Seventeen-year old Sidney Prescott stared blankly at the computer monitor on the small, white desk in the corner of her room. She wasn't focused on the last few paragraphs she had written for her essay in her eleventh grade English class on The Red Badge of Courage. She was gazing at her own reflection, and then glancing at the framed photo of her mother, standing and smiling for the camera that was sitting on the desk.
A year ago, if anyone had told her she looked just like her mother, she would have laughed in their face.
But now, she saw it.
Every time she looked in the mirror, she saw her mother staring right back at her. Of course, Sidney knew it was impossible since her mom was dead. She shivered all over... she couldn't even think that horrible thought without feeling overwhelmed by all the old feelings...the old feelings she had tried for the past year to suppress.
Everything changed when her mom died. It all had been going downhill ever since then.
Sidney snapped back to reality just as her thoughts were getting too dark and glanced at the framed photo.
She couldn't believe how much things had changed. She couldn't believe that she used to scoff whenever someone said that Sidney resembled Maureen Prescott. Like were they kidding? They had to be kidding. I look nothing like her, Sidney would say, while making a face.
Now she could see it.
The same dark brown hair, the same big, warm smile, the same innocent, brown eyes...
She was a spitting image of Maureen Prescott.
The only difference between them was the age, the life experience, and that her mother was dead now. She was gone and she wasn't coming back.
And now, she couldn't help but feel bad about all the fights. Regretting every single time she had scoffed in her mother's face. Every time that she had been angry with her seemed so silly and pointless now.
She still couldn't believe she was gone. Ever since it had happened, she had been having thoughts like "Why couldn't it have been me?" and showing typical signs of depression. The bouts of panic and dread that would hit her all of a sudden without warning, waking up in cold sweats from vivid nightmares filled with images of blood, and violence, and death, and then withdrawing from her life and her friends and showing callousness towards the people in her life, and towards her boyfriend. She had to face it; she was traumatized.
After the first few nights of meltdowns and crying, it was off to the guidance counselor and then to a grief therapist that specialized in trauma, but it didn't seem to be working all that well and their insurance wouldn't have been able to cover the funeral costs and her therapy, so she couldn't go all that often. Even after seeing the therapist a few times, she still wasn't enjoying being outside of the house anymore. She almost felt at times like she didn't want to exist. The kids at school all treated her differently now that she was "the girl with the dead mom" and to make matters worse, her relationship with her boyfriend, Billy, was starting to slip. The only times they ever got to be alone was at lunch at school, but even then, their friends were around and they were never truly alone with each other anymore.
They hadn't even gone on a date in such a long time. They had been dating for a year and six months, and it had gone off like a firecracker at first. And now, after it happened, the spark was starting to fade. They mostly just spoke to each other in three-word sentences, and awkward stares, and with everything that was going on, she just didn't have the time or the emotional energy to try to keep up the relationship.
And of course, some of it was her own fault. She was still reeling from losing someone and hadn't been as open with him anymore, and had become standoffish and cold, and much to his frustration, unwilling to be intimate. How could she ever be able to do those things again? She would never be the same after what happened...after what happened just one year ago, to the day. It was so strange to her that it had all happened a year ago. She had tried so hard to forget, but it still felt like it was yesterday.
