The Move.

Jade.

    It was the first day of an autumn that promised to be long, dark and cold. Secrets hung about the air as always. Thick, juicy, dangerous secrets that I did not know yet, but somehow knew would completely destroy the already fragile bonds holding my family together once I found them out.

    "We're moving back to London tomorrow," Mom announced abruptly in the middle of our usually chronically silent breakfast.

My fork paused in mid-air for a fraction of a second before I stabbed it into my neatly sliced piece of jam toast, brought it to my mouth, chewed, and swallowed before glancing up at both of my parents.

    "London?" My brow raised in slight perplexity.

    "Yes," Mom said with a cheerful smile that held several layers of obscurity to it, as everything around here always did. Everything always felt like a lie or like half truths. Like everyone had been let in on a secret only I was not privy to.

"Your father and I thought it would be nice to celebrate your eighteenth birthday back at...home for a change, and also because it's been so long since we left. We believed a change of scenery mixed with...homely familiarity would be beneficial to all of us." 

Her smile seemed genuine enough, but there was something underneath—there always was. Something I've never been able to figure out.

   Dad simply nodded beside her as he tore into his chicken without a care in the world. And I remained silent because I had nothing to say.

    The word 'home' had come to sound so...strange on Mom's lips. It made sense that she had hesitated before saying it, seeing as we've never had a home. Or at least, I haven't had one.

    Mom and Dad grew up with their parents and grandparents in England, and I grew up...well, all over the world. It's a bit complicated.

    Mom looked to Dad for support when I turned my attention back to my food, and simply continued eating without speaking, or gesturing to show that I had understood her words, and Dad cleared his throat loudly to garner my attention.

    "Yeah, I uh...I know you don't remember much of it but I promise you'll really like it in London. It's very..." Dad wiped his mouth with a napkin as he grappled for what to say. "It's very, um...nice! Yeah, it's very nice in London!" He gave me an awkward smile, and Mom nodded enthusiastically beside him.

    I simply looked away from them again in silence and began spreading jam over another piece of toast, and I could practically feel the laser burn of their stares searing through my forehead. So, I looked up with a questioning frown.

    "What?"

    "Don't you...have anything to say?" Mom's shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. "Any objections or-"

    "Does it matter if I have any objections?" I interrupted my Mother's sweet charade because it was starting to become nauseating.

    "Uh, I..." She looked to Dad for support again, but this time he simply stared back at her in silence because they both knew the truth, and they knew I saw right through their bullshit.

    "That's what I thought." I dropped my knife as I pushed the chair back, got up and began walking away from the dinning table because I had suddenly lost my appetite and wanted to be alone.

    "Do not walk away from the breakfast table while we're having a discussion, Jade!" Mom snapped as I walked away, and I scoffed but kept walking.

"Jade!"

"Leave me alone, Mom. I've lost my appetite," I sighed and kept walking, headed towards the stairs.

    In the past, I used to throw tantrums. Whenever my parents would announce the news of our move from yet another house we were just barely settling in at breakfast like Mom did today, I would cry and yell, and...destroy things.

God knows how many flower vases and windows have been victims to my rage.

    But I quickly realized that it didn't matter. It didn't matter how many things I broke. It didn't matter if I screamed myself hoarse, starved for days and cried myself to sleep every night.

The flower vases and windows would simply be replaced before I woke up the next day, and I would be on a plane, forcefully uprooted and estranged from everything I was only just beginning to hold dear.

    And their excuse for giving me such an unstable life was always...work.

My parents, you see, are business moguls. They both manage empires, and not only do they have to travel often, but they also have to live their lives on the run and in hiding from business opponents who will stop at nothing to ruin them and everything they hold dear.

That's their explanation at least. So we move every other couple of months, always starting and restarting our lives over and over again. To keep me safe, they say.

    We've lived all over the world at this point. London, New York, Paris, Czech Republic, Prague, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai, Haiti, Mexico, Ghana, Turkey, Cairo...you get the point.

And from an external point of view, it might seem like a very exciting life, I suppose. Like I have everything to be grateful for, and I should be thankful to my parents instead of resenting them so much.

    And I am grateful. I understand my privileges, but does any of it matter if I'm not allowed to live like a normal teenager? Experiencing human relationships and contact?

What's the point of being able to travel all over the world if I can't even step outside without an entourage of bodyguards three feet behind me at all times?

At least that's how it used to be, until I almost got kidnapped in Turkey.

    We moved halfway across the continent the next day, and I was never allowed to step outside the confines of the house ever again, not even with a thousand bodyguards. Now, I am forced to stay indoors at all times, no matter where we are.

Call me Rapunzel in a shitty contemporary fairytale.

    I'm not allowed to have a social media presence, or to share locations with friends. I don't even have any friends to begin with. I can only have social media accounts that are private. And even then, I'm not allowed to post pictures of myself or of anything with affiliations to my family or location.

    I sort of developed an understanding of why we had to move around so much after I almost got kidnapped in Turkey though.

I mean, I had initially thought my parents were lying to me, and that it was impossible for their business to be so dangerous that it would require us moving so often and having to live in such secrecy. But after I almost got kidnapped, the fear truly began to set in.

    It didn't mean that I hated my parents any less though. If anything, I hated them even more for giving me such an abnormal life and no siblings or extended family to live it with, but I stopped complaining and throwing tantrums after that.

I stopped talking too. Not that I talked much before, but I just completely retreated into a place deep within myself where no one could find me. I became...silent, and it was not entirely out of choice.

    I didn't even know exactly what it was my parents did to put us in so much danger. Every time I asked what kind of business it was they ran, I only got vague, dismissive answers.

You'd think I at least deserved to know why I couldn't have a normal life, but I was just expected to play along and be okay with it.

My opinions on anything are completely irrelevant, and they sometimes don't even tell me where we're going or when we'll get there. I'd just wake up to find the maids packing all of my belongings, and then we'd be off to another new home that we'd only be in for six months at most.

    It's suffocating, but I've gotten used to it. I mean, it's not like I have a choice anyways.

    But things used to be better. I remember a time before I began to understand that I was being hurt by my parents selfish decisions. A time when I was merely a kid who saw the world through rose colored lenses, with loving parents who showered me endlessly with love and affection.

I remember a time when we were happy.

    Now we're just...not.

    There's a steady, palpable, unshakable grief that creeps up on you as you age. As you begin to see the people you love for what they really are, and you realize that your parents are no different from everyone else. Not some special kind of heroes that will save you from the world.

    If you're unfortunate enough like me, you realize that your parents are the same monsters you believed existed outside the doors of your house in the form of humans.

And if you're lucky, maybe you realize that they love you but they simply don't possess the ability to understand you.

    I don't know which is sadder. Monstrous parents? Or parents who will never really know you? I think both are gruesome fates no one deserves to live through.

    "Miss Jade, would you like to have the rest of your breakfast sent to your room?" A familiar voice called behind me, and I halted on the staircase and turned around to meet Mr. Edward's ever soft and concerned gaze.

    He's my family's butler...sort of. He's been working for us the longest out of all the staff, and he's probably the only friend I'll ever have despite him being decades older than me.

    "Yes, Mr. Edward. I'd like that very much. Thank you," I gave him a small smile to show that I was fine because I knew he was worried about me and I didn't want him to be.

    "Alright then, Miss. I'll have an extra jar of raspberry juice with some fresh toast and jam brought up in a few minutes. If you'll excuse me," he bowed shortly and then walked away. I sighed and continued on upstairs.

    I've told Mr. Edward to just call me Jade several times and to stop being so formal, but he claims he cannot because he was raised to always use honorifics. And even though I've known him forever, literally—he's been with us since I was born—he still insists.

    I've gotten used to it though. I think it'll be weirder if he suddenly drops the honorifics now actually.

    I get to my room soon after, walk in and flop on a sofa in the living area. I should probably start packing, since my parents have dropped the bomb again.

Not that I had much to pack anyways. The maids and the moving people would take care of most of it. I just had to make sure some things were organized before they came, so as to not give them a hard time doing their job.

    I let out a long sigh, resisting the tears prickling my irises as my eyes ran over the room that had only been my room for six months.

Six months ago, we landed in Ontario and now we were leaving. This would be the last time I ever saw this room. The last time I slept in my...the bed.

The walls were still as white and bare as the first day we'd moved in. I had stopped putting effort into decorating my rooms the more we moved because it hurt to take them down every time we had to leave.

    My paintings sat in a stack of canvases in a corner of the room, never to see the light of day. Mr. Edward was the only one who liked them anyways.

    Those were my only prized possessions. My paintings and my piano that sat in a lonely, dust covered ambience by the window.

I hadn't played since we moved here. I had stopped painting too. I doubt I'd ever play or paint again, but I brought my piano and my canvases with me wherever we moved to.

    They were the only tangible things I owned. The only things I didn't have to leave behind.

    I gave the room a final once over, a dull ache flaring to life in my chest. And the next morning, we were on our way to another country that would be another mindless, inconsequential home for the next uneventful six months of my uneventful life.

Even though I was born in London, I had no memories of it, and therefore held no sentiments towards it.

But oh...how wrong I was. I had no idea what horrors awaited me in London. I had no idea just how eventful this fall was about to be.