teenage dreams in a teenage circus

i'm giving this a try again.
i'll try to stick around this time ;)

I've never been a fan of hollister. Even in middle school when it was supposedly cool, I prefered abercrombie. But i guess this isn't too bad (that's my way of saying that i *like* the shorts).

mandy; MMN
 
*1 month before*
 
“Mandy? Is that you?”
I almost couldn’t believe it when I heard her voice. My sister, the one that left before things got ugly with our parents. I hadn’t talked to her in more than five years. The way I’d seen it- she’d escaped; why would she want to look back?
“Valeria? There’s…there’s no way.” I chocked.
I could hear her crying across the phone. “Mandy…I..I’m so, so sorry!”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.
“Mandy, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but, mom and dad, they…”
Suddenly I felt the pit in my stomach grow even larger. Mt whole body was numb. “They what?” I managed.
How did I already know what was going to come next? Yes, my parents were dead. Now what? Valeria said I had to get out of there as soon as possible. Their deaths weren’t accidents, and me and her seemed like the likely next targets. I couldn’t tell anyone were I was going, or even that I was going anywhere. I thought of Kalen, of my friends, of the life that I had begun to build here.
“What do I do?”
- - -
*present*
 
They finally caught him. That monster. Meanwhile, Vale and I had stayed at her house in Australia. She had a successful carreer as a lawyer, She didn’t have a boyfriend. I guess she was, like me, a cynic, as we knew too well what a disfortune dysfunctional relationships were.
Which was kind of strange, considering I had a boyfriend. The word sounded strange to me. I had never had a boyfriend. Boy-toys and hookups, I was an expert at, but boyfriend had never been in my vocabulary.
That is, if he was still my boyfriend. I hadn’t exactly seen him, or talked to him, in over a month. Or to anyone, for that matter.
I looked through the contacts list on my phone, considering calling Kalen. Instead, I called Chrissy.
My heart was beating when she picked up. “Chrissy? It’s Mandy.”
It was silent for a moment. “Is this a joke?”
“No, it really is me.”
“Fuck it, Mands, what do you think you were doing? Where the fuck did you go? We were crazy worried, after your parents, we all thought that….well…”
“You thought that I’d died too?” I finished.
“Yes, I did! Where the fuck are you? God, Mandy, I don’t know whether to be pissed at you or to be extremely relieved to hear from you.”
“I’ll explain everything in a sec. It’ll make sense, I swear. “
“Ya know, I really hope so, ‘cause you do not know how worried we’ve all been? And Kalen? He’s been beating himself up since the day you left. That boy is troubled, you don’t know what you’ve done to him.”
“I know, I know, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. But tell me, how is everyone?”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing- you sure picked the wrong month to dissaper on.”
- --
So I’m kind of officially back from my hiatus. It was something I definitely needed to get my mind straight, but I am really glad to be back.