An: I finally managed to get the first chapter re-write done! Going back to my old style this time...much easier to write. Updates will come as the school schedule permits and as I figure out where I want to take this story. I'm hoping to find a way to take this so it's more House/Cam centered this time. Maybe the show will inspire me for some of those moments...and maybe I'll get my dream of a nice Cameron/House raunchy...nevermind. ANYWAY, here's chapter one - enjoy. Oh, and as usual - I love constructive criticism. Have at me on my spelling, grammar or anything in particular you don't like...or want to see.
Home: Transition
"I've been home for a little bit over a month and things have just been really weird. How many people get the chance in their lifetime to completely start over? I suppose that's the gift I've been given, but it really doesn't feel like it. Mom and dad try their best to keep things normal around here - but I can tell the overprotective nature is slowly but surely creeping in. Just the other day I had stepped out into the backyard and mom completely freaked out...she thought I'd dissappeared. I shouldn't blame them, I really shouldn't. They're going through this transition too...I can't even imagine what life was like for them the years I was gone. I'd like to tell them everything that's happened during the past eight years, I really would - but I don't know if I want to put them through that. Would I even be able to tell them? I know they're my parents, but we're basically strangers.
Yesterday was the day I was suppose to go back to school. I told her that I was fine with going back - I really should have told her the truth. I wasn't ready...I wasn't sure matter of fact, if I ever would be. Anyway, she dropped me off that morning as she and dad headed to the hospital and from the second I got there I knew I was going to have trouble. I'm still on crutches from the accident and was worried the entire time there, on how i'd manage a full day at school without tripping all over the place. I realized as we pulled up to the school, that it was going to be the least of my worries. News trucked littered the front entrance - all of them waiting for their "story." How they even found out that I was returning back to school was beyond me...but I was completely pissed that they showed up at all. I guess Uncle Jimmy was right - until I spoke out about this whole thing I was going to remain part of their morbid curiosity.
How do I tell someone that above everything else that's going on right now - I still harbor dark thoughts about everything. How do I tell them that more nights than none, I sit awake feeling sorry for myself...looking at where life's taken me - and just wish that David really had killed me that day. I was alright the days in the hospital following the accident. I was alright when we first came home...but now I'd settled into a deep depression. A depression that I share alone. A depression that I don't even understand myself, half of the time." -A.H.
I stopped writing for a few seconds and looked at what I'd just scribbled down on the first page of the journal mom had given me for Christmas. How pathetic was I? I sounded just like one of those emo teenagers that Dad is always thanking me for not being. I grabbed the corner of the page and ripped until it dislocated itself from the binding of the book. I crumpled it into a wad and tossed it into the trashcan underneath my desk. Tears welled up in my eyes momentarily and I just threw the damn journal across the room, watching as it hit the wall and fell to the ground with a sickening thud. I hoped that no one had heard it - the last thing I needed was either of them coming upstairs for another round of "let's make Allie feel better". Mom would just come upstairs like she has for the past six weeks and tell me she would be here when I needed to talk, and Dad would tell me he'd arrange for Chase to be my personal punching bag if I wanted to let out some anger. What was the point? (Dad looked slightly dissappointed that I'd not taken him up on his offer)
Mom had given me the stupid thing yesterday, telling me that since I'd been so quiet about everything lately...she hoped I'd be able to write down what I was thinking - that it helped. I looked warily at her and asked what I could possibly have to write about?
"Oh you know, you're starting school today! You're going to make new friends...you could write about that, or whatever comes across your mind," she'd said...a little too cheerful for anybody at 7'o clock in the morning.
School. Ugh. Just thinking about how yesterday went is enough to make me want to go find another black SUV and throw myself in front of it. No, I am not being dramatic, it really WAS that bad. Mom and Dad insisted that they enroll me at some prestigious private school here in Princeton. It was a couple blocks away from the hospital, so I'd be able to walk there easily after class and catch a ride home with one of them. Not knowing any better...I'd decided to act like I was all for the plan. I'd been lugged into the school, given an assessment test, received my acceptance letters and was fitted with a geeky private school uniform. Dad looked at me, feeling totally out of place in a pleated skirt and tie, and laughed. He laughed even harder when they gave me a black blazer with the school logo on it. He had to leave the room when the administration lady told me the chucks, studded belt and jeans I'd worn to the uniform fitting would be totally unacceptable for this institution (girls here do not dress like "little punk rockers" was her exact phrase),he was laughing so hard. I knew he'd have a field day as soon as he saw that stupid getup. I guess some habits never die...even if you get married and have a kid - you're still allowed to laugh at everyone.
The stupid news trucks were there that morning. I hobbled into school on my crutches (I still had a ways to go before I could ditch them completely and walk on my own), trying my best to dodge cries of "Alexandra, how does it feel to be back with your parents" and "Alexandra, are you looking to press legal action against the surviving family of your kidnappers?"
Great way to start your first day, I mean honestly - they didn't HAVE to show up. It only got worse once I got inside, and met the kids in my homeroom class. Talk about a bunch of SNOBS! All day long, I was either:
A) asked constantly about the details of my kidnapping
B) asked what my parents do for a living
C) asked what type of house I lived in, and where it was located
D) completely ignored, yet obviously talked about by the stares of other students
I couldn't help myself. I tried to be civil and give straightforward answers, but I guess I came off the way most people see my Dad - a complete jerk. Although, the more I think about it, I had every good reason to act that way...those were personal questions they had no business asking in the first place! The final straw though was in the middle of my biology class, when I overheard someone say "She's awful sarcastic and rude about everything - I bet her parents wished she would have just died instead of coming back to ruin their lives"
I grabbed everything from my locker and left campus. I pulled out my cell phone and started to call my Dad, when I realized that he'd probably make me go back and finish out the day. He'd probably tell me to try harder and just put up with it - make their lives hell, most likely. I hung up before anybody could answer and took my time hobbling down the block to a local park I'd spotted on the way to school this morning. I couldn't even last a day - how pathetic was I?
I reached the park and the first thing I did was take off the stupid blazer with the school logo on it and throw it, along with my bookbag on a park bench. Throwing my crutches aside, I limped carefully and sat myself down in a swing...rocking myself back and forth slowly with my good leg, staring off into a grouping of trees in the distance - savoring the silence of the empty park, glad there was no one there to ask me how I was handling things or even stupider questions about my parents and how wealthy they were. Launching into a full blown pity party was something that I was becoming great it - I wonder if I could make a career of it. I sure as hell didn't know where else my life was headed - David once told me that I was never going to amount to anything...I wondered if he was right. I make myself sick sometimes - I don't DESERVE to be called a House. Houses' are suppose to be tough - we're suppose to shield ourselves from pity. We're suppose to make fun of others and hide what we're REALLY feeling from everybody.
I was so deep in thought, that I completely missed the fact that the swing next to me had become occupied.