Lights. Camera. Love Her.

Chapter 1

Hello, I’m Samantha Ramos, I’m twenty-four, and I have a chocolate and reality TV show addiction. I was born in New York on August 19th with brown eyes and short, curly brown hair. I’m a nerd who lives off of donuts and coffee and I usually spent the rest of my time mooching lunch off of my parents. My mom, Regina Ramos, the woman who was currently screaming at the top of her lungs, says that if I put my mind to it, I could become a cop. All I had to do was not be afraid of guns and learn how to run in heels. 

I was taught at a young age that the only time your name was brought into a family dispute is when you have all A’s on your report card, you have a part in the school play, you got a position on a squad or team, you became Miss. PHS, if you grew up to become a doctor, lawyer, or soldier in the Army, Air Force, or Navy, or if you were having a huge wedding.

I was an A and B student, I was an extra in the school play I managed to get into and ended up barfing on Suzanna Darling out of stage fright, I got hit in the head with a basketball, was voted off of the cheerleading squad, and after I graduated I became a journalist and eventually a writer with Forever Alone stamped onto my driver’s license.

So at the current moment I was watching my mother huff flustered as she classily flipped the bird at my Aunt Jackie who was bragging about her nurse of a daughter.

“She became a nurse because she was too incompetent to use her imagination!” My mother shrieked.

This was sort of true. In all honesty Nurse Sarah was brought up to be a princess and be swept up by George Darling, the most poplar jock in high school. At the age of nine, I could be found prancing down our street in my Batman underwear, smoothly hiding behind mailboxes and garbage cans and sneaking a look in on the neighbors. My partner in crime switched between my younger brother Anthony and my best friend Alice Barnes.

Well Alice had become the owner of a small café and Tony was now a movie producer. Currently Tony was seated beside me at the dinner table with his head held low and food being shoveled into his mouth. So was my father who was pro at ignoring my mom’s crazy antics.

My mom was ‘showing Jackie to the door’ and I was waiting on desert and trying not to whip out my notebook and write my will. I was swinging on a deadline and Tony was the one issuing it. He wanted me to finish a book that he would copy the plot from and turn it into a red carpet event with scantily clad, well endowed women, hot men, and car explosions…lots and lots of car explosions. If I didn’t give it to him, then it would cause a stir in the news world and we would end up in interviews and more family feuds. My mom would get snockered off of booze and my dad would push his face farther into the potatoes. My youngest brother, Nicholas or Nick, was a journalist and would no doubt use it to pay his rent.

Anyway, after the family settles down everyone would finish eating, desert would be served, and Tony and Dad would head for the baseball or basketball or football game and Mom and I would head for the kitchen to clean up the dirty dishes. Nick would stay behind and could be found pecking at his laptop and scrolling through Tumblr. When the game was over and the dishes were gone, the three of us would climb into ours cars and head for separate parts of the city.

I was now driving on autopilot and it took me five minutes to get home. I climbed out, grabbed the half of chocolate cake leftover from dinner and my purse, and head into the house. I whipped my key out and stopped immediately, staring up at my outside light and then back down at my key. It had been light out when I had left. I hadn’t left the light on…

I cautiously stalked up to the door and twisted the knob and found it locked. Maybe it was just a mistake. I continued to tell myself that as I unlocked the door and stepped into the darkness of my house…only it wasn’t dark and I could hear the soft hum of a TV. I headed straight into the living room and my eyes widened and three people stared back at me.