Blindsided

Chapter 1

Hello! My name is Miranda, the inevitable attractor of all the weird in the world. And welcome to the twisted reality that is my life!

I was currently sat in my soon-to-be-emptied- but- already-half-empty bedroom. All that was left was my bed, an overturned cardboard box currently being used as my makeshift bedside table, and a lamp right next to my bedside table, which would be too heavy to place on said makeshift article of 'furniture'.

Oh, and tissues. Lots and lots of tissues.

I was in the final stages of preparation for my leave to attend university in sunny California. That has been my plan for the past three years. After all, who would want to forfeit earning an education in sunny Cali, where the beaches are endlessly available on weekends and the night scene is always hot?

There was only one minor detail that my fantasy conjured up that would not be present evermore in me new reality. Drake. Yes, a boy; the stupid, turd-faced, idiotic, nincompoop ignoramus that is my ex-boyfriend, to be more accurate. Cliché, I know. But honestly, I never thought that I would be one of those girls. I actually strived to be the most anti-cliché girl of them all, but he just had to ruin that.

Stupid Drake.

Drake was one of those pretty boys. You know those? Those who style their hair and meticulously pick out their outfits and wear that intoxicating cologne that they know contains pheromones that cannot be resisted by females of the human race? And to top it all off, he was sweet. (See? I wasn't shallow! I could appreciate a guy's personality. After all, they say looks aren't everything, right?) He would help me study for tests when we had the same classes, spontaneously show up at my house with a tub of ice cream and ask if we could stay in and watch TV together all day; Drake was the guy who wore a tuxedo to school on [what was] a glorious day three years ago, bending on one knee, presenting me a ring, and asking me to be his one and only... girlfriend (calm down guys, I'm still too young to be married; no proposals for me yet. Not for another 7 years until I'm 25, at least).

But, unbeknownst to me, he was already Stupid Drake back then.

It was because he was always so cloyingly sweet, so incandescently bright whenever he laid eyes on me, that I was reduced to the blubbering mess that I was in at that moment. It was also those same traits (and maybe a bit of blindness and sheer negligence, on my part) that made it that harder to believe that he would have ever considered cheating on me. (Yes, I did warn you that this part would be as cliché as stories get.)

Today was the last day of school, actually, and ironically, instead of rejoicing over the fact that I was finally free from my imprisonment of the last 5 years, I felt caged by my own distraught emotions. It was now 4:30 p.m. and I had been isolated up here, alone until the last 30 minutes when I began to make every effort to muffle the sounds of my sobs to prevent my mother from knowing of my distress.

And in the last thirty minutes, I realised that I wished that my mother and I had the type of relationship where I could run to her bawling, throwing my head on her shoulder and blubbering on said shoulder, instead of my bed. That longing just exacerbated my deep sadness, knowing that I was soon leaving home, leaving a mother with whom I had a relationship that was barely there.

I mean, my mum knew about Drake, it wasn't like I made it a purpose to hide him from her, but going into the details of Drake and my somewhat serious relationship was not the norm of the two of us.

It was that moment, at approximately 4:48 p.m. that I cemented my resolve to have a real relationship with my mother. The one who gave birth to me. My mom. Mommy.