Rolling Dice [sample]

2: Rolling Dice

Hello again :) Seemed like you guys all liked chapter one, so here's the next one for you! I meant to upload it last night but was very busy so sorry about that, but enjoy!

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Chapter Two

 

Great Aunt Gina’s death is probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I loved her, and I miss her now. I don't mean it in a bad way, not at all. She had her ‘favorites’ in the family. I mean, okay, so my dad’s brother and his family live over in Nevada, so they were way too far for an old lady to visit. But it was us who Great Aunt Gina came to for Thanksgiving, and Christmases. She’d send my cousins a check in the mail instead.

When I was little, I’ll admit I was totally scared of her. She was eighty-nine when she croaked. A tall, bony lady with thin gray hair and false teeth that always fell out and clacked together noisily when she spoke. But I could see why she’d been some big-shot model in her younger years, when I saw the photos. Even despite her scary old lady appearance, though, Great Aunt Gina had been a genuinely nice person.

She’d lived in Florida, in a big house by the sea.

And when she died, she left us everything.

And I do mean everything. A massive inheritance, her house, and all the vintage clothes and jewelry.

At first, we weren’t sure what to do about it. Sell the property and maybe upgrade to a nicer house in Maine? Keep it as a holiday home?

I still don’t remember who suggested moving to Florida. But whoever it was, they’re a total genius.

Dad looked into it. He found a private clinic near the beach where Great Aunt Gina’s house was, and they were looking for a new doctor. Mom found a nice three-bedroom house with a big garden, and even a small pool, in the suburbs, near a high school. Being a teacher in elementary school, my mom didn’t have too hard a time getting a new job in Florida.

Jenna, my older sister, had already made her plans to get out of Maine by then; she was going to NYU, and she didn’t care if we moved from Pineford, Maine or not. She was out of there, and she planned to stay out.

“It’s so boring. Nothing happens here,” she’d told Mom and Dad when they asked why she didn’t apply to college closer to home.  “Besides, the course looks better in New York. Plus, I want to get out, see the world. That’s not happening if I stay in Pineford.”

 The only thing that they thought might’ve been stopping them actually buying up the house, taking up jobs and moving, was me.

And I could not wait to move.

There was just nothing for me in Pineford. I’d pretty much stopped trying in class by the end of my sophomore year, and it wasn’t like I had a million friends and a busy social life I was leaving behind.

So when Mom tentatively asked me, “Madison, honey, do you think you’d really, really be alright if we move to Florida?” my reply was instantaneous.

“Can I start packing now?”

Believe it or not, I was totally serious when I’d said that. I couldn’t wait to go.

Because moving to Florida meant I could have a whole new life.

Jenna was that girl who everyone knew back at my school in Pineford. She was on the homecoming committee, she was class president, and the blond cheerleader who got the beauty and the brains. The All-American It-Girl.