CHAPTER 2

"Indy, get up!"

I rolled over in bed and attempted not to groan out loud. I felt like I'd been hit by a semi-truck. And my pounding head wasn't helping.

"Indy! What's taking you so long? Get up here now!" Aunt Clarise was in a mood today.

I sat up and moved my matted hair off my face and then rubbed my eyes until I could see the alarm clock. Nine-twenty. I'd never slept in that late on Saturdays! I jumped up and then winced when the pain in my head

bounced around my skull. Good grief. I lied back down and brought the covers over my head.

I hated crying hangovers. I'd totally forgotten what they felt like until this moment—but they were bad. It was like you'd literally cried out every single tear in your body until you'd dehydrated yourself or something. I didn't know. I just knew my headache was the stuff nightmares were made of.

"Indy! If you don't get your butt up here this second, you'll be grounded again!"

Wasn't I already grounded? I took a few deep breaths and attempted to think straight. My pillow was soft, the covers were warm, my cat was dead, and I couldn't care less about chores right now. I just couldn't.

When I heard Clarise's feet pounding down the stairs, I admit, I kind of freaked. My heart clenched and I burrowed deeper into the covers. Perhaps if I pretended to be asleep...

"Indy Ella Zimmerman, you will get up this instant and go upstairs. Have you seen the state of this house? Did you do anything last night? Anything at all? Because I can tell you right now-nothing was done! Our dinner dishes are still on the table. There's food all over the place and pots and pans. That floor hasn't been swept or mopped and we're not even going to talk about the living room right now. Can you imagine the mess it's in? It's a disaster! Clothes, Shoes, papers everywhere!"

She whipped the covers off me and a whoosh of cold air invaded my happy spot. I attempted to blink awake for real now. But her shouting only increased the pounding in my head. Everything hurt so much.

"What's wrong with you?" I could tell she was close to losing it. "You better not be sick! I don't have time for you to be sick today! I've got people coming over a noon remember? For my presentation. This house better look amazing. Do you understand? I will take away every privilege you have if you just lie here and pretend to be ill."

"Fine," I mumbled as I attempted to sit up again. I actually made it upright and even opened my eyes to look at my Aunt Clarise, but the heaviness inside—that inert need to lie back down took over and slumped back into bed. "I'll do it before twelve." I could hear the slurring in my words. "I promise. I'm just not feeling good right now."

Clarise stood there and tapped on the dresser. Her long fingernails tick-ticking on the green wooden surface. I wasn't sure what she was debating, but she finally said, "You look awful too. You didn't come up for dinner last night. Maybe I don't want you touching our dishes, I don't want whatever disease you have to spread. Especially since I'm doing a presentation on healthy essential oils."

I held my breath. I'd never known her to actually give me a break. She was usually positive I was lying about something and never believed a word I said. In an odd almost motherly moment, I felt the bedspread flipped

back over me, before Clarise went back upstairs. It was strangely comforting and nice. As if-as if-urgh. Everything hurt too much to try and find a suitable analogy. There wasn't one.

I was her younger sister's daughter. The younger sister she never got along with. The one that was—as Clarise would put it, "too perfect to ever be human, or likeable" Apparently I looked just like my mom too. And she was stuck with her niece and—until recently the dreaded cat too. My dad left when my mom was still pregnant with me and I never met him. Mom got divorced before she was even showing. To this day all I have is a name,

Ryan Alysop, the guy she was married to for less than a year.

Mom never really dated anyone after that I think he sort of broke her. Instead she went into working fulltime and doing everything she could to support us both. Even though Mom was successful, she had a lot of past

debts my dad had left behind, including a car that had been in her name that he took too. The cops never found that car and mom still had to make the payments.

It wasn't exactly easy for her though I learned most of this from my aunt and grandma after Mom died, she'd always kept the worst parts hidden from me. Sometimes late at night when I try and imagine what she must've gone through.

Single, alone, heartbroken, scared with several bills and a tiny baby to look after I can't breathe. I never saw that side-perhaps my mom was too perfect, perhaps Clarise was right, but I grew up knowing I was a

princess. That I was loved and cared for and Mom taught me so much about helping others and sharing what I have with friends and always, always to smile through trials. She tried so hard to instill all of that, and for a while, I was her Cindy Ella -or her happy Cinderella princess -as she used to call me.

My life was poofy pink dresses and sunshine and balloons and happy walks and feeding ducks at the park-all of it. I was loved, secure, and cheerful. My life was a fairy tale and I was the star.

Everything was so good. And then she was gone.

One stupid, ugly, messed up car accident when I was ten and my beautiful courageous mother was gone. And in that split second my bright world turned black and everything I thought I knew changed in an instant. Aunt

Clarise was so grief-stricken and angry all she did was berate my mom. I'd hear her for hours chewing out the dead sister. It was like everything she ever wanted to say to her came out. In full force. I'd like to believe Clarise didn't know I could hear her, that when she drank too much and spoke too loudly she thought I was fast asleep below stairs. But I wasn't. I heard everything she said.

I couldn't sleep for weeks after Mom had gone. I cried and cried and cried. It messed me up more than I'm willing to admit, and honestly I don't know if I'll ever fully recover.

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