wearing the stiff suits my father requires him to wear.
He doesn’t look too bad though, I have to give him that. Towering and broad shouldered, with dark hair cut short to his skull and eyes that are a strange blue that more than often looks black. Unlike the rest of my father’s staff, he’s got a bristly stubble and sometimes I can’t help but to imagine what he would look like if he had a beard.
Shrugging I force myself to block that image out of my mind. I am not interested in Dom. Frankly, I wouldn’t touch him even if someone paid me. Wouldn’t want to ruin my nice manicure with someone who is beneath me.
Dom doesn’t greet me, doesn’t look me in the eyes and moves to follow my father when I stop him.
“Wait,” I say and he does, turning around and his eyes are blank. They don’t reveal any emotions because he always has his poker face on. He’s so rigid and orderly that sometimes I’m surprised to find that his chest does indeed move.
“I need help with my shopping bags.” I nod in their direction. “Pick them up and carry them to my bedroom.” I don’t say please. I don’t have to. And in my opinion, he should be working harder to please me instead of constantly acting like my opinion doesn’t matter and like I’m nothing but air to him.
Dom doesn’t frown, doesn’t raise an eyebrow, instead he just replies in a monotone voice. “Why don’t you ask the help?”
Curving my lips in a cat like smile, I say, “Oh, but Slade...youare the help.” Snickering to myself, I watch him carefully, expecting some kind of flash of anger in his eyes but as always there is nothing but indifference and it aggravates me.