Hi guys, I'm back lol. And this is my new story. Okay, this has taken me forever to type up lol. But, I want to clear something. The beginning of this story, I've just realised is a lot like the one shot "Light in the dark". I want to say, that was not intentional, it's just came about like that. So, I'm not copying. And, I'm not sure if this story is really that good, so I'ma put the chapters that I've already written up in my notebook on the website. If you guys like, I'll continue, if you don't, I won't. Anyway, so in this first chapter, we see how Andie was led to living the way she lives when she's sixteen, I won't give anything away, although if you've read "Light in the dark" really good one shot, like I said, this is like that, so you'll understand. Oh, and Andie isn't actually sixteen yet in any of this, so it's like flash back, but not really, if that makes sense.
Hope you like.x.
"Baby girl, I haven't got much time left and I need you to promise me something." The dark haired woman told her daughter from the hospital bed.
"No! Mummy, no!" the little brown haired girl yelled, "Mummy you can't die!" Please don't leave me!"
Andie West didn't understand why her mummy was so sick. Why couldn't she just take some medicine and be all better? Why was she leaving Andie?
Louise laughed, and coughed, "Baby, I'll always be with you. The ones we love never truly leave us. But promise me."
She held out her pinkie and Andie instantly hooked it, as tears began to fall freely from her eyes.
"Promise me that you will always be yourself, cuz life's too short to be anyone else. Promise me."
"I promise, I promise." Andie cried.
"Come here." Louise said, holding out her arms.
Andie climbed up onto the bed and into her mother's arms. She rested her head on Louise's shoulder. Louise wrapped her arms around Andie and held her like a baby. She stroked her hair and kissed her head. Although the cancer had made her weak, her daughter was small and weighed next to nothing so she wasn't uncomfortable for Louise to hold.
"I love you mummy." Andie told her, choking on her last word.
"I love you too Andie, always." Louise soothed.
Louise carried on stroking Andie's hair, humming a soft tune.
"When I first looked,
Into your eyes,
All big, brown, and sparkly.
I believe I said my,
What a surprise.
Two of the most beautiful eyes,
I ever did see.
And belonging to you, Andie."
"When I first saw your smile,
All playful and bright,
Would light up a room.
I believe I said my,
What a surprise.
The most beautiful smile,
I ever did see.
And belonging to you, Andie."
"When I think of the times we've spent,
And all the fun we've had,
I remember your eyes,
And I remember your smile,
And I remember you, Andie."
"Just be you, just be you,
Just be you, Andie."
Louise stopped singing the lullaby with a soft humming again. She bent her head down to whisper in Andie's ear,
"Just be you. Cuz life's too short to be anyone else."
Andie's grip on her mother's hospital gown tightened and she cried harder, "Please don't leave me mommy."
"I love you so much Andie, more than anything." Louise whispered, "Never forget that."
"I love you too mommy, I'll always love you. And I'll keep my promise." Andie sobbed.
Louise could feel her time coming to an end. She kissed Andie's cheek, her forehead, and her hair before resting her cheek on her forehead and holding Andie closer to her.
"When I think of the times we've spent." Louise sang in a whisper, "And all the fun we've had. I remember your eyes, and I remember your smile, and I remember you, Andie."
She kissed Andie's head again and closed her eyes, the beeping on her heart monitor getting faster by the second.
"I love you, baby girl." Louise whispered, taking her last breath.
The beeping stopped and the dreaded endless sound brought Andie to cry out and break her heart, clinging to Louise as doctors and nurses entered the room and attempted to pull her away.
"No! Mummy, I want my mommy!" she screamed as she was pulled away from Louise. "No! Mommy, don't leave me! Please!"
Andie broke down in tears as the doctors stated the date and time of death and pulled the bed sheets to cover Louise's head. They switched off the life monitor. The nurse, who had been trying to carry her out, stepped out of the room and dropped Andie onto her feet, where she crumbled to the ground, shaking and sobbing her heart out.
"I'm very sorry, Andie isn't it?" the nurse said, crouching down besides the little girl and putting an arm around her, ignoring how Andie jerked away from her.
She started talking away but Andie didn't hear. She took hold of the gold heart locket she'd had since birth that held a photo of her mother while the other side remained empty. She was gone, Louise had died.
"She's gone."
Life hadn't exactly gone smoothly for Andie after her mother died. When the funeral was over, her next-door neighbours explained that she'd now have to go into care. Louise had many friends; she was such a loving, kind woman, who was undoubtedly loved by everyone. However it seemed that no one loved her enough to take in her little five-year-old daughter, who now had no one in the world. So Andie had to go to an orphanage.
She was told that her social worker, Ms. Mason, would be looking for parents for her. Ms. Mason was a foul woman, who beat Andie and yelled at her to stop crying when she did. She would lock her in her room, and did not take care of her at all. This went on for four months, by which time, Andie had turned six. Until of course one day, when Andie went to live with the Ruff family.
The Ruff family were hardly better than Ms. Mason. She thought of them like Matilda's family, the Wormwood's, only they really did beat her. Turned out, they'd only fostered her because they got a cheque every month for it. After about eight long months, they decided that they were bored with Andie and took her, thankfully, to a different care home.
This time, a lady called Miss Spencer took care of Andie and found her parents. She was a nice enough lady, although she was a total nut job. Andie was with her for a while before Miss Spencer was taken away and replaced with a Mr Harfreys.
Andie absolutely loathed Mr Harfreys. He had a loud booming voice, and would often call some of the older girls into his office, sometimes the younger ones. Andie didn't know what he did to them, but she didn't like the fact that they would all come running from his office, crying, and putting clothes back on.
When Andie turned seven, he called her into his office and sat her on his lap. She fidgeted a lot, and tried to move to sit on a chair, but he yelled at her to sit still and stopped her struggling. He began to touch her and Andie started crying, hitting him and trying to push him away. Luckily, some police officers came in just at the right moment and arrested Mr Harfreys. Turned out that one of the older girls had phoned the police after being called to the office earlier. So Mr Harfreys was taken away.
Then, Andie was taken to a foster home with a nice woman called Miss Carlings. She was very kind to Andie; she bought her new clothes and fed her up appropriately. Andie didn't trust her at first, but soon came round and began to talk to her properly. Miss Carlings had a son called Henry, who danced hip-hop. He adored Andie and used to take her out to different dance clubs. Andie may only have been a little girl, but she definitely never danced like one. But all that came to an end. Social services claimed that Miss Carlings wasn't taking proper care of Andie. She was dubbed an unfit foster mother, and Andie got taken away again, much to her despisement.
She was then taken to a big house in a street called Barmston Road. The people there were druggies. They were a black family, and had a son called Tuck. He was ten years old, and already too big for his boots. He would tell Andie that soon she would be worshipping the ground he walked on. In the end, it all got too much and she dropped a bucket on his head. His parents hit her for it and sent her back to the orphanage.
This time, she had a woman called Mrs. McGrath. She was a really friendly woman, and very sympathetic towards Andie's case. Andie asked if she could go back to Miss Carlings, but was then told that she'd passed away after falling ill and that Henry was leaving Baltimore for San Francisco. Andie blamed herself and it didn't help that she was often being packed off to different foster homes and then being sent back to different care homes. Eventually she acquired the nickname Boomerang D, something she didn't appreciate at all. Her foster parents never liked the fact that Andie often snuck out in the middle of the night to go dancing. Her favourite club was the Dragon, which was around her old neighbourhood. Nobody there bothered her for being a kid, they just let her dance.
Her last foster parents weren't very nice; it was amazing how she never got taken to nice foster parents. But they were pretty foul; Andie had no idea why they bothered to apply for fostering children when they clearly couldn't stand the sight of them. The man and his wife were always punishing Andie for her rebellious spirit. In the end, it got very tiring, and she ran away. She lived on the streets for about two months before she was found and taken back.
But she carried on sneaking out to clubs to dance, and they would often find her, and punish her for disobeying them again. But they never broke her.
The music was blasting and the atmosphere was fierce. God only knows how many people were packed into the Dragon, but to a certain fourteen-year-old brunette, none of them mattered. It had been nine long years since Andie's mother had died. She still danced at clubs, but her favourite was easily the dragon. She'd become a highly skilled dancer. There wasn't that much she couldn't do and she was only fourteen.
Everyone from the dragon knew her now. She didn't really have any friends, only acquaintances such as the doormen, or Meezy the bartender. Andie hardly went to school now, when she did, she was often bullied for being "Boomerang D", the streetgirl who had been in and out of foster homes and orphanages for most of her life. Andie knew how to defend herself though, she had more comebacks than she'd had hot dinners and was often being suspended anyway for getting into yet another fight or giving yet another girl or guy a black eye.
Right now though, none of that mattered. She was battling this blonde girl, who looked more like a Barbie ballerina wannabe than an actual hip hop dancer, or a dancer at all for that matter. Andie normally didn't like to laugh at her rivals but this girl was one of the bullies at Andie's school who spent half her time tormenting Andie and making her life even more miserable than what it already was. The blondie was in her last year of high school, and a typical stereotype cheerleader.
Dancing to "Show me the money" by Petey Pablo, the girl flounced around as though she was in the school's basketball gym, earning boos and a great deal of catcalls from the crowd.
When she finally got the picture and stopped "dancing", DJ Sand cut the music, and went to fix something for Andie to dance to. Andie walked around the edge of the huge circle where the crowd had backed up to give them enough room to dance.
"You want me to teach you?" she asked the girl, who was scowling.
A few seconds later and "What you know" by T.I began to blare. Andie worked it out in her head, she loved this song. She started to pop her hips back and forth with her arms raised in a victory style pose before going into free style. Her moves fell perfectly in sync with the beat and the crowd all cheered for her. When the song ended, Andie raised her self up into a one handed handstand, and into a freeze.
"Well I think we all know who won that one huh?" DJ Sand called into the mic.
Andie got up ands saw the girl she'd been battling having a hissy fit and storming away. Andie just sighed and smiled before pushing her way through the crowd to collect her bag from Meezy. She checked her watch Damn almost midnight I'd better get back to Hank and Emma's. she thought before taking her backpack, thanking Meezy and turning to push her way through the crowd once more.
About an hour later, Andie was climbing through her bedroom window to her bedroom. It took her so long to get home because the smiths lived just outside of the city. They didn't even know that Andie went out there to clubs. They'd only ever caught her in clubs around their area, so it was normally when she came back to their house after being at the dragon that she would get caught.
However, it seemed that in a couple of weeks they were meant to be leaving Baltimore to go live in Manhattan. Andie didn't know why, or if they even planned on taking Andie. She hoped something bad they weren't taking her. She'd gotten used to being in care homes and she preferred the thought of that than leaving her home to go with them. Cuz while she may not have had the best memories of Baltimore, it was still where she grew up, and she didn't want to leave.
Once she was changed for bed, Andie fell onto the mattress and pulled the thin cover over her. Thanking her lucky stars that Hank hadn't been waiting for her, she tried to drift off to sleep.
"ANDREA!"
Andie groaned and pulled herself up from her bed. She hadn't had the best day. The girl she'd been battling the night before had cornered her in the school bathrooms with two of her little minions. Long story short, she got into a fight, but also got suspended from school, again. So, basically, Hank and Emma were gonna kill her. She had been lying on her mattress, with the CD player blasting "Runaway Love" by Ludacris and Mary J Blige.
Forced to think hell
Is a place called home?
"ANDREA!"
She hated that name. He knew that, which was why he called her it, to piss her off.
"Andrea! Get down here, you little bitch!"
Here we go Andie thought frowning as she went out of her room and down the stairs.
"Look, who the fuck do you think you're calling a bitch?" she hollered as she came face to face with a red with rage Hank.
"You! Young lady, have a lot of explaining to do! Get in the kitchen, NOW!" he spat.
Andie snorted, "Whatever. Look, I ain't in the mood, I'll talk to you when you ain't gonna yell."
She turned to go back up the stairs only for Hank to grab her ponytail and drag her back down the stairs. He dragged her through the living room, and into the kitchen, where he threw her to the floor.
"I said, get in the kitchen." He growled as she rubbed the back of her head.
He'd pulled her bobble out so her long, dark brown hair fell around her face.
"You were suspended from school again." He spat.
It wasn't a question, but he wanted an answer anyway.
"Yes, I was suspended." Andie spat, sitting up and glaring at him, "It wasn't my fault. Three girls were giving me a hard time."
Hank snorted, "Well you can hardly blame them can you? Look at the state of you."
Andie rolled her eyes and watched as Hank cracked his knuckles in a threatening manner.
"That's not all though. You've been going out to clubs again haven't you? You weren't in your room last night, or the night before." He growled.
Andie just looked at him. What exactly did he want her to say? They'd had this conversation many times before and it always ended the same way. Andie bruises, Hank with bruised knuckles.
"I told you I did not want you going to those clubs. You will obey me." He pointed his finger at her.
"Uh, am I on glue, or do you actually have a right to tell me what to do?" she hollered.
"I have every right! I am your foster father!" Hank yelled.
"Exactly!" she shouted, "You're my foster carer! You are not my real father! You aren't even a proper foster carer! You don't take care of me, I take care of myself!"
"Me and your foster mother have taken you in out of the goodness of our hearts!" he yelled.
"The goodness of your hear-" Andie widened her brown eyes with shock, anger and amusement, "What? Maybe it started like that, but you've never done anything but make me feel worthless and insignificant. Goodness of your hearts? You took me in cuz it made you look good in front of your colleagues, and the cheque you get every month. Which, I don't see the point in since you get paid a bomb for sitting on your fat ass in an office all day!"
Hank raised his fist and punched Andie straight in the eye. He grabbed her hair and her arm and pulled her up roughly.
"Do not talk to me like that you little whore!" he spat, shaking her roughly by the shoulders.
Andie wasn't scared of him, she'd had beatings before and if she didn't stand up for herself he'd walk all over her. The fact that he'd called her a whore was proof. She hadn't even had her first kiss yet let alone lost her virginity.
"Who the fuck are you calling a whore?!" she hollered angrily.
"Oh please, all street girls are whores." Hank sneered, "God only knows me and your foster mother have tried to make you presentable. But no, you spend your days getting into fights and being suspended, and then your nights dancing it up with some guy. No doubt that's where you spend the rest of your night, in some guys house in his bed! You're just like your mother!"
This caused Andie to really lose her temper, "How dare you! You don't know shit about my mother! If you did, you would know that she was a beautiful, kind, funny, most amazing woman! So don't you dare badmouth her!"
"Oh please, she was a dirty little crack whore." Hank retorted, "How'd she die again? What was it, aids?"
Andie raised her fist and slammed it up into Hanks eye as hard as she could.
"You little bitch!" he hollered, clutching at his eye.
"I'm not staying here anymore. I can't stand it." Andie said darkly before walking straight past him.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Hank yelled, dragging her back by her collar, "Come back here! Don't walk away from me!"
"I am leaving!" Andie yelled, "I'm going upstairs to pack my bags."
"And where are you gonna go?" Hank snorted, "You haven't got anybody. No one wants you."
"I don't care. better than here." Andie shot back, "Now let me go!"
She struggled before turning around and bringing her knee to connect with Hank's groin.
"Ah! You bitch!" he choked out, letting go of her.
She simply marched out of the kitchen and stomped up the stairs to the room at the top, slamming the door shut behind her. She took the chair in front of the window and put it under the door handle. She had once had a lock on the door, but Hank had bust it down so many times, in the end, he just got the lock taken away. Andie knew if he got to her, there would be hell to pay.
He probably thought Andie didn't mean it, that she would just sulk in her room but she wouldn't. She'd had enough of this house and everything in it, she'd had enough of being packed off to several care homes a year because people didn't like the way she was. Maybe it was her fault, maybe she was the one in the wrong, but she'd promised her mother never to change, and she wouldn't break that promise for anyone. And she would make sure this time that no one found her.
Andie emptied her backpack of everything in it before pushing her mattress over to the other side of the tiny room. She pulled up a floor board from where the mattress had been and put the floor board to the side, before gathering up the pillowcase full of everything dear to Andie in the world.
There was the locket she'd had since a child, which held a picture of her mother while the other side remained empty. Andie had just never met anyone she cared about or loved as much as her mother. She put the chain over her head, and felt the locket pendant, which fell down to her chest since the chain was pretty long.
Also, there was a photo of her and her mother, a letter that Louise had written for Andie in the weeks prior to her death, asking Andie to wait until she turned eighteen to read it. And finally, there was a small lullaby box, something that came as a set with Andie's locket. It played the tune to Andie's lullaby, funnily enough. It was very Anastasia. (A/N: I know, I know, cheesy but I couldn't resist. Lol) Andie twisted it round, listened and watched as lid lifted up and the ballerina twirled round as she rose up, the lullaby tune playing.
"When I first saw your eyes," Andie sang, "All big, brown, and sparkly."
Andie had to hide these when she went into care. If anyone found them, they would've been taken away from her. Andie closed the lullaby box and put it aside. She went to her closet, and took out a hoodie and some combats, thinking she should at least take something to keep warm. She folded them and put them at the bottom of the bag. She then put in the letter, the photo and the lullaby box.
Andie grabbed some money she'd stashed away and put it into her bag. She took her favourite cap and put it on her head, twisting it sideways and down. Once her bag was full of anything she might need, she pulled on another hoodie, and went to the window. It was already really dark, she opened the window and slung her backpack over her shoulder. Taking one last look at the bedroom, she climbed out of the window and down the drainpipe.
Then, without looking back, she ran.
Andie ran down the street, not pausing for breath. She didn't know where se was going or how long she'd run for, but she wouldn't stop. Eventually, it felt like she'd been running for hours on end, when she finally stopped. Looking around, somehow, she'd gotten to Hampden, which was a neighbourhood in the street part of Maryland. Andie caught her breath, then went walking around for a while longer until coming to an alleyway. She just sat down in a corner. It was completely pitch black now, and cold. Andie hugged her body tightly, keeping the warmth in as best she could, just waiting for the sun to come up. This was what she'd been led to.
Okay, first chapter done. I told you, pretty boring. Okay, I give myself a bit of credit for the first bit, but the last part I don't like. I think I've dragged it out too much. But, as I said before, it's what you guys think that matters. And if you don't like, I won't continue. Although, I have got the second chapter in my notebook so I might put that up and then decide whether or not to continue. Be gentle reviewers
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