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theangelofthedesert · 8 months

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Can't Think Straight ~Pt. 1~

I always thought of myself as a normal person. Just a regular 17-year-old girl going to school and trying not to fuck up her life. A girl with a few-but good friends, good grades, excellent parents, and an awesome boyfriend. Like I said, I always thought I was normal, just like anyone else. But…There’s this thing, this…feeling, like there’s something wrong. Most of the time I choose to ignore it, as long as I can move on with my day as usual.

Everything was going according to my schedule: Wake up. Take a shower. Have breakfast with my family. Go to school. Do homework with my friends and finally, hang out with my boyfriend. Until the point where I saw a moving truck parked in the garage of the house next to mine, which normally isn’t something weird but…

“Oh, new neighbors!” said my boyfriend, Matt. “We should go say hi, Annie.” The thing about this town is that it’s so small, every time someone new moves in everyone finds out and tries to investigate every little detail about them, which leads to gossip around the town. Only a few families that have lived here for generations are the ones that still stay in Murkwell Valley for the rest of their life. That was the case of my family. The Watsons have lived in this town for 10 generations and the current Watsons have no intentions of leaving. My parents: Robert and Galena Watson, had dated since high school and, according to them, always thought of getting married once Dad finished college. By the time they were my age, they had already planned their whole future together; and they always make it a point to remind me that I should do the same.

Me? I don’t even know what to study in college, how the heck am I supposed to think about getting married right now? I don’t know if Matt is planning for us to have a future together either. Dad always talks about the way Mom looked the first time he saw her: long dark-brown hair, hazel eyes, and a beautiful smile. He says he just knew he had to marry her. Mom remembers Dad as a tall, black haired bad-boy with gray eyes and that it was love at first sight. Dad says I look just like Mom, but with some of his facial features. My sister, on the other hand, looks exactly like Dad, and my brother looks like Mom. I’m more like a combination of the two of them. That being said, Matt and I have only dated for like 3 months and my parents act like he is the one who will carry me to the altar.

“Ok, let’s go just to say hi, then we can go home.” I said, a little tired. I just wanted to go to sleep after the hard day I had at school with all the preparations for the school’s Pride Dance for the anniversary of its founder, and college counseling to help with choosing the right major; but Matt was too nice to just ignore the new people next door. We started walking towards the truck, when we saw a fluffy dog running in our direction trying to get away from its owner.

I kneeled and grabbed the runaway dog. As I was trying to look for its tag among all the fur, a girl’s voice caught my attention.

“Hey! That’s my dog!” When I turned to look at her, I went into shock. The girl looked my age but had bobbed, curly, colorful hair, with the right side shaved off. She also had a little piercing on her nose, sky-blue eyes and pale skin. The word that came to my mind was “beautiful”. I had never seen a person that looked like that in this town, since everyone is VERY catholic, we're usually not allowed to dye our hair or pierce our skin. She looked so cool. “Sorry, I was returning from a walk to calm his energy, but it seems he needed a longer walk”

“Oh, don’t worry, I was just catching him for you” I said as I laughed awkwardly and scratched my head. “That’s a beautiful dog,” I added. For someone who is leader of the welcome committee at school, I suck at social interactions with new people, but since I pretty much already know everyone here, I don’t have the necessity of introducing myself that often.

She smiled at me and then looked at the dog. “Yeah, he is pretty cute. It’s a Finnish Spitz, aka a domestic fox,” She laughed “The downside to the breed is its energy.” Once the dog was secured with its leash, she got up and waved at us. “Hi! You must be our neighbors” The girl extended her hand at me. “I’m Minerva, but my friends call me Mina!” She smiled as I grabbed her hand. “And you are…?” She’s so formal.

“Oh! My name is Annabelle, but I go by Annie” Her eyes looked so deep, yet so soft as they gazed back at me. A strange thought came to my mind, but quickly disappeared when Matt shook her hand.

“I’m Matt, Annie’s boyfriend.” Her smile dropped for a second, but came back again as she looked at me. What was that about? “Welcome to Murkwell Valley, Mina.”

“Thanks for the welcome. It’s nice to know the neighbors are friendly” She kept her eyes on me with a big smile. “And thank you, for catching my dog, I owe you one.”

“Oh, I was just worried that it would run onto the street and get hit or something, you don’t owe me anything” I said, while playing nervously with the edge of my sweater sleeves. She then continued to insist, saying her conscience wouldn’t allow the savior of her ‘precious baby’ go unrewarded. “Ok then, you can pay me back by coming for dinner at my house.” I suggested, but quickly added “-you can bring your family, of course. That way our parents can meet and talk before the other neighbors organize a welcome party and make things awkward by asking a bunch of questions” Her face lit up and nodded. “Great! Dinner at eight, hope you can make it.”

“I’ll tell my parents right away. See you later, Annie.” For some reason, the way she said my name left me feeling weird, as I saw her jump back to her house being followed by her dog. Well, that interaction didn’t go as badly as I imagined. Maybe there’s hope for my awkwardness after all. I’m actually glad we ran into each other, and I hope to get to know more about her…

“What a sweet girl, I hope you can make friends with her!” Matt brought me back from whatever I was thinking, into reality. I shook my head to clear my mind and looked at him. “What happened? You spaced out for a second there.”

“Sorry, I must be mentally beat after today. Volunteering to help Ms. Matisse grade papers was seriously a terrible idea” Matt giggled as he took my hand and walked me back to my house. “You can come to dinner too if you want, babe.” I said hopefully.

“Ehm… I think I’ll pass. The boys invited me to a pre-game party to prepare for this year’s Battle of Murkwell Valley High. Lots of schools from different towns are coming to challenge the current winning team. Us. I even heard a school from the big city is coming.” The big city was actually the state’s capital, Kingsham, but we in the town call it that because there’s only small towns around it and no other city. Matt left a kiss on my forehead and smiled, “Besides, you can start getting to know your new neighbor. You have been a little sad since Holly went to see her mom for the holidays.” I appreciated Matt’s attempt of making me feel better, but I had forgotten Holly left since I had too many things to do, and meeting Mina just now had also cleared my mind of any thoughts. Matt wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. As our lips touched, all the weird thoughts in my mind cleared out, except for one, preventing me from totally enjoying my boyfriend’s embrace.

“Ok, I’ll try to be her friend.” I said with a big sigh because I knew he wouldn’t let the situation go until I caved in. “I love you, babe.” He let out a nervous laugh, probably because he still wasn’t ready to say it back, even when he said it was fine that I said it first.

“I… should go. Gotta help mom with some things before I go to the meeting” I thought it was a party? Whatever, I’m not gonna say anything. He let go of his embrace and quickly grabbed his thing and left. I stood outside the door until I saw Matt leave the street of my house, then I went back in, just to find my parents in the living room watching a movie. I went past them, leaving a kiss on their cheeks and walking towards the kitchen, where my food was in the fridge, waiting for me to reheat it since I got out of school late.

Once I was done washing my plate, I stayed in the living room, chatting with my parents about school and other stuff for a few hours. They asked if Matt had already invited me to the dance, to which I said yes, knowing full well that he didn’t want to come in the first place because he thought it was boring and a waste of time, even though he was aware I was one of the people organizing the damn thing. Nevertheless, I felt that if I said anything he wouldn’t pay attention, like he does when I try to tell him how I feel.

Later in the day I went upstairs to get ready for dinner. I told my mom as I was going up that I invited the new neighbors over to get to know them, she didn’t seem to mind and started to cook dinner for more people. Gotta love her ability to adapt to a change of plans. On my way to my room, I said ‘Hi’ to my brother, who had his door open and just waved at me; and to my sister, who only responded by closing her door.

When I was in my room, I quickly took a shower and started to look in my closet for possible options to wear tonight. I narrowed it down to two dresses. One was pink with white flowers on it, the other one was red with black details at the bottom. I decided the pink one was too girly, so I grabbed the red dress and got changed.

As I was putting on a red bra, I noticed the window in the house next to mine had the lights turned on. When I took a closer look, I realized it was Minerva’s room, since I could see the jacket she was wearing today hanging by the door. My face suddenly turned red at the thought of that girl watching me change. I dressed as fast as I could, then I went to see if she was in her room, but Mina wasn’t there.

Since I was already dressed for dinner, I just sat down next to the window while I analyzed the things I saw in her room. There was a shelf with a lot of books, some boxes with the labels “make up” and “winter clothes”, her bed with blue sheets and her laptop on top of it. Multiple band posters were already up on the walls and some weird plushies adorned her desk. She clearly had a busy morning setting up her room. I also saw her dog’s bed in the corner with the word “Zero” stitched to the front, but as I was looking at it, the door opened. Her dog walked in like it owned the place, then Mina walked in wearing just a towel around her body and another on her hair. My face lit up red again, making me throw myself to the ground so she couldn’t see me.

Once the awkwardness went away, I decided to take a quick look, just to see if she’d noticed me on the window. I slowly raised my head, hoping she didn’t notice how creepy I was being, just to find her looking at dresses like I was doing moments ago. That’s when I realized she was just as nervous as me to have dinner tonight, even if it was with our whole family. I figured making friends was probably difficult for her. Mina looked just as nice as she was this afternoon, the only thing different was the fact that she was still wearing only a towel. Just as that thought crossed my mind, she turned her head around towards the window, forcing me to close the drapes in panic. I don’t know if she saw me or not, but I wouldn’t blame her if she changed her mind about coming to dinner…

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This is gonna be a long story that I hope I can continue to update and not leave unfinished like all of my other works lmao With the help of a dear friend serving as my editor, I'll make sure to write a few chapters in advance to keep posting regularly <3

#original story #my ocs #wip #writers on tumblr #lgbtq #queer characters #self discovery

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