She put a cigarette between her dry lips and glanced at the sky.

“It´s almost time.” She looked at me. “Are you ready?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but my mouth was dry as the desert and nothing came out so I closed it again and simply nodded my head.

She looked at me and must have sensed that I was nervous as she gave me a pat on my shoulder before she turned and opened the door. She beckoned me to go ahead and I took the few steps that led up to the doors. I felt like turning around and run back to the car and lock myself inside it and refuse to open it until she promised to take me home again. But I knew that it was no use. I took a deep breath and took the last few steps through the door and when she followed me and the door closed behind me, I felt like they closed the door to a jail cell, my jail cell.

   When my father introduced me to my new stepmother for the first time, I could never imagine that the beautiful woman that stood before me would change my world so completely. She was a beautiful woman in her designer suit and her red hair with a brilliant smile, not at all in the same class as my frumpy old dad.

   After my mother died when I was very young, my father had taken on a job as a salesman for a big global company, which meant that he had to visit customers all over the world, which meant that he had to travel very much and sometimes stay away from home for weeks at a time. At first, it had been really hard on both of us but we soon adjusted to our situation and I had gotten used to being home alone with my nanny while my father travelled.  But now, when this new woman came into our lives, my life would change completely and there was nothing I could do about it.

  It all started that summer day when my father announced that they were getting married at the end of the summer. I was shocked. I had become used to her presence when my father came home from his business trips, a time he normally devoted to me. But I had accepted this since she seemed to make my father happy in ways that I couldn´t. But somewhere in my mind I had never foreseen that my father would ever marry another woman. The thought that my mother someday would be replaced had never crossed my mind.

“What does this mean?” I had asked him.

“This means that Serena will become your new stepmother. She will move in with us and take care of you while I´m gone.”

I had been so shocked that I didn’t say a word while my father and Serena beamed at me.

“We will have so much fun, don’t you think?” she had said and given me a hug. “Just us girls.” The thought had given me the chills.

Not long after the day that Serene moved into our house, it was time for my father to go away on one of his long business trips.

“I will be back before you know it,” he had said to me when he gave me a hug goodbye. “And remember, listen to Serena, she´s in charge now.” I had looked over his shoulder when he said this and I had seen the smile that Serena had on her face, it was not a friendly smile.

And sure enough, as soon as my father had left, Serena had turned towards me.

“Go upstairs and get the bags that I have packed for you that´s standing in your room.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Don´t ask stupid questions, just do as I say and bring down the bags to the car.” she had said and walked off.

In the car Serena had told me that she had enrolled me at an all-girls boarding school, and that I would live there from now on.

   And now here we were. As we stood inside the doors, a big woman who looked like she had never smiled in her entire life came up to us.

“Is this the Wiseman girl?” she asked Serena, like I wasn’t there.

“Yes, this is she.”

“Then you can say goodbye now and I will take her to her room.” When she said this it finally hit me. Serena was really going to leave me here.

“Please, don’t leave me here.” I grabbed Serena´s hand but she yanked it away and looked down at me with disgust.

“You will do as you’re told.”

With this final statement, she turned and walked out the door while the big, scary woman took my bags and started walking in the opposite direction.

    I followed Serena with my eyes when she walked back to her car and got into it, hoping that she would turn around and come back and take me home. She never did.