One Who Flees - A Modern Cinderella Story

Chapter 11 - His Family

Chapter 11 – His Family

I chickened out and told her the same story I had told Ethan. I knew that at some point I would have to tell her everything. Every time I told the old rehearsed stories I felt a pang of guilt. I almost wanted to tell everyone by now. I just didn’t want them to treat me any differently. I knew they would though. Anyone would.

The rest of Christmas went off without a hitch. Everyone liked their presents, Madison only broke one plate and there wasn’t much fighting. While we were over at Mel and John’s I could feel Karen’s eyes on me at all times. I confronted her about it later. I told her straight out that I didn’t want her to treat me any differently because of my past. She said she’d try but I well knew that she’d struggle.

A couple of days later I was just leaving the dance studio and someone walked right into me. I looked around to see who it was. At first I saw a girl with long dark curls and then my eyes flicked to the figure next to her.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Ethan smirked at me.

“Well then you’d better start looking where you’re going.” I pushed my bag back up onto my shoulder. I looked back and forth between him and the girl and eventually it clicked. I smiled, “You must be Connie.” I glanced down and saw a silver pendant swinging from her neck. “Oh, you’re wearing it.” Her hand went up to her neck and clasped the pendant between her fingers. I could see the realisation in her eyes as she worked out who I was. Seconds later her arms were around my neck.

“Thank you.” She squealed. “Marky told me he never would have picked this without your help and I absolutely love it.”

“Marky?” I snorted, holding back a laugh. Ethan cringed visibly at the nickname.

“Lay off Connie.” Ethan smiled affectionately at his sister while peeling her off of me, “Leave the poor girl alone.”

“Don’t you think I can handle myself?” I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at him. He hated it when I did that. He opened his mouth to answer but soon closed it again.

“Oh I am going to enjoy having you around.” Connie beamed and slipped an arm through mine. “I don’t have a big sister so I have decided to adopt you as my honorary big sister.” I was quite flattered. I mean I’d only known her for all of 2 minutes.

“Don’t you think she should get a say in that?” Ethan asked before I could respond.

“I do have a name you know.” I prodded him and Connie sniggered.

“You actually have two.” He teased and I punched him on the arm, which Connie enjoyed immensely.

“So do you.” He rolled his eyes when he realised his joke had backfired on him. Connie looked like she was about to ask him something but instead her phone started to ring.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, in a hushed tone as she moved off.

“I mentioned to Connie that you were a dancer and she wants to take some classes, so here we are.” He dug his hands into his pockets as a freezing blast of wind hit us and snow started floating down.

I looked over at Connie who was talking animatedly on the phone. “You know there aren’t too many people around at the studio today though. I was just in doing some work with Chase. Quite a lot of people are still on holiday. There are no scheduled classes until after new year.” Ethan’s face fell. I got the feeling that Connie had been really looking forward to this. “If you want I could work with her a bit tomorrow. I booked out some studio time and Chase just told me he can’t do tomorrow so if she’s up for it…” I shrugged and Ethan grinned.