Reason To Stay

Chapter Eleven

Zoe's first catwalk practice with Richard was a disaster and that didn't come as a surprise to her.

Asides from the fact that nothing in her life was going well at that moment, she knew the day was going to end up badly the moment she stepped her foot into the six inches high heeled shoe. Stupid uncle Richard! Couldn't he have started with maybe a four inched shoe, then build her up till she was comfortable with a six? But no, he had to go big, or was that was her word? "Go big or go home." She had said, her nose scrunched up in distaste as she stared at the two inched shoe he previously held out to her. I should have just gone with a two. She grimaced, her legs wobbly and her knees bent forward as she tried to maintain her balance on the devil's incarnate and she held the wall right beside her for support.

"Okay, lets do this". Richard shouted from the side of the room opposite Zoe's and she raised her eyes to meet his. "Strut towards me."

Strut? She can't even walk towards him, hell! She could barely stand on her own. Her face contorted like she was in pain.

Richard placed his hands on his hips and sighed. "Maybe you should wear the two inches shoe, Zoe." He chided.

She really think she should, she thought. She swallowed the lump in her throat aggressively like she was swallowing her fear. "No lets do this." She shook her head, she wasn't one to back down from a challenge.

She held her breath like she does when she was awed, surprised or on the on the verge of tears and she took a step forward, her breath still hitched her throat.

"Take your hands off the wall Zoe." He called which earned him a deathly glare from Zoe.

I can't. The words were on the tip of her tongue but when has she ever backed down a challenge. "I'm trying." she said instead, removing her hand off the wall. She took the second step a bit more confidently, then the third, fourth and fifth till her legs betrayed her then she slipped and fell face flat on the tiled floor, her mouth getting most of the impact.

If Richard had any doubt that she had become numb to her feeling even at age thirteen, he didn't anymore. Her lips were busted, the lower part of her face covered in blood, she even loosed a tooth, yet, she didn't cry, not even tiny whimpers. She just sat up from the floor, her breath hitched in her throat for too long she had forgotten how to breath.

That was exactly how she felt as she trailed behind her mom and Joanna, replaying Pierce's smile in her head over and over again. No, not the falling face flat part but the forgetting how to breath part.

Her mother walked into the house, slamming the door angrily, bringing Zoe back to reality. "Oh thanks mom, I totally know the way to the kitchen." She whispered. She stood in front of the door staring at it intensely like she's about to cast a spell on it. "Even the door is made of gold." She placed her fingers on the door, trailing patterns down it. It's large and high enough to accommodate a family of elephant. She thought "It could cover all of my expenses to leave this country. Something that I have been saving for all my life." She felt rage enough to quench the fire Pierce's smile had ignited in her, build inside of her. "And my mom be comparing us. How else wouldn't he be successful? He has everything he will ever need right at his disposal." She placed her hand on the door knob, twisting it, taking a step into the house. "What's his excuse?" She asked, with Pierce and his friends wondering what exactly she has been saying to the door.

"I'll be right back". Pierce said to his friends, absentmindedly, following Zoe into the house.

Zoe gasped in admiration as she stepped into the house. I definitely died and went to heaven. She thought. The smith's house was like the it house. The type of house you watch on the news that have just been acquired by a Hollywood celebrity. The type of house you dream of and smack yourself in the head for dreaming that big.