Seeing Blind (Rough Draft)

Chapter One

Avery Wainwright was moving. She was moving in with her estranged father to Greenwich, California, an unknown territory to her. She wanted to stay with her mom, but after having an epiphany of becoming a publicist for the rich and famous, she left Avery behind and moved to New York.

The only houses her father could afford were in Greenwich. Students talked at St. George Prep about Greenwich and how "ghetto" it was. What was Avery supposed to do in Greenwich? Who was she supposed to befriend?

Avery turned her music up, letting Queen soothe the fright right out of her. Usually, Queen could turn Avery's bad days around, but this one, this one was a lot harder to see the bright side.

Avery hadn't lived with or seen her father in four years when he moved out after the divorce. Now he was magically back in her life and her mom left it. Avery heard what her parents' last conversation was, "I can't be held back anymore, Joseph. Avery will be fine, she's a smart girl. But the law says she can't stay alone until she's eighteen, and she's only sixteen. You are all she has now."

"Avery adores you Meredith, and you're just leaving her, with a note as a goodbye. Some mother you are."

"Oh Joseph, after all these years you still don't understand what I gave up for Avery. What I'm going to take back."

"New York won't give you your old boobs back."

"I wasn't talking about my breasts, Joseph." Mom walked out of the house, and out of Avery's life after that. It's been two weeks and still no word from her mom.

"Ah, here we are." Dad pulled into the driveway of a one-story, grey shutter and white trim house, and as she looked around, all the lawns had brown grass. The sold sign was pulled out and lying limply on the dead grass.

This was a huge disappointment from the mansion left on Fifth Street where Avery and her mom lived for the past five years. "It's...quant," Avery told her father, feeling disgusted inside. She wanted her mansion back, she wanted her mother and St. George Prep back.

But they were gone and this was her home now. She could vomit at the thought.

"Come on, I want to show you where your room is."

"Awesome." Avery followed her father inside, the screen door, falling off its hinges when Joseph opened it, banged to the ground. "I'll fix that later."

"Oh my God, what's that smell?" Avery put an arm over her mouth, breathing in through her nose. The summer heat had nothing to do with the smell, only the mustiness of the abandoned house.

Joseph walked around. "It seems some little creatures have made a home here. They weren't expecting guests."

"Oh God. Why did Mom have to leave?"

"Hey, now. You're going to have fun with your old man. Now, I believe down the hall are the bedrooms."

"You don't know the layout of the house?"

"I only looked at half of it. There wasn't time to waste, that mansion is way too big for both of us. Besides, I can't keep up with the payments, and your mother closed our joint account during the divorce."

"She said you couldn't handle your money."

"Did she now? That sounds like your mother. Here we are, look, they are right across from each other."

Down the short, bare hallway, were two bedrooms adjacent from each other, also bare inside. They were about as big as the sitting room at the mansion. The left bedroom walls were painted baby blue and the right was painted peach. Baby blue and peach.