Wanderlust

1- The Fly Away Café

“Charlotte! Charlotte!” Please, Lord, let it go away. “Charlotte!” Please… I’m begging you. “CHARLOTTE!” Come on, Lord, I am a good person. “Don’t make me come in there!” Screw you too.

“I’m coming.” I groaned, unburying my head from where it was hidden under my plethora of pillows as I stood out of my bed, much to my tired body’s disappointment. It was so much warmer under my blankets. And, according to my alarm clock on the nightstand, I was awake at 5 in the morning. Aka, two hours earlier than the necessary time that I needed to be up on a Thursday morning for school.

Why was I awake so excruciatingly early? I had no idea.

Instead of getting dressed or anything, I threw my dark brown hair into a pony tail and stumbled towards the door of my overly sized bedroom. I don’t know why my mother insisted on giving me such a large room, I didn’t want one so big. It feels so empty and lonely, but “it shows your pride, you are an aristocrat” at least, that’s what my mother had said when I was forced to move into this room when I was nine. However, I couldn’t take it seriously, because I could think of after that was that my mother wanted me to be a cat from the Aristocats and I just couldn’t figure out why. I also got confused when she yelled at me for meowing. Hey, I was nine, okay?

I was wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a tank top- I can’t sleep in long sleeve shirts because they make my arms itchy at night. They were my normal, comfy pajamas, even though my mother wanted me to wear silk to bed, I refused. Silk pajamas are so weird to me. They make me feel… I don’t know, dirty.

As I exited my room, I begrudgingly followed the piercing sound of my sister’s yelping which landed me in the study just down the hall from my room.

“What do you want?” I grumbled, noticing that both my mother and my sister, Valerie, were sitting on the couch, looking at me with full and unhidden distaste on their faces.

“Charlotte, what are you wearing?” My mother hissed.

“Pajamas…?” I said slowly. “I’m supposed to be asleep right now, mind telling me why I’m not?”

“Who sleeps this late?” Valerie asked incredulously.

“Normal people.” I grumbled irritatedly. “What do you want?”

“You have a meeting to go to this morning.” My mother informed me. “At the firm.”

Oh, yeah, the firm is what my mom calls her fashion company, Susan Gregory. I hate that company just as much as I hate fashion. Which is just about the equivalent of how much a man hates getting kicked in the man parts.  Why my mom continues to drag me to these stupid meetings is beyond me.

However, I knew that arguing with her was pointless because she’s incredibly stubborn, just like Valerie.

“Are you going too?” I asked my brunette sister. She was two years older than me, making her nineteen, and she was a freshman in college, but she stayed home, of course. I don’t know what I would do without my sister. I’m being totally sarcastic, the only reason I tolerate her is because we’re blood.

“Oh, no, I have classes.”

“So do I.” I snapped. I’m a junior in high school and, because today was only Thursday, I had school in a few hours, but I’m assuming that I wasn’t going to my morning classes, considering the other meetings that I’ve been dragged along to make me miss my first three periods, at least. Which I hate, because then I have to catch up and that always sucks.

“Well, let’s get going, we can’t be late.” My mother insisted, standing up from the couch and leading me down the hallway.

Like every time that she takes me to the firm, my mother dictated what I wore. In fact, she dictated what I wore at all times, but she didn’t know that when I went to school in a pencil skirt and blazer, I hurried into the bathroom before the bell rang and changed into skinny jeans and a hoodie.