The Cellar

The Cellar (11)

“Did you know about this?” He questioned, frowning at all the decorations.

“Of course I did, I helped. Don’t be difficult Lewis, it’s your eighteenth and everyone’s excited!”

“Fine,” he said with s sigh.

I got up and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Happy Birthday.”

He smiled and kissed me, “Thank you. I know I said this like two minutes ago but I really do love you,” he said as he pressed his forehead to mine making my heart go wild and my tummy flutter.

“I love you too.”

Poppy stood up, breaking me back to reality, she looked at the clock and put down her book. “We need to sort through our clothes, Clover wants them all bagged up by the time he gets back,” she said, putting the book back on the shelf and walking into the bedroom.

I followed Poppy and Rose grabbed the bags before joining us. We all started grabbing clothes out of the wardrobes and draws and stuffed them neatly into the bags, by the time we had finished we had filled eight huge black bags. I watched Rose and Poppy closely; they kept looking at each other and seemed nervous, this obviously wasn’t something that had happened before.

“Why is he doing this?” I finally asked after watching them exchange worried looks for too long, I wanted to know.

“I don’t know Lily,” Rose said quietly.

“It’s Summer!” I snapped. She sighed and looked at me, pleading with me to accept this was my life now and my name but that wasn’t something I could do, maybe it was easy for them because they had nothing but I have a loving family, great friends and the best boyfriend in the world.

“Lily is your name now,” she said sternly. We looked at each other for a few seconds, neither one of us wanted to back down; finally she sighed and picked up two bags. “Let’s put these out by the stairs ready for Clover to take later.” She walked out of the room without looking at me again.

“Don’t worry Lily, it’ll be fine, we just need to stick together.” She squeezed my shoulder gently and grabbed some bags. I picked up two and followed her out of the room. Will it be fine? I thought that but the longer I’m down here the more scared I am that I won’t get to see Lewis again.

Once we had finished moving all the bags to the bottom of the stairs we cleaned the bedroom and sat back down on the sofa. I felt my heart sink a little bit as we continued reading and knitting, this room makes me feel more and more claustrophobic with every passing minute.

Rose put her knitting away about an hour before he would be back for dinner and started cleaning the kitchen surfaces and scrubbing the table so hard I thought she was going to scratch a hole in it. Me and poppy cleaned the lounge area and made sure all the books lined up properly before we all started to make a chicken pie and vegetables for dinner.

He would be here in five minutes and my hands started getting clammy. I couldn’t relax. Was he going to have the newspaper? I just wanted to get this over with now, so he could leave and I could breathe properly.

“Good evening flowers,” he said cheerfully. My blood froze and I instinctively moved back, putting as much space between us as possible. “Here are your new clothes.” He put dozens of bags down and smiled at us all. Rose and Poppy walked towards him, looking excited about all the new clothes. I copied them and moved closer but still keeping a safe distance. “I want you all to change into this and give me the clothes you’re wearing now.” He handed us three identical bags and gestured towards the bathroom door, Rose went first. He’s now controlling what we wear?