Amanda squeezed her eyes closed. The sun had been up for hours. And so had she. On her way home, she’d been such a nervous wreck, actually shaking as she tried to drive back down the hill to her place, that she’d pulled over and called her mom. It took some work to get the words out through her hysterics, but she’d told her mom everything that had happened. She’d had to go back to several different beginnings, just to answer her mom’s questions.

The fact that she’d been keeping so much about Dru and the way she acted from her parents for so many years just made things worse. Her parents had no idea Dru was such a dick. They had a sense that she was somewhat of a diva, but Amanda had never let on how many times Dru had made her cry. How many times she’d put her in the middle of horrible situations with her cruel behavior. She’d never told them just how trapped she felt.

Her mom managed to talk her down enough so she could drive home, but as soon as she stepped inside her little bungalow, she paused and looked around, thinking of the day she’d moved in, sure it would be temporary because one day she’d be a television writer and she’d be able to own a place that actually faced the street and how that definitely wasn’t going to happen. She’d be lucky if she could afford to keep this place for the rest of the year. Silly dreams like affordable, curbside housing and a job she enjoyed were so far out of her reach. When the weight of that pathetic feeling crashed down on her it brought the tears back with it.

She’d spent most of the night crying, but when she’d dozed off, she’d had horrible dreams about screaming matches with a certain television actress and working her old high school job inside a Circuit City. Her eyes hurt like hell and she’d need at least a gallon of water to replenish all the tears she’d shed. It would probably help soothe her throat after all the loud out-and-out sobbing she’d done before a pounding headache begged her to calm down, at least a little so she could sleep.