Dream I Almost Missed

Chapter Two

~ Alice ~

The first thing was locking my door. I didn’t have the key inside my room, so I had to run to my parents’ room and grab it without them finding out. Once I locked the door, I started to organize my things. I grabbed my passport and my bag with documents, took out a small pouch that had a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, soap, a razor, a few hair ties, my menstrual cup, and sanitary pads.

I started to think about clothes, but fairly quickly realized not much of what I had would work for the weather over there, and I would have to buy appropriate clothes once I was there, so I put the items of clothing that would work on my bed and threw the rest in garbage bags, hoping I could sell most of it. The same could not be said about my little collection of art supplies; it had taken me forever to buy them myself, and I loved what had been given to me as gifts, so there was no way I was leaving any of it behind.

Halfway through packing my art supplies, I realized I was supposed to film a video for YouTube, since I had the date for the flight, I had already quit my job, I decided to use the time I had to film a bunch of videos I would post while going to England and getting settle a bit, I knew there was no way I could keep up with my regular schedule of videos in YouTube with all the craziness that was about to come.

So I decided to ditch the planned videos and record the reality of getting everything you needed done to move abroad. I was moving to England; this wasn’t a trip with a return ticket, and I had less than four days to be done with everything. I didn’t complicate myself; I just grabbed my camera, put it on the tripod so it would film most of my room, and sat down on the floor in front of it.

“Welcome to the chaos my life will be for the next four days!” I announced to the camera, pointing behind me.” As you all already know, I have a set date to go to England for the final audition, so I will take you with me in the process of getting everything ready. Have fun.

Once I finished talking, I moved the tripod back a little and continued recording as I went crazy with all my stuff. I finished packing all my art supplies in the small suitcase that would be with me in the cabin, separated some clothes, putting the ones I would use for the next few days in an old backpack, along with some shoes, then I chose the outfit I would wear to the airport and put it in a smaller bag, and lastly I did my best to organize the few big, puffy and warm pieces of clothing I would take with me in the big suitcase.

Once I was done, I texted my best friend Fiorella, telling her I would be at her workplace in twenty minutes. Luckily for me, she worked part-time at a second-hand clothing store where you could either buy or sell clothes, so I grabbed the gigantic garbage bag with most of my clothes, threw all but four pairs of shoes into another bag, and threw both bags out of my window into a small patch of grass. I had been using that same tactic to get out of the house when I shouldn’t for years, and neither my parents nor my sister ever found out.

“Oh my, did they kick you out of the house?” Asked Fiorella as soon as she saw me walking in with two gigantic bags of garbage.

“Actually, yes,” I answered, taking her by surprise. “I have to be out of their house by tomorrow morning, so I need to get rid of pretty much everything.”

“Got it, let’s take this to the back and separate everything.” Instructed me, Fiorella grabbing the bag of shoes.

I grabbed the other bag and followed her to the back of the store, where all the items brought in were separated and organized by size, color, item type, and condition. We started with the shoes first, since it would be faster.

“I don’t have to say you can stay at my place, right?” Said Fio.

“I know, I was going to ask you about it, I just don’t want to inconvenience your mom.”

“You won’t, but I can call her on my lunch break, we’re eating together by the way, I’m pretty sure you haven’t had breakfast.” Said Fio, staring at me with that ‘I am your best friend, and nobody knows you as I do’ look.

I nodded and continued organizing everything. We managed to finish in time for her lunch break, she tagged all the things – so the other workers knew not to touch it – and locked the back room so we could have some lunch.

“I suppose your parents didn’t take the news well?” Asked Fio as we were eating.

“That’s an understatement,” I said bitterly, “my dad pretty much kicked me out, that’s why I brought all those clothes, he said whatever was left in my room after I left was theirs to throw out.”

“All right, so I just texted my mom, I will give you my keys, and you are calling Ian right now, tell him to pick you up from here after I give you the money.” Explained Fio.

I tried to refuse her help, but she read my thoughts and her keys found my purse in a matter of seconds. When we were heading back to the store, I texted our friend Ian, just told him to please pick me up, and promised to explain why. He just responded with ‘Be there in twenty,’ which took off a lot of weight from my shoulders.

Fio, Ian, and I had been friends for what seemed like forever, we survived high school together, we had our crushes on one another, and even somewhat dated one another – at least Fio and I did – but the three of us were still pretty close, and had managed to keep the promise to be there for one another, no matter what.

When Ian showed up, he and Fio said hello to one another, and before I could even explain to him what had happened, she jumped in and told him, which made him quite angry, and he announced there was no way I would spend the night at their house. Fio agreed and invited him to spend the night with us, which would include a show the three of us wanted to watch, lots of popcorn, drinks, and pizza we would make with vegan cheese for me.

“We can get the cheese you like on our way to Fio’s place,” suggested Ian, “my treat.” He quickly added when he saw me looking at the money in my hands.

“Everything tonight will be on us,” said Fio. “I get paid today, and you need to have as much money as possible right now.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling.

Ian took me back home, climbed through the window with me, and helped me get everything down and into his car. Once all my stuff was in his car, I climbed back to my room and just stood there in the middle, looking around, trying to take a clear mental picture of the place I would never see again. I took my purse and a backpack and went downstairs. I was debating whether or not I should bother with saying goodbye to my parents and Anne when I saw the three of them in the kitchen.

“I will stay with Fio, if any of you even care,” I said angrily, and placed my set of keys on the table.

I stood there for a few seconds, thinking if I should say something else, maybe thank them, because at the end of the day, they were my parents, admit that I might miss them? Which of course they wouldn’t believe and would say something like ‘yeah, go cry about it,’ I even debated if I should scream at them, and shove in their faces all the harm they had done over the years. But actually, I was just hoping, almost begging, for one of them to say something even remotely nice to their daughter and their sister, who they knew they would never see again.

“Isn’t someone waiting for you?” Asked my mother bored.

I turned around and walked outside before the tears I was holding betrayed me. When I got into Ian’s car, he didn’t say a word, just grabbed my shoulder for a second, and drove off.