Trapped Like Crazy

Chapter One: Go Ravens

One Year Earlier

It was hard to get excited about college.

I'd moved over two thousand miles away from home because I couldn't deal with the stares, glares and the painful snickers in my small town of Andover, Maine. Not because I was a coward, but because I needed change.

I'd chosen to live in a cute little condo off campus rather than deal with on campus drama. I needed a safe haven. I needed my condo to be my little shell in Berryville, Texas . I needed to start over. I could do this. I could be the new and improved Eleonora. I could leave my past behind.

A knock on my door shook me from my thoughts. I cautiously get off my couch and scattered to the door, making sure to check peephole before opening the door. I cringe inwardly.

"Honey, it's me!" My mom identified herself in her singsong voice. I sighed and opened my door, letting my over bearing mother in. Two thousand miles couldn't keep us apart, though I desperately wanted it to. "Good, you're up!"

"Of course I'm up, mom. It's eight and my classes start at ten." I point out before I take my place back on the couch. My stomach turned at the thought of going to class and I nervously picked at the black and red manicure I'd given myself yesterday. Go ravens.

"Right. So this is your place? It's so cute. It's slightly big for just one person. Maybe you should get a roommate? Someone big, strong and of the handsome variety?" She suggested and I cringed almost immediately. My mother was Mrs. Codependent. After my father died when I was twelve, she remarried before the dirt could settle on his grave. She never looked back after that, hardly ever spoke of him.

She desperately wanted me to be like her. In love at sixteen, married by eighteen and child by twenty and live happily ever after.

But that was her fairytale. Not mine.

"Look mom. I love you, honestly, I do. But I don't want a roommate; I moved here to be alone and to get an education. Not to shack up with some dude." I tried explaining without attitude, but I know I came off annoyed. After two years of being pestered about my love life, I was ready to snap. If and when I decided it was safe to have a love life again, she'd be the last to know.

"Okay honey, but think about it. I don't like seeing you so lonely." She sighed and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This was only her temporary white flag. By midterms, she'd probably be rounding up boys conducting interviews for my future husband.

Before I could open my mouth to refute it, another knock came at my door. I threw a mental fit as I got up once again to answer it. All I wanted to do is be alone and I couldn't get an hour of it.

I opened the door without checking this time, assuming it was my step-dad, Vick. When I caught a glimpse of him, he looked incredibly distraught. His fire red hair was glued to his face as the sweat poured from his head down to the collar of his ash gray shirt. There was already a stain of sweat on the chest of his shirt and from his panting breaths; he was soon to pass out.

"Did you forget something at the mall, Stacey?" He said between deep breaths. I looked over to my mom who decided to busy herself in my kitchen and she dropped what she was doing before cupping a hand over her mouth.

"Babe, I'm sorry. I was shopping for housewarming gifts for Elli and I thought I would drop by. I totally forgot you were with me." She apologized but Vick looked unimpressed. Couldn't blame him though. The heat here was unbearable to say the least.

"Vick, I love you but don't sit on my couch. You're sweaty and gross right now. Mom, you left him in a mall?" Although it was my moms usual MO, I was still surprised. Over the years my mom had left my dad and me at the mall so many times I'd lost count. But she'd never left Vick until now. I guess she's slipping.