Pacific Bell High

> VIII <

Mia paid the taxi driver and opened the car to leave. She took out her book bag, and her other bag that contained her cheer clothes. She had to wash them.

The taxi driver drove away and she looked around to see nobody outside her quiet apartment complex. They were either sleeping, at work, or eating.

Anxiety started to rise when she realized how dark it was outside and how alone she really was.

She rushed up the stairs to the second floor, turned right and unlocked her front door, instantly closing it behind her and letting out a sigh of relief.

She hated being outside in the dark, especially when there was nobody outside to be there.

Mia looked around and realized the pitch-black apartment she stepped into.

With a sigh, she flipped the light switch and turned on the living room's light.

She bit on her lower lip as her heart clenched when it got to her head:

Her mother wasn't here.

She went to the kitchen and flipped that light switch on, her blue eyes instantly making their way to the steel refrigerator; a note was taped onto it.

Mia took the note off of the refrigerator and read it:

I'm so sorry I didn't text you or waited until you got home to tell you that I wasn't going to be home. I'm flying over to Europe right now, Giorgio Armani is having a fashion show. If you need anything, the card is on the table and you already know my phone number by heart. I'm so sorry baby, I love you.
~ Mom

Mia sighed and folded the piece of paper, throwing it away in the garbage can.

Her mother was a journalist for FashionTimes, an international fashion magazine. She was always flying left and right, interviewing fashion icons and always bringing Mia something back from the trip.

It was clothes and shoes that she could never afford, but apparently her mother was very loved by the people she interviewed.

Mia knew that even if her mother was always flying around, she was only doing this because, at the end of the day, bills had to be paid. Mia knew her mother loved her immensely; she scolded her when it was needed and loved her no matter what.

Mia's father passed away before she was born. Whenever she asked her mother from what, her mother always got emotional and Mia would always drop it.

She sighed as she turned around and walked to her bedroom. When she flipped on the light, she looked around and felt a bit better. Her room was small, she liked it that way.

Her walls were a light purple and the only light coming out of her room were the white christmas lights that twisted with the white curtains from her canopy bed.

Her purple sheeted bed contained a massive amount of pillows and on the wall next to her bed were two posters; one was of the Eiffel Tower that her mother got straight from France, the other was of Marilyn Monroe, everything black and white except for her red lips.

Mia turned to her dresser and stripped out of her clothes. The good thing about her school were the showers, showers that the janitors always kept clean. After that cheerleading routine at the football game, she really needed it.