Living Dead [A Marina and the Diamonds Fanfiction]

Chapter 5 -- Not Like the Movies

I'm SO sorry I haven't updated in like, six months! I never forgot about this, I swear! I hope you like this, and I will be writing and posting another chapter within the next few days, so be on the lookout, 'kay? 

((P.S. Brand new fanfiction will be up within the next day or so! Sci-Fi, anyone?))

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Amber's POV

 "My home life was really unstable at first." I said as Marina drove with her arm on the wheel. "When I was age 7 to 13 Mom had this boyfriend... She'd be gone for days, weeks at a time and I went to school just enough to pass. It drove me mad, made me angry. I turned to alcohol to take the pain of her neglect away when I was eleven. I’m now down to--on average--a shot every few weeks, but I binge about three times a year on nights where I know I’m only going to handle tomorrow if I’m hungover, today included. I'm an angry drunk, a crazy drunk, and at the moment I have a splitting headache. But the thing is, when my mom got her act together I couldn't."

Marina nearly laughed, but turned it into a cough before saying, "Believe me, Amber, when I say you're just as sane as I am, or will be. I was angry once, suicidal even. And that's without all the bullshit laid on you." She paused, changing the subject. "I can get you a tutor, if you want. For the rest of the year."

"School gets out in a week so not just yet, please? I'm just glad I missed 'Hartsmere Pryde Day'." I scoffed, looking out at the lights of massive, Old Hollywood mansions in the dark.

"What's that?"

"It's not really a holiday--more of a sick joke. A pair of twins get their friends in Mixed Martial Arts Club to follow all the druggies, freaks and fuckups around the grounds between classes, triggering them to the point of a breakdown and worse. If you do anything but submit, well, you know. I was the first victim, so they named the torture after me.” I turned to Marina as we pulled into a driveway.

“And the obvious play on words, since your last name is the word ‘pride’ with a y.” Marina added as she grabbed her keys. The house we had pulled up to was medium-sized and sort of like an oversized cottage, with just the right amount of fairytale sweetness. She unlocked the door and ushered me in. “I think you’ll really like the upstairs, Amber.”

Aside from the straightforward kitchen and bathrooms, Marina’s house was the epitome of Hollywood glitz without it ever being too overbearing. Everything in the living room was somehow vintage, with iron-legged Sleepy Hollows and coffee tables in odd little corners near the flat screen TV. Airy and light, it opened onto a small porch. Marina then took me upstairs and let me choose what bedroom (there were four) I wanted to sleep in. I chose the smallest one with a bright white bed (again, iron-frame), carpet and dresser and pastel sconces hanging above the bed. Abstract prints hung above the white desk and lined the walls, Matisse and Kandinsky and Picasso. Making up the bed with the linens in the dresser, I said goodnight, (or more correctly, good morning) to Marina and fell asleep, the sunrise shining softly on my face.