(Other Side of the Mirror) Chapter 1

I know I said I wasn't going to put any more of this story up on this blog, but I realized that the prologue and first two chapters are all so completely different from each other that I need to post them each to give people a little hint at what my story is even about. Since that hint doesn't show up until chapter two, I need to give you chapter one as well. Though, thinking about it, people could not read chapter one and still understand the scope of my story just fine. It is really more like a second prologue only slightly more unnecessary than my other prologue. But my second attempt at finding a good starting point for my story resulted in this and I really like it so you get it. (My first attempt was truly very awful. I wrote something like two pages and I hated nearly every word of it. It just was not working so I've been trying to find a different place to start my story, one that, you know, actually worked. As soon as this little starting point jumped into my head, I loved it. I had to change some of the details to accommodate but as I was changing them, I kept thinking "Why did I ever think this was a needed detail anyway? This works just as well.") It's a short chapter, but I really couldn't start in on her "moment that changed everything" like I planned on. The tone is so completely different from the rest of the story that I decided it needs to stand alone. And as the writer, that's my creative license.

Anyway, enough excuses, explanations, and begging you to read the chapter on my part. Without further ado . . .

Chapter 1

 

You know that point in your life when everything changed. Maybe you don’t. It’s possible you don’t have one of those points. I, on the other hand, do. That point will forever be in my mind like a lighthouse on the harbor shore. The brightness of it starting to fade when, BOOM! The light in the lighthouse has made another revolution, searing my eyes with its bright burning, leaving ghost lights of the memory hovering in my eyes everywhere I look. My only solution is to turn away from the lighthouse completely, turn my back on my past memories that only hurt.

I don’t want that hurt.

But I also don’t want to let go.

Letting go would mean losing my mom forever, instantaneously, instead dragging out the pain by losing her in little bits day by day.

Let me take you to that moment. That one moment that changed everything. It was actually a series of moments taking place much, much too slowly over the period of about ten seconds. But one of those moments sticks out in my mind clearer than all the others . . .

Oh wait! Maybe I should make some dramatic statements before fading away to the moment and the impact it had on everything in my life afterward. Rover does say that I can sometimes have a flare for the dramatics, but I don’t see any harm in it. Let’s see, what to say. Okay how ‘bout this:

Hi. My name is Sam. Short for Samantha if you weren’t quite able to pick up on the fact that I’m a girl. But I go by Sam, and nobody had better try to call me Samantha if they know what’s good for them. I had a good life, though, I guess my life now couldn’t be considered as bad, or actually, it probably could. But you’ll find out that for yourself later. Anyway, I had a good life. Right up until this moment. Everything changed in that one moment. Some things were definitely worse after. Other things . . . well I still haven’t decided if he is better or not, looking at the situation he got me into. Though, he argues that it was my choices that got me here which, is arguably true. But that doesn’t matter. It’ll matter later, but not now. That one moment is what matters now. Because, that moment is the moment my mom died and this whole mess got started . . .

(Camera, zoom out from me. Everything fade into blackness. And . . . cue the car.)