Escape

The hem of the wedding gown slightly pulled down, as Alie Montgomery stood stiff on the podium, her mother and the tailor circling her. Her mother held a diet tea and a cell phone pressed against her left ear. She talked in rapid speed and Allie wondered if the person on the on the side, presumably her assistant, could understand her. The tailor gently slipped of the dress out of her body, leaving her only in her underwear.

The tailor walked out of the room taking a last look at Alie's figure. The tailor looked at her with concern and apologetic. She was too young to go through with this. But what did the tailor know, she had only met the Montgomery family five days ago when Liana Montgomery stormed through the front doors of the store demanding for a custom wedding gown made by Vera Wang herself. The girl came in silently after her obnoxious mother, civil.

However, the tailor was right to some extent. Allie Montgomery was too young, but she could never tell her mother off. It just would not happen. She had just graduated from Harmond Grove private school, with straight A's no doubt, and as valedictorian. As soon as the tailor exited out of the door, her mother ended the call and looked over to her thin daughter. She came up to her and pinched the little fat she had on her stomach.

"You must exercise more. You are not going to be able to fit in your gown next week if you keep up like this." She let go of the skin and Allie saw her milky skin on her stomach become a deep red.
"I will try, mother." The word felt sick to her mouth. She hardly acted like a mother.

"Don't, 'I will try', me Natalie Sierra Montgomery. Jeremy will not like a chubby wife." She winced when her mother said her full name with disgust. Ever since dad died, it was like this, a constant act to try to please her. And Jeremy the disgusting man who asked for my hand in marriage. He was ten years older than she was, yet he pretended he was only twenty, living in a carefree world of drinking and strip clubs.

The tailor came back giving a sheet of paper to my mother who looked down at it and scrawled some words down before giving it back. She looked at me with fake joy, "Are not you happy Natalie! Your wedding gown is finished and you are to become a married woman in less than 5 days." She squealed hugging the tailor who looked at Natalie with sorrow. She is much too young. The awkward silence stopped when her Liana pried her arms away from the tailor thinking her acting had been sufficient. Alie looked at her mother with pleading eyes. Out of all the outrageous things, she had Alie do this had topped it. She could not stand listening to her mother blabber on to a stranger about how she was keeping up the family tradition. She could not help but to feel rage fill up her when she talked about future descendants of the Montgomery life. She could not even think about Jeremy and her 'married life', less alone having sex with him.

She balled her fists up and stood there trying not letting her feeling out. The rage, the anger, the sadness, the loneliness, it all came to her at once.

Eighteen year of living in the shadow of her plastic mother, she would live the rest of her life in the shadow of a perverted man who had no respect for her neither for her dignity. Moreover, the thought sickened her. She hated being fake. She hated the limited freedom she was allowed. She hated the prissy rich bitches in her high school who only liked Alie for her money and status. She hated luxury as it is.

The tailor handed Natalie her clothes and placed the wedding gown in a velvet white box. After Natalie put on her clothes, her mother grabbed the box and ushered Natalie out the door with a half wave to the tailor.

The car door slammed in her mother's open -toped Lamborghini and revved to life. The car backed out the parking spot and drove towards the highway. Alie subconsciously looked out the window admiring all the happy families walking the streets of New York. The palms grasping each other, and their faces holding blissful looks as they window-shopped. They held minimal bags and they seemed fine with it.

When they stopped at the red light, Alie looked to the right of a Macy's department store and saw a mother and daughter laughing at whatever seemed so funny. Their rosy cheeks held the same expression and their hands intertwined lovingly. She looked over at her own mother at her expressionless face looking at the road with displeasure. Her botoxed, plastic face held a permanent scowl when she did not make a effort to smile. For some reason, she thought that the plastic surgeon had done the right thing. The surgeon had made her mother's inner beauty show.

Alie lean her head on the dashboard, shutting her eyes and thinks about a perfect life. Life where the mother would love the daughter. The father would come home every day, and then the whole family would sit by the fireplace talking about how their day was. A carefree life where love would be in the daily equation and ignorance would be blatantly crossed out.
When the two had reached home, her mother squealed with delight as she saw a man standing near the doorway obviously waiting for them. When he had turned around, Alie saw it was her fiancée. Jeremy latched his arm around her mother's and whispered words that made her mother giggle like a little school girl.

Revolting thought Alie.

She carefully got out of the car with her wedding gown and walked up to the sickening man and woman she was blessed with.

"Sweetheart, Jeremy and I are going to his house to do some last minute planning. I'll come home the next day."

Alie's eyes widened, she could not believe they were going to do it. She could not believe her mother would stoop to such a level that she would have sex with her future husband. Every day in the one month they would plan, her mother would come home in giggles and have her hand laced around her fiancée. Even if Alie had no choice but to marry the man that her mother picked, would she really have sex with her son in law? Why couldn't she just marry him, instead of forcing it upon her daughter? Those thoughts raced in her mind in a circle.

They left again with linked arms in his Corvette, and Alie stood there with a blank expression thinking the same thought repeatedly. I will never be as good as my mother.

She walked inside with the wedding gown and placed it on her mother's bed. She left the room shutting the door in the process. She quietly walked into her own room and stared at the furniture with disgust. Her mother picked it out and there was not a touch of Alie in it anywhere.

Her reflection was different from her mother's platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a more brunette tone in long her hair that fell in perfect curls. Her eyes were a minty green like her father's was. She looked a lot like her father. The only resemblance to her mother was the pale milky skin and perfect body that her mother used to have before she went all Heidi Montag.

Tears fell down, and she collapsed in to a fit of sobs, thinking about her down turning life. Nothing seemed to go right. Nothing felt normal, and certainly, this place did not feel like home. It felt like a jail cell. The metal bars keeping her from relinquishing the freedom of a seventeen-year-old turning eighteen in just two weeks.

Alie looked out at the scenery outside. The sun was about to set leaving blotches of red polka dotting the teal sky. The neighboring houses were already in the Thanksgiving mood decorated with turkeys and cornucopias.

She wanted to feel a part of something. She wanted to feel wanted.

&&&

The suitcase packed with her most favorite clothes: her skinny jeans and miscellaneous tops. Her makeup and hair kit that she could not bear to leave behind. Her comfortable underwear that made her feel lucky. Three pairs of shoes one her favorite ballet flats, her black high top converses and her Ugg boots. Finally, a picture of her father and herself on the California beach a year before her life turned hell.

She clutched the suitcase and her guitar and dragged them into her Sienna. She went back inside to take the money she saved from the age of six and bring that into the car as well.

She left the door closed and took one last look at the home she always hated, feeling just a bit somber.

Alie shrugged off the new feelings and backed out the driveway the moonlight guiding her new path. She smiled a genuine smile what seemed like in years, and finally felt the heavy burdens being lifted of her shoulders.

The wind blew back her brown hair, her eyes sparkling with delight.

She had finally escaped.