I kept looking out the car window as we drove past some trees on the way back to my Aunt's house. And I began to grow nervous that Aunt Mary was going to slap me when she heard about Alexa's audition. "What's wrong?" Ethan asked. I shook my head, coming back to reality, and I looked at Ethan. "It's nothing," I answered, bending down to grab my purple notebook. "It didn't look like nothing when you and Alexa walked out of school," Vanessa pointed out.

I tried my best to ignore the image of Alexa grabbing my arm and dragging me down the hall like an angry parent. But, her words echoed in my head. "You're so useless,"  I felt a small tear fall down my cheek, and quickly wiped it away, hoping that Vanessa and Ethan wouldn't notice. "Serena, it's obvious something is wrong with you. You know you can tell us anything," Ethan said as he rested a hand on my knee.

"I don't know how much abuse I can take anymore. It's like I'm a grenade, and I can go off at any second," I said on the verge of tears. Vanessa turned onto the street, and we came to a stop in front of the house. "You're not thinking about hurting yourself, are you?" Vanessa asked, looking towards the backseat. "No, of course not! I'm just saying that eventually, I'm gonna snap or try to run away, and they'll probably search for me until I'm back in that prison,"

Ethan and Vanessa reached over and hugged me awkwardly, and suddenly I started to feel better. "If you feel like you need to run, you can always call me, and I'll pick you up," Vanessa smiled. I was hoping that it wouldn't reach that point, but now I wasn't sure what to expect. "I'll text you guys to let you know what's happening," I said as I got out of the car and walked up the driveway, mentally bracing myself for more pain.

When I stepped inside the house, I saw Alexa was sitting on the couch looking at her phone. "Somebody's in trouble," she sang teasingly. I looked at her for a split second and then looked in front of me again. And saw Aunt Mary with rage in her eyes. "You stupid child! I gave you one simple task to help Alexa prepare for her audition, and you can't even do that!" she shouted, slapping me across the face again, but this time on my right cheek.

"It's not my fault, ma'am. I tried my best!" I pleaded on the verge of tears. "Well, your best wasn't good enough! Now go tidy up Alexa and Isabelle's rooms!" She growled as she walked away. Alexa stood up from the couch and walked towards me with a smirk on her face. No words were spoken, but I knew that she was taunting me inside her head. My legs were shaking horribly as I walked towards my bedroom, and I could feel my heart racing inside my chest, like it was about to explode.

I quickly texted Vanessa and Ethan to let them know about what happened, and they asked me if I was feeling the need to run. A small part of me wanted to run away from this life, but I didn't want to feel like a burden on Ethan or Vanessa's families. So, I told them no. It took me about two hours to clean Alexa and Isabelle's rooms, and to put it lightly, their rooms were not the cleanest.

After dinner, I trudged back to my room to work on my homework and hopefully listen to one of Aidan's live streams. Sure enough, when I was working on a biology sheet, I got the notification from Instagram, and I joined the stream. "To those who just joined, I'm sorry I had to cut the auditions short today. I had forgotten I had to do an interview, but I talked to my manager and the school, and they're letting us use the auditorium for the second set of auditions!" Aidan explained.

I scrolled through the comments, and I saw that a lot of people understood the situation while others didn't. "The auditions will start at nine pm tomorrow night. I couldn't get it earlier because the drama club has an all-day rehearsal tomorrow," Aidan added. Nine pm? Hopefully, the evil queen and her minions have something that keeps them busy tomorrow, so I can sneak out to see Aidan!