I really, really don't like my mother.

I know, I should be respectful towards my elders, but it's difficult to be respectful to a racist, homophobic and generally hateful woman who has been controlling my life from the start and has forced the family to pack up and move numerous times for some ridiculous reason.

'A gay couple just moved in next door, maybe we should move' and 'I refuse to let my children play with someone called Larissa' are some of my personal favourites. There are more. A lot more.

Then there's the fighting. We fight a lot, verbally and sometimes physically. We argue over the most ridiculous things, until the argument builds and builds until it blows up in our faces. It usually ends with one of us getting hit, or me getting locked in my room for a few hours. Or days. Dad's too scared to stand up to her, so she gets away with it.

Another reason why I strongly dislike my mother, is because she is a massive hypochondriac, which is why I'm spending the early hours of Saturday morning sitting in a doctor's office with her. Long story short, she is adamant that I'm pregnant.

"I mean, she's been looking quite flushed recently," my mother tells the doctor, her hand fiddling with the pendant of her favourite necklace. "And she's been looking so tired, the bags under her eyes could carry a week's worth of shopping."

"I'm not pregnant," I say, for what must be the seventeenth time this morning.

The doctor removes his blue-rimmed glasses, rubbing the spot where they had been resting. "The tiredness is usual for any normal teenage girl. Honestly, I'd be more concerned if there weren't any bags under her eyes."

"But--"

"And the flushes are also normal," the doctor continues. "Stress, combined with the fact that she's probably dehydrated, may cause her to get flustered every now and then. It's all normal in a menstruating, teenage girl."

Mum's brow creases, as it always does when she doesn't understand why she's wrong. "But, she told me she missed her period for this month. That must mean something."

The doctor rolls his shoulders in obvious annoyance and I start feeling deeply sympathetic towards the guy, as I do with anyone who is forced to face my mother's wrath for longer than five minutes. "I don't know what to tell you, Mrs Redwood. Your daughter is a seventeen-year-old girl, her periods are bound to go off track every now and then. You did a home pregnancy test and it was negative. We've done a pregnancy test here and it came out negative. Aurora has even stated clearly that she isn't, nor has she ever been, sexually active."

They both look at me and I nod in confirmation. Unless you count making out with some random guy last year while on a school camping trip as being 'sexually active', I'm one-hundred-and-ten percent a virgin.

"I find that hard to believe, though," my mother pushes. I bite my tongue to prevent the groan from rising at the back of my throat. "She's a beautiful young girl. Boys are always wanting to sleep with her. Right, Aurora?"

I open my mouth, struggling for words. "Not particularly, no."

Mum rolls her eyes, her necklace still fluttering between her delicate fingers. "Whatever. I just... she has to be pregnant. She was physically sick this morning, the symptoms are all there."

"It was probably that dodgy food Connie made for us last night," I say.

"Don't bring your sister into this. It couldn't possibly have been her cooking, she's a wonderful cook," she gives the doctor a pointed look as if to say 'yeah, my other daughter is perfectly perfect'. "Besides, I wasn't puking my guts up this morning."

"You didn't eat what she cooked for us," I challenge.

I make eye contact with the doctor, silently begging him to get the both of us out of this situation. His face is covered in kind-hearted empathy, a familiar glint in his eyes that I've seen many times before. It's the glint that tells me I'm not the only one who believes my mother belongs in a mental institution.

The doctor pushes his glasses back onto his face, flicking through some paperwork sitting on his desk. "Mrs Redwood, your daughter is not pregnant. I promise. Have a nice day," he says, effectively ending the appointment.

The nagging continues as soon as we get into the car. It continues on the fifteen-minute drive back home. It almost continues once we step into the house, but thankfully Connie is struggling to fit into yet another beauty pageant dress so Mum goes to aid her instead of banging on about the non-existent baby in my belly.

I walk into the silence of my new bedroom and wow... it feels nice to breathe. Although there are boxes waiting to be unpacked almost everywhere, the bright white of the walls and the sun shining through the many windows give the room an airy, spacious feel. I step across the thick, white carpet until I reach the window seat which, in the few days we've been living in this house, has quickly become my favourite place. I rummage through a box until I find my purple blanket and grab my laptop, one of the few objects to actually be unpacked, before getting comfortable by the window.

On the occasion that my mother likes to plunge me deeper and deeper into an ocean of self-hatred, there are only three people who can pull me back to shore. One is my father, who started his new job today so is currently unavailable, so I find the remaining two on my laptop and click on the call button.

It calls for a short while, and I pick at a loose thread on the blanket while I wait. When it answers, two identical faces appear on the screen.

"Roraaaa!" They say in perfect unison. Creepy, but you get used to it.

"Hey guys," I say. I internally cringe at how unenthusiastic I sound.

One twin pokes out his bottom lip-- Tristan-- while the other creases his brow in concern-- Sean. My older twin brothers always know when something is up.

"What's up, Rora?" Sean asks me.

"W-w-w-wait!" Tristan cuts me off before I can explain. "I want to guess. I'm going to guess. Okay, judging by the look on your face, it's probably something to do with our loving mother."

I chuckle humourlessly. "Something like that."

Sean sighs. "What did she do this time?"

"Well, I puked this morning and according to Mum, I've gained weight around my stomach, I've been looking tired, having headaches and looking 'flushed', so she's decided that I'm pregnant." I speak as if I'm talking about the weather, but the reminder of it all threatens to rile me up again.

"But... that would be impossible... wouldn't it?" Sean asks.

Tristan snorts. "Unless you suddenly have a man in your life."

I shake my head no, not able to find it within me to laugh with him. Usually, me and the twins are laughing together, joking around and pissing off Connie-- when Mum isn't around, of course-- but they're not here and it's difficult to even smile after the morning I've had. How I'm going to survive the next year that the twins are spending at university, I don't know.

"Look, Rora," Sean starts. "It's bullshit, I know. I don't know why Mum has it out for you, but unfortunately you're just going to have to pull through it now that we're gone. I think she's upset that we're not there, if the constant phone calls are anything to go by, so she's focusing more of her attention onto you to get her mind off things."

I glance out of the window, watching as a few kids ride their bikes down the street. How nice it would be to have a group of friends to ride bikes with. How nice it would be to be allowed to ride a bike without a mother worried that you'll fall and scrape some skin off. "It's not fair."

"You know what's not fair?" Tristan asks, biting into an apple. Where did that come from? "Life. A lot of things in life are unfair. Like, Sean and I are about to move into this nice, cheap apartment and are asked if we want to have roommates. We're like 'yeah, sure, why not?'. So we're put with two super-hot girls and think we've hit the jackpot, until we find out that one is in a strong, long-term relationship and the other is a lesbian."

"There's nothing wrong with being a lesbian."

"I know there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian," Tristan defends. "I'm just saying that one, neither of these hot girls want to date me, and two, Mum will be pissed when she finds out."

Sean nods. "She'll probably make us change universities."

"Speaking of uni, we need to get to the library in ten minutes," Tristan says, checking his wristwatch. I deflate a little. I don't want them to leave me. Without them on the other side of the screen, I'm truly stuck with Mum and Connie.

"Go get ready, I'll be with you in a sec," Sean tells him. Tristan nods, blowing a kiss at the camera and saying his farewell. When the closing of a door tells me he's gone, Sean's face turns solemn.

"I'm sorry we had to leave you, Rora," he says. "I feel like things might only turn worse before they get better for you."

I shrug, wrapping the blanket tighter around me, soaking up the comfort it provides. "You don't need to apologize. You and Tristan were always going to leave soon. I just didn't realize it would get so bad."

Sean's mouth twitches. "It's going to be okay, Aurora."

My twin brothers only ever call me by my full name when they're serious about something. I wish I could trust the seriousness in his voice.

AN

Hey! Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of Beautiful Thieves!

This book means a lot to me. Although it has a little bit of a slow start, I promise it picks up very soon, and then doesn't really calm down until... uh... well...

But seriously, I've had a lot of people tell me that the book is fast-paced and every chapter is full of action. I'm glad I have managed this as 1) I'm not a fan of filler chapters and 2) I wanted to show how hectic life soon gets for Aurora.

Anyway, I really hope you give my story a chance. I love my characters and what I've achieved and I hope you are willing to join me on this journey.

Much love xx