My mistake

Annabelle’s POV

I wasn’t a stranger to pain; in fact I was far from it. If I was being honest I could barely remember a time that I wasn’t in some form of pain, whether it was emotional or physical, I had felt it all.

My first experience of feeling pain was when a stranger, in a police officers uniform, turned up at my front door with a pinched expression positioned on his face, telling me that my mummy and daddy weren’t ever coming back to me after they had gone out on one of their date nights. No one had known quite what had happened to them, but everyone seemed to stop looking for them fairly quickly which I always found fairly odd. I had always thought my parents were well liked, if the amount of people that had always come around to visit us was anything to go by that was. I was only seven at the time of their disappearance and I had been on my own ever since.

I didn’t remember much about my parents, but I did remember my father being a kind man, both to me and the people that always seemed to surround us, and his smile was so infectious he could cheer up any room he walked into. My mother was also a kind and free-spirited person, she loved everyone in her life and always made the time of day for anyone who needed her. The one thing that always captivated me about her as a child was her eyes, her bright blue eyes that looked like they held a secret that would one day change the way we all viewed the world. They sparked in the light like rare gems and I always wondered whether I would one day grow up to be just like her.

Unfortunately my happy family didn’t last very long. I’m now living with my adoptive family, if you could even use the word family, on the other side of town, far from my old home. After my parents disappeared, and I was removed from my home the building was quickly demolished, leaving no trace of my parents and the wonderful life we had lived together. When I had found out about the demolition I had cried for hours, crying for the loss of the household objects that had been destroyed and the memories that they held. The feeling of grief was swiftly beaten out of me though, my adoptive father always stressed, ‘there is never a time to grieve when there was work to be done’.

“Where the hell are my work clothes! They should have been washed, ironed and hung up in my wardrobe by now, you know that” my adoptive father, Tony, screamed at me as he stalked forward, quickly getting into my personal space. Before I could explain to him that I had already done the task that he had required of me and that he was, in fact, just looking in the wrong part of his wardrobe, he slapped me across the face.

I dropped to the floor due to force of the blow and cradled my burning left cheek with my hand, feeling the tell tale signs of the heat and tingles that my skin was already omitting, warning me of the bruise that was to come. “I did Sir i-it is now on the other s-side of your wardrobe, if you would r-remember you had me reorganise it y-yesterday for you so that you found it easier to change in the mornings” I stuttered out. I remembered the conversation well; he had nearly broken my arm because of it.

“Are you calling me a liar” he hissed as he leant down slightly, making it easy for me to smell the coffee that was strong on his breath. I looked up from where I was on the floor, hand still cradling my cheek, to see his face contorted with anger. He had one of his eyebrows raised and arms folded across his chest, with an expression across his face as if to say he couldn’t believe that I was even questioning him. To be honest I couldn’t believe that I was either, I couldn’t even remember the last time I had said something that wasn’t ′yes sir, of course sir’ to him.

I cursed in my head, knowing never to question anything the family say as it always landed me in some form of trouble. Whether I was in the right or not, they never liked to be questioned. “N-no sir, I will go find it for you now sir...s-sorry sir” I muttered as I got up off the floor to find his missing suit. As I stumbled up he kicked my legs out from under me and as one of my hands was still clutching my burning cheek, hoping it would aid with the pain in some way, I didn’t have enough time to catch my fall. Before I could blink, my forehead made contact with the wall opposite me, leaving me with a bad headache and an even worse bruise. Thankfully it was on the other side of my face so at least my left side wasn’t having to deal with a double blow.

“And never question me again you little rat or you’ll get a lot more than just a smack across the face” he sneered before walking off towards the staircase, probably going to watch some form of sports game on the television. I sighed, used to this kind of treatment by now, and made my way over to his and his wife’s bedroom.

The Leften’s house was extremely beautiful, the walls were completely made out of glass which covered half of the house to let in as much light as possible. A colour scheme of beiges and creams covered the walls and soft furnishings, making the whole house seem open and inviting. Too bad I was the one who had to polish that glass every day until there wasn’t a single finger mark on it and hoover those carpets until they were as pristine as the day they bought them. I sometimes caught their son vandalising the place on purpose, smearing greasy hands all over the windows and pouring coffee over the carpets, just so he can laugh as I went around cleaning up after him. If the place wasn’t spotless at all times the Leftens would be extremely angry with me. It usually resulted in me having an empty stomach or a bruised body part.

I slowly made my way over to the master bedroom, slightly worried that my stepmother, Natalie, would be in there and getting ready for tonight, but after knocking and getting no response I sighed in relief, she wasn’t in. She was probably out with her usual girlfriends getting a manicure for their big event tonight. The last thing I needed was a run in from with her too, her temper could rival Tony’s any day.

I swiftly made my way over to their walk-in wardrobe and found the suit he was looking for and as expected, it was exactly where I had left it. I rolled my eyes before quickly exiting their room and made my way down the stairs so that I could give it to him. I had learnt the hard way that the longer I took getting something done the worse my fate would be.

As I was making my way down the stairs though I was suddenly shoved into the banister of the staircase by Damon, Natalie and Tony’s son, as he too started making his way down the stairs and towards the kitchen.

“Move bitch before I move you” he laughed as he stared down at me. Even with him being on the step below me he still towered over me.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to be called things like that; half the time I forget I even had a name due to the fact that it was never used around here.

“Come on then idiot, come and make me a sandwich before I tell dad that you said no to me. We all know what happened last time you said that” he laughed as he gripped my chin harshly in his hand.

I sighed before painfully nodding as best I could as I carried on making my way down the stairs after he had released me. A few weeks back, I hadn’t made Damon’s food to his liking and so he told his parents that I had refused to make him a snack at all. Safe to say the end result was not good, I ended up with half a swollen face and a few cracked ribs from the beating, not the worst I’ve had from them but certainly nothing I wanted to repeat any time soon.

I entered the open plan living room where I found Tony and handed the suit over to him with my head held low, hoping to act as submissive as possible so he wouldn’t hurt me further for my mistake.