mandie west

Somewhere in the winter of 2004/2005 After a few minutes of blinking, my eyes adjusted to being open. There was a sparkling in my peripheral with every beat of my heart, which was beating faster than normal. There was a pounding in my skull and my body hurt all over. I was laying on my side and shaking. I raised up to see where I was. The mattress I was laying on was bare, sheet-less. Behind me, sunlight was streaming around the edge of black-out curtains. Something smelled bad. That something was me. I didn't recognize the bedroom I was in. And I couldn't remember the day before. Light assaulted my sensitive eyes, as someone opened a door and walked in. I squinted. "How you feel?" Letting out my breath, I shut my eyes as I recognized Andrew's voice. "Like hell." My mouth was dry and there was a bad taste in it. The bed dipped as he sat down on the edge. "Where are we?" I couldn't remember where I was suppose to be. I'

Somewhere in April of 2004 The phone rang. Seconds later, I hear my mom at the top of the stairs. "Mandie, it's your dad!" She hollers down. My ears were ringing and I was nauseous. This was the call I'd been dreading. I picked up the phone receiver downstairs. "Hello?" "Hey..." Usually his deep southern drawl was comforting. Not today. "You wannna explain what that was about?" ---- Twenty hours earlier. ---- It was 10 or 11 pm when I decided that my plan was good enough to go through with. The walls of my life were closing in on me and there was no escaping it except to kick out a window and make my own escape route, setting off the alarms as I went. I waited until close to 2 am before stealing the keys from the hook beside the garage door, and slipping out the backdoor. The Geo Prism's engine didn't make much noise in the stillness. At least, not enough to alert anyone of my getaway. Just the sound of gravel cru