LUCIA
The awful sound of the alarm finally stopped when my mom turns it off and start yelling at me to get out of the bed , I think I would prefer the alarm's sounds over my mom's ear - piercing yells , but , as always , I do as I am told and go straight to the bathroom to shower , brush my teeth and comb my hair which has proven to be a really difficult task this morning.
I have long and thick brown hair , and today my hair has decided to be a tangled mess , so I give up trying to untangle it and just put it on a high bun , and then I wear my most comfortable jeans , my favorite Mafalda t - shirt and pair them with black converse , I know , 2010 called and wants its clothes back , but there is not much I can do about that , the little money my mom and I make goes in its majority to pay for my little brother's treatment and our necessities , so there is not much left to buy the latest fashion trends.
But don't get me wrong , I am okay with that , I actually like what I wear , our trips to our local thrift shop are one of my favorite things to do with my mom , and you will be surprised by all the beautiful things you can find in there , of course , that´s only after hours of searching through a bunch of garbage , but I guess it's a pretty accurate description of life , isn't it ? Sometimes you have to really dig into the dirt to find something or someone that is worth it.
My mom's yells startled me :
“ Lu hurry up ! I have to get to the manor earlier today ! ”
Ugh , the Arlington's Manor , I roll my eyes at that humongous place , it's as if a castle and a plantation house had a baby , the weirdest yet greatest baby. That's where my mom has worked for the past ten years , she is a maid there and it's specially assigned to Mrs. Arlington's needs , most of the people who live in that place are awful , arrogant , and so full of themselves , but Mrs. Arlington is the exception to that unwritten rule of rich people being snob bastards , she is actually pretty nice , and generous , she has always treated my mom with kindness and I honestly still can't wrap my head around the fact that she is married to Edward Arlington , the state governor and probably the worst person I have ever met in my entire life , that is if we don't count his son Joshua or his daughter Zara.
As I said , Olivia Arlington was the exception to that rule , if it weren't for her and the Arlington's Foundation , which she created , along with their signature scholarships program “ Arlington's young and exceptional citizens ” I would not be able to go to the University and follow my dream of becoming a Veterinarian.
“ Why do you have to be there so early? ” I ask my mom , while I finish gulping my breakfast , coffee of course , and some toast.
“ Today is the arrival of young master Joshua , I need to get there quickly to make sure all the arrangements are ready for him ” she answers while she finishes packing my little brother's lunch.
“ Do you really have to call him ‘ young master ’ ? it's not like they are here listening! you could easily call him ´ the young asshole ´ and no one would find out , well , I would but I promise I won't tell ” I tell her while winking an eye which makes Benjamin laughs.
“ Lucia ! Don't say those things in front of Ben , he is too young for your bitterness ! Besides , I have to show respect to the Arlington family , they have been really good to all of us , don't forget that the reason you are getting ready to go to study today is because of their generosity ” she answers while frowning at me.
“ That is an only half true mom , yes I am getting their help but because Mrs. Arlington saw my excellent grades at high school and offered me the scholarship , so it's technically half my doing, ” I say with confidence and walk out of the kitchen before my mom continues her lecture , and I think I see a flint of pride on her eyes when I remind her of my academic achievements.
I know it's useless to argue with my mom about the Arlington family , she is completely loyal to them and I know it's not only because of her job or my scholarship , but also for the help she got from them , - well from Mrs. Arlington at least - when Ben got his cancer diagnostic , they paid for a part of the treatment and lend her the rest , so pretty much her entire salary goes to pay for that , and what I make working at the local country club goes to pay for the rest of our expenses.
Thankfully we don't have to pay rent because we live on the Arlington property , along with the rest of the staff members on these little cabins , and since the property is really big , it's still a 10 - minute walk from our house to the manor , as I said , it's humongous.
I walk with my mom and Ben until we reach the back of the house where we said goodbye and I took Ben's little hand while he waves at our mom who's walking towards the service door. We then walk to the bus station and I take Ben to his school before heading to the campus , it breaks my heart a little every time I have to drop him off , he always seems to hesitate and I watch him take a deep breath before he starts walking inside , and every single time he turns around when he is right at the door and smiles at me , you may think he does it to make me believe that he is fine , but I know he does that because he sees how sad I get and wants to comfort me , which ends up making it harder for me to leave him for all those hours.
Yes , I know I'm not his mom and it's not supposed to be like that with siblings , we are supposed to tease each other and fight with each other , right ? But when Ben was diagnosed with leukemia when he was just three years old , everything changed , our whole lives took a 180 degrees turn.
We used to live in our own house before , with both of my parents, my so - called dad is a construction worker , or he was , I don't know anymore , because he left us when Ben got sick and the medical bills started to pile up , so my mom told Mrs. Arlington that she was going to resign and go back to Colombia , to where my parents are from , but she wasn't okay with that because she had grown fond of my mother and also of us , so she offered all the help she could give and the help my mom was willing to accept , because my mom it's a proud woman and hates to ask others for help , so that's when we moved to the Arlington's property.
It's been three years since then and we both have joggled to work, and in my case study too , while looking after Ben and taking him to all his doctors' appointments and treatments , so of course all my high school experience consisted of me going to classes or been called out of classes when Ben got ill and then compensating that by studying all night , but still , I managed to get a 4.0 gpas , and parallel to that a 0.0 social life.
Now that Ben is on remission and he is doing so much better I have had a little more time for myself and my social life , which it's useless now that I'm solely focused on doing great at college , although I did make one friend on my first week of classes , her name is Mia and she is a bit of a weirdo , which it's exactly why I liked her in the first place , that and our obsession to Harry Potter it's what brought us together. When she saw my t - shirt of Dumbledore's army she went straight to me and asked “ after all this time? ” at first I was shocked and when she gave me a disappointed look and was about to turn around to leave , I responded “ always ”, so of course , she immediately started jumping up and down while clapping her hands and exclaimed, “ thank god ! I thought you were just another muggle who bought a cool t - shirt ”.
I spot Mia at the campus gates looking up to a tree completely oblivious to the fact that she is standing in the middle of the way and is getting nasty looks from every person who has to go around her , I rush to her and put her aside quickly but she squints and starts saying:
“ dude , what the f ... oh it's you ! Hey Lu , how's your morning so far? ”
“ Well , my mom woke me up earlier because the asshole's older son, asshole jr, it's coming back home , so I barely got to eat something before been pushed out of the house, but Ben it's doing better with each passing day , so I guess it's pretty fine so far , what about you? ” I ask deliberately leaving outside her previous weird three watching behavior because we are already late to class and I don't think we have time for an hour - long explanation about some weird conspiracy theory about robot pigeons or whatever it is she was doing.
“ Wow , wait a second , first of all , I am so happy about Ben , he is the sweetest boy in the world and deserves the best … and second , who is this asshole jr and why you hate him so much? I thought you were incapable of such ill feelings ” she says while dramatically putting a hand on her heart and pouting.
“ Well … ” I said unsure of how to even begin to describe Joshua Arlington.