"Welcome home!"

But it was never going to be home to sixteen-year-old Chloe White.

     Chloe stood square in the center of the exquisitely decorated foyer and held a single red suitcase and light-jacket. This place would be where she would stay from this day forth.

     She missed her home; her real home back across the seas in Cairo. 

     She had lived there since she was six with her mother and her mother's kind-hearted boyfriend, Tom. All she knew during those times were the warmth of the hot sun, the flavor of summer sweetened dates and the melodic beauty of her mother's singing voice. 

     These beautiful and precious memories were all that was left of them now.

     A large photo rested against the wall with ornate gold framing of a serious, but handsome man in his 40's and a beautiful woman with long, flowing red hair and a small tan dog in hand. 

     The expensive house belonged to her biological father, Henry Martin—a man she barely knew—and his new wife of eight-months.

     The welcoming voice belonged to Ms. Abigail Sweeten, a long time assistant to Chloe's father. She was a pencil thin, plain woman with a long nose and red wire-framed glasses. She reminded Chloe of a bird, fluttering about and chattering non-stop.

     "I'll show you where you room will be. Your father told me that he would be home around 8pm, and your step-mother should be in around 7pm after her Pilates. Dinner will be at 9pm, you should probably dress for that because he will be having guests over." Abigail wasted no time pacing and spouting off the day's agenda.

      Chloe's grip on her suitcase handle tightened. "You can tell Henry that I won't be going to dinner."

     Abigail had a thin-lipped, red smile across her face. She had the kind of fake and haunting smile that never reached her eyes. She pushed her index finger against the bridge of her nose to make sure her glasses were in place like a true OCD person. 

     Her voice was firmer this time, "You will be at dinner. Your father insists."

     Anger quickly rose into Chloe's chest and tears started to brim in her eyes. "Would you please stop calling him my father! Henry got my mother pregnant while he was cheating on his ex-wife and hasn't had anything to do with me until after she divorced him. I will not be going to dinner, my mother is dead! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

     It had to be a gift to be an unsympathetic, cold and unfeeling person like Ms. Abigail Sweeten. She pressed her leather-bound ledger against her chest and with an expression that said she couldn't care less, she emphasized, "As I said before, dinner will be at 9pm. There is a dress in the closet of your room upstairs. It's the second room to the right, the guest room."

     The pain in her chest was stronger.

     Of course it'd be the guest room! God forbid Henry actually prepared a bedroom specifically for his own daughter. 

     Maybe it wasn't so bad though, a guest room felt more temporary. Temporary was a good thing. Chloe would just stay and bid her time until she could convince her Aunt Lacey to let her move to live with her in Africa.

     There was nothing more to say to Abigail, so Chloe dragged her suitcase up the stairs. She made certain sure to loudly bang it against each perfect and expensive step along the way.

      It was easy to find the guest room; all the doors were closed and locked except for the guest room door which was left wide open. 

     Why were all the doors locked? Did they think she was some kind of criminal?

      Chloe pulled her suitcase into a moderately sized room. The walls were painted a bluish gray and all the furnishings were modern and dull. Gray comforters, black dressers and desks. A white vase with a dismal array of black-painted fake foliage, a glass jar with black marbles and white tea candles.

      Clearly this room was designed by the world's most depressed interior decorator—and it was now her bedroom.

      She closed the door behind her and locked it. Hey, if everyone else was going to lock their doors then she'd lock hers too!

      Chloe tossed herself on top of the bed to discover how firm it was. She missed her old room. She missed seeing the sunset through the window, and how soft her red pillow-bed had been. This room, however, was pretending to be fancily put together, when all it managed to be was gloomy. This room fit exactly how she felt.

      Chloe closed her eyes. She hadn't slept since she left Cairo. She would sleep and she hoped that when she'd wake everything would be just a dream.

"Get up!" A British woman's voice was stirring Chloe from her sleep.

     Chloe rubbed at the corner of her mouth sleepily and tried her best to focus her blurred vision on the person that stood over her. "I thought I locked the door. . ."

     "Didn't Abigail already inform you that your father has guests coming over for dinner? Why aren't you getting ready?"

     The voice wasn't Abigail's voice. Chloe's eyes lifted to see a woman who had a little too much plastic surgery over time. It was the woman from the photo in the foyer, her new step-mother, Elizabeth James-Martin. She looked taller than Chloe thought she would be, but this was based on Elizabeth's old photos from the internet when she was a young and very beautiful starlet.

     Elizabeth stood with grace and regal composure. She wore a white dress that looked like it was from an expensive designer's collection. Polished off with the perfect lashes, manicure, makeup and red-wine colored waves of hair.

     Chloe was a little taken aback. "What?"

     Elizabeth stepped in front of the closet, throwing both doors open at once. Hanging inside the empty closet was a single dress on a hanger. It was a navy blue dress, with red ribbon across the waist. It wasn't Chloe's style and it was almost childish. She was too old for dresses like that.

     This dress was shocking enough to allow Chloe to fully awaken and slide out of bed. She approached the closet to stand at Elizabeth's side. 

     "I'm not wearing that, and I'm not going to dinner."

     "Look, I know you've been through a terrible tragedy, and you don't want to be here. You are a teenager, you have teenage angst and intend to simply sit around and make trouble for Henry and I." Elizabeth's eyes met Chloe's dead on, "I want to tell you something right now, little-girl. That won't be happening in this house. You will not act out. You will not behave rebelliously with hatred because your father wasn't around when you wanted him to be. If for any reason I suspect you are causing problems for Henry, I will make sure you are sent far, far away."

     Chloe tried to lift her chin and seem every bit as intimidating as Elizabeth did. "That sounds great, send me to stay with my Aunt Lacey."

     Elizabeth smiled prettily with eyebrows and a forehead that wouldn't move. She had a certain energy about her that made her feel powerful and almost scary to a degree. "It would have been my pleasure dear if your Aunt Lacey wanted you. We wouldn't have kept you from her. You already know that your Aunt Lacey works for relief aid in conflict torn countries. They won't allow minors to go with her to these places and she wouldn't abandon her line of work saving hundreds of children just to comfort one lonely niece."

     Instantly, Chloe heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

     Aunt Lacey didn't want her.

     Despite having promised to take her on great adventures when she would visit in Cairo, it was all just lies. Chloe couldn't feel more unwanted than she did now.

     Elizabeth lifted the dress from off the pole and swiftly placed it in Chloe's arms. "This dress is worth five-hundred-dollars. Your father is the only kin you have left and you should feel so fortunate that he has the financial means to care for you. You will have access to the best in life, you should learn to be a little more grateful."

     Chloe didn't say a word, she just held the dress.

     Elizabeth left the room, leaving behind only the smell of her expensive perfume and hair-conditioning. Chloe stared at the dress in hand, the supposedly five-hundred-dollar one and sadness welled inside her. She was sad, because she knew she'd wear the dress and she knew she'd go down to dinner. This situation wasn't temporary.

     This was her home now. . .