Where Nobody Knows My Name

*Monroe's POV*

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Groaning into my pillow, I throw my arm out and smack the top of my alarm clock to stop the horrid sound. 5:00 am. I have been waking up this same time every day for over a year now, but for some reason, my body has still not adapted.

I turn my head to look at the two giant fur balls huddled up right beside me. I bought a king-sized bed so all three of us would have enough space to sprawl out, however Kobe and Bear still insist on being as close to me as they can possibly get. I give a quick pat to each of their heads and then drag myself from under the covers.

As I throw on my sports bra and leggings, neither dog makes any effort to wake up. They hate mornings even more than I do.  My room sits on the back corner of the house with both outside walls entirely made of windows, just like the rest of the house. My bed is in the middle of the wall opposite the eastern facing window so that I would get a clear view of the sunrise, you know, in case I ever decide to stay in bed long enough to watch it from here. 

I pad out into the hallway where another door to a guest bedroom sits across the hall, another guest bedroom to its left and then a bathroom directly to the right of my room. Stepping into the main living area, I pop into the kitchen to my left and fill up my water bottle at the island sink. I look out in front of me, past the living room and at the uninterrupted view of the forest in front of me. When I had the house built, my only requests were high ceilings and windows instead of walls. The feeling of being trapped in my own home was not one I wished to experience ever again. Besides, nature was infinitely more beautiful than any decoration I could put on a wall. 

I glide past the living room and dining room and down the stairs to the basement. The house had been built on a slope so the back wall was on the east side and was, once again, entirely windows and the front was dug into the hill. I walked past the entertainment area (which consisted of a sitting area complete with a flat screen, pool table, dart board and a bar) and into my favourite room of the house.

My gym has a treadmill, squat rack, many sets of dumbbells and kettlebells and of course matts, punching bags and various other fighting equipment, all facing the window. I laced up my shoes and started up a playlist on the sound system. 

Hopping on the treadmill, I took a deep breath and started up the machine. As my legs find a familiar rhythm, I gaze out at the sun beginning to peak out from above the treeline. Today is the day I finally get my life back on track after being forced to delay finishing high school by a year in order to deal with the fallout from my father’s death.

After all the shit he put me through, I’m glad to finally put it all behind me in a new state and new school where nobody knows my name and my family history. A place where people won’t automatically look at me with pity clearly written all over their faces. That was probably the worst part of the whole thing; everyone walking on eggshells around me for 6 years of my life. It was as though everyone was expecting that with one wrong move or sentence I was going to end up the same way as my mother.

When the news of my court battle for emancipation broke, followed by my eventual win and then my father’s demise, I basically became a leper. All of my so-called friends stopped speaking to me because their rich daddies didn’t want them to ruin their families’ reputations by getting caught up in the biggest scandal in Manhattan.

I stayed there just long enough to sell off my father’s company, which I inherited as his only living family member, and to have this house built on the other side of the country; just outside of Half Moon Bay, California. Here, I get to reinvent myself, without all of the baggage. I changed my last name to my mother’s maiden name and deleted all traces of myself from social media. Monroe Carver died along with her father and, according to the students at Half Moon Bay High, Monroe Thorn is just a nobody transfer student from New York.