Chapter song(s):

Somebody’s Watching Me- (Anna Waronkner cover)

Prologue

Milena
I love the snow and the cold weather. It reminds me of glitter as it falls so quickly and gracefully to the ground. It covers up everyone's tracks and past mistakes, allowing everyone a fresh start to be able to make a new footprint and mark on earth. It looks especially beautiful in the courtyard below. As the wind blows, it creates a sparkling twister like one that you'd find in snow globe.

"Come here Milena and close those curtains!"

My mother whispers to me trying not to be heard over the conversation going on between my father and the man behind the desk.

Before we got here, my father warned me to be on my best behavior in front of his new boss. As far as I'm concerned, there's no harm in gazing out a window, but apparently, sitting as still as a statue and only using my muscles to move the deep red curtain out of the way to see something other than this dimly lit office is pushing my mother's patience.

I took hold of my mother's outstretched hand and when I got nearby, she wrapped her arm around my waist, pulling me closer to her chair and smoothing a wrinkle out of my dress. I wouldn't be forced to stare out the window if I weren't so bored. I don’t understand why we all had to be here as my father signs our old lives away.

I am proud of him no doubt, but I would much rather have stayed where I felt the most comfortable.

"She's alright," the man behind the desk says while handing my father a glass of brown liquid with two ice cubes, "I'm sure this conversation is not one that she cares to hear or wishes to understand, is it sweetheart?"

The man smiles showing his incredibly white teeth and the brown of his eyes seem to glimmer. He reminds me of a Brothers Grimm version of the Cheshire Cat, it scares me and draws me in all at once.

My father raved about this man and how smart he is, but at the moment I can only see beauty, not brains.

I force myself to grin at him and not stare at his rugged manly features by nodding my head as I look around his aged office. Books cover the shelves but something tells me that they're here more for decorative purposes, it could be the dust that's collected on the wood shelves that they sit on and on the spines of the great works that has no crease in them?

"You have a lot of books here," I speak and admire the untouched collection.

There's practically a small library littering the walls. I would be impressed if he actually read one.

"Yes," the man grins, "we love to read and study things in my family. If you're ever here to visit again, you'll come to find many books scattered around."

Will all of them be unopened?

"False pretentious intellect is the worst kind," I say under my breathe before I smile at the russet eyed man.

"Milena!" My father scolds me quietly hearing my snide comment and I roll my eyes in an unapologetic way.

"It's alright. Teenagers," the man speaks again and takes a sip from his drink as he hands one to my mum, "A female teen at that. I have a daughter, I know the ropes. I also have a son about her age. You're about fourteen right? My son acts the same way. Perhaps the two of you will become friends?"

I take my seat on the windowsill again when a woman walks in and wraps her arm adorningly around the man behind the desk.

Alistair Styles.

He even has his name engraved on a plate on his desk in case he forgets it. He looks up at her and I notice the slight nod of her head to him as if she's confirming something.

“There are just a few more papers here for you both to sign..." Alistair says.

As he hands my father and mother pens and they write their names in loopy squiggles that they call signatures, my eyes stop on one shelf in particular that seems less dusty than the others.

Perhaps he does read after all.

I'm distracted when I hear echoes of a door slamming coming from beyond the window that I was yelled at for looking out of. There's a boy out there that wasn't there before. He's building an igloo or some kind of snow and ice structure I'm sure, but he's going about it the wrong way. That snow is too soft, too fresh to do anything to other than admire. I try to push my head forward to get a closer look but I end up smacking it against the glass, making a loud thudding noise as I do.

"Milena! I said get out of that window!"

Mum speaks in her clenched voice and all eyes in the room land on me. that voice only means she's angry or I've embarrassed her.

I hope I embarrassed her more than I did myself just now.

The adults start to speak again and shake hands in a congratulatory way and as I turn my attention back to the window. The boy that was there has disappeared and the footprints that were there left by him are now covered, but it’s not snowing heavy enough to hide them away so quickly.

I continue to stare squinting my eyes as if it would help me understand how he could have done it before I drift into a daydream, hoping that the minute hand on the clock would wind around faster. I'm quickly frightened out of my blank stare as a loud thump makes me jump and scream and the glass of the window shakes.

All congratulations stop as the adults all look at me again too see what my mini heart attack was about. I step back and turn my head in the direction of the window to reveal the reason. A cluster of snow now sticks to the glass where my head rested peacefully against it and the boy is still nowhere to be seen.

Apparently I was wrong; the snow was firm enough to make a snowball.

Alistair walks up behind me and so does the woman who I assume to be his wife. He glances over to her and smiles and she returns the knowing gesture. My parents walk up slowly to take a look, and now a snowball at a window is examined like a work of art before it falls off of the glass into a clump on the ground below.

"It appears you've just made contact with our son," Alistair speaks beaming about the rude awakening I received. He thinks this is normal behavior, "you'll meet him soon enough along with our daughter when you start school here."

My mother smiled immediately at the mention of school. It was one of the reasons she was so gung-ho about my father taking this job. She’s all about benefits and my dad will get some pretty good ones here, my schooling being one of them.

After my dad's meeting was over, my mother and I walked out of Styles' office with our arms wrapped around my father’s waist continuing the words of praise for his new position, though I'm not one-hundred percent sure of what his new position is, especially with Mr. Styles. My father is an appreciated scientist and researcher and from what I gathered, Alistair is a head government official. I don't ask questions even though it doesn't make much sense to me. My father is very passionate about his work and when questions are asked about it, answers are given. For hours. His work bores me to tears, but I congratulate him none the less.

We continue to walk down the long corridor and nothing else can be heard but the click of me and my mother’s heels against the white marble floors. I hate the damn things, but she insisted that I wear them to look presentable for today. ‘Appearance isn’t everything, but it is the majority,’ she says. I'm much more of a trainer and flat shoes kind of girl, a pure tomboy and disappointment to my mother. She dreamed of having a girly girl and got me instead. Seeing as how I’m an only child and she’s now barren, she’s stuck with me.

When we got into our car, I sighed with relief as I removed the heeled boots from my feet much to my mother’s dismay.

"Milena, put your shoes back on! You'll never get used to them if you take them off every time you sit down. It's so unladylike."

I ignored her and knotted my eyebrows but smiled again quickly when I saw my fathers grin in the rear-view mirror. He winked at me as he started the car and I kept my shoes off. My father is never ashamed or disappointed of me and I aim to never make him be.

We pull off to head back to our new home not even ten miles away from where my dad will be working and another snowball is pelted at my window. It once again hits where my head would be if the window was rolled down and I turn to the rear windshield putting up my middle finger to the fucker who keeps on doing it.

This time he doesn't bother to hide himself. I can't see his face due to the hood of his parka and because he gets smaller in the distance as we continue to drive away. I can only see the clothes he wears, black jeans that appear to be as tight as I wear mine, and black boots. He turns to go inside the building jogging up the stairs and closing the door behind him. We haven't even properly met yet, but he's already made his first impression.

Alistair Styles' son is very...accurate.

Notes

Hi loves! What do you think of my new story??? I had to re-post it because the site was acting dumb Sorry I will also be posting the first official chapter tonight! So please vote sub and load me up with comments on your thoughts!!! I LOVE YOU ALL FOREVER FOR READING!!!