Character Background: Mandy Winchester

Mandy’s childhood – that is, those years before she became a pre-teen – were good. Her family was well off, largely due to her father’s accounting job and some smart investments. She didn’t feel unloved, though she latched on to her father and was very much a Daddy’s girl. Likewise, she was fortunate enough to have a fabulous bestie that she had known her whole life, and awesome godparents. Well, her godfather was awesome, at any rate. Her circle of friends didn’t grow a lot until middle school, when she and her bestie met a girl named Maddie and pulled her into their extended circle. While other friends would be made, none would ever be as close to her as Maddie, and certainly none as close as Michael. 

As she got older, she began to understand the world around her more. For example, her bestie Michael’s mother was a vegan activist of the worst kind, and could be fairly insufferable. She learned to avoid her ‘Aunt’ when possible, though she was rarely rude. Her ‘Uncle’, on the other hand, she adored almost as much as her father. Maddie’s parents she liked even less than ‘Aunt’ Karen, and felt bad for her friend due to how little free time Maddie got as the years went on. 

She wasn’t ignorant about being more well-off than others either. She knew she was privileged enough to not go without, to be spoiled, and to attend a good private school. Living in a smaller Northern California town kept her sheltered from seeing it first hand. Her father and ‘Uncle’ Dave were two people in her life that tried to keep her (and Michael) grounded in reality. Largely, this seemed to work. 

When Mandy began to get an interest in boys, her first major crush was on Michael, but she’d never ended up telling him. He’d ended up coming out as gay to her before she’d worked up the courage. She was still supportive of her bestie however, and encouraged him to be whoever he felt he was. Some people think that maybe this support had something to do with Michael’s wild side, but she didn’t see it that way. 

Around the time Mandy turned twelve is when she began to notice things she hadn’t ever really paid attention to before. Her mom was unhappy, and her Dad seemed tired, especially when he came home from a business trip, though he always made time for Mandy. There were times when it seemed like he was always away for work, and sometimes for long periods of time. He always made time to take calls from her and help her feel less lonely, and she’d always assumed he did the same for her mother. She never really learned if this was the case or not, but she did begin to notice empty wine bottles buried in the recycling bin – probably more than what was healthy. 

Also, around this age, Mandy began her cycle, and there were times when it was just awful with the cramps, a migraine or both (but not always). This was also around the time that her mother started taking advice from ‘Aunt’ Karen, and abruptly cut meat and sweets out of family meals – none were allowed in the house. While never explicitly stated, Mandy linked the two events in her mind. While it sucked, she couldn’t be prevented from grabbing any banned food when she wasn’t home. Thus began the tradition of Mandy periodically stopping off somewhere on her way home from school to bring her dad a burger or occasionally a couple doughnuts. 

A year later, things between her and her mother started to get tense. While it was never an issue when her Dad was home, when he wasn’t she was on Mandy’s case about something or another. Her mom had dove into faith over the last year, and like with her cooking, wanted the family to adhere as well. While she couldn’t control her husband, she tried to do so with her daughter and make her go to church and put her into a strict moral code. Mandy didn’t want any of it, and she rebelled, though not to extremes. Her mother insisted she feared for her daughter’s soul, citing Mandy’s taste in music, her circle of LGBT friends, her diet, her lack of baptism, and her draw to things goth as reasons to buckle down hard on her. More so, when she found pagan books and symbology in Mandy’s room one day while cleaning. 

Mandy would complain to her Dad when he called, at least initially. But her mother didn’t give her privacy for those calls any longer. Afterward she would often yell at Mandy for causing problems, so in an effort to get her mother off her back, she would keep conversations with her Dad to more neutral topics, like school. Things continued like this for the next couple of years, and Mandy tried to spend as little time at home as she reasonably could when her Dad was out of town, since she felt that the less she had to deal with her mother, the better it was for everyone.  

What she didn’t know was how badly fractured her parents’ marriage was. It was just something that she generally didn’t pick up on, as both of her parents put on a good face when around her, and neither talked about their problems when she was home. One night though, it happened that she found out just how bad things were. 

It was a Friday, and she was supposed to be out with her friends, having gotten the okay earlier in the week to attend a sports event and attend a school sponsored gathering after. She’d ended up cancelling however, due to not feeling well. She was having migraines and cramping due to that time of month and found both to be unbearable, so she was planning to nap, only to wake up later in her darkened room due to loud noise. 

Her first instinct was to check her phone since she had silenced it, but it quickly became evident that her phone had not been the source. Voices were coming from downstairs, though only one was being particularly loud. She turned on her bedside lamp and made her way to the door, cracking it open to sneak out and move closer to the source of the voices to overhear. 

It was her parents. Or, more to the point, it was her mother, screeching like a banshee at her father about what amounted to her own insecurities. Her father’s words were difficult for her to make out, as his tone was low and even, though whether that was how he expressed anger or him attempting to calm her mother down, she didn’t know. She began to head back to her room, when her mother brought up Mandy’s name, and she froze. 

While she hadn’t been caught, her mother was running the gamut of her issues with Mandy, anything from Mandy being unappreciative and generally ungrateful, to her soul being in mortal danger from her associations with her friends and interests, before turning on her Dad’s character, accusing him of cheating before finally demanding he just ‘sign the damn divorce papers already’.

She quickly moved back to her room, and closed the door as quietly as she could manage. Mentally, she was freaking out, and felt the desperate need to get out of the house. /she changed into simple clothes that wouldn’t catch on anything, then snuck out her bedroom window and ran off down to the corner of her block before calling her friends and asking to meet up with them. Meeting up with Maddie, Michael, Riley and Josh helped calm her down (along with a pack or two of fries), and she got the okay to stay overnight at Michael’s after a text to her parents. She just did not think she could face them that night. 

Upon arriving home the next day, they sat her down, and explained they were getting divorced. While they didn’t go into any kind of detail, her Dad mentioned that it wasn’t her fault, and not to worry. Things in the house were tense for a while, with her parents sleeping in different rooms (her father in his office, her mother in their bedroom), and it wasn’t a pleasant environment all around. 

Eventually, her mother eventually kicked her Dad out. It was after this that she stumbled onto a different fact – her mom had been conversing with someone she’d met online, something that had gone on for at least a year she’d learn later. This was information she’d come across accidentally, overhearing part of her mother’s video call with him one day. Rather than confront her mother, she instead called her Dad. During the course of that call, she begged to be able to live with him, but although he wanted that, he was honest with her and told her he didn’t know how likely that was to happen, stating that the court may find in favor of her mother, s imply due to the travel requirements his work stipulated. 

The divorce itself was mostly amicable, though it still went to court over custody of Mandy. In the end, a judge decided that, while her father was more than capable of financially supporting his daughter, the nature of his work and the frequency with which he needed to travel weren’t suitable for Mandy’s upbringing, and it was ruled that her mother would hold primary custody. Mandy was devastated, and spent what time she could after that ruling with her father. 

On one of their days together, he gave her some advice. Be polite. Politeness isn’t respect, but is often mistaken for it. Try to keep the peace with her mother as much as possible. While it wouldn’t exactly be enjoyable, the fewer waves she made until she turned eighteen in a little under two years would make things less stressful for Mandy. She promised to try, and he promised to be available when she needed him. 

Within six months, Mandy found her life completely uprooted. Her mother had waited just long enough for her to finish out the school year before moving the both of them to Boston, where she promptly married the man she’d been speaking to online for the past couple of years. After the wedding, she had to learn how to cope with her new family. Not only were they very Christian, but she had step-siblings now as well. 

Bethany was her age, and they had to share a room. While her step-sister was one of those types who was always out to keep others from doing sinful things, she herself could be a nasty person behind closed doors. In all honesty, she reminded Mandy of a cross between Saved!’s Hillary Faye and Mean Girls’ Regina George.

A year younger than herself and Bethany were the triplets; Michael, Samuel, and Daniel. They were okay, if occasionally rowdy. They were athletes, while Bethany tried to be on every committee she could, so long as she was in charge. Her step-father, Adam, was a lawyer. While she found them all to be bland and a trial to put up with, she did her best, telling herself that now her mom finally seemed happy, and that it wouldn’t be for long – she just had to tough it out. 

Toughing it out wasn’t easy, either. She was frequently thankful that she’d left a lot of her things in storage back in California. Here, she felt they’d have been destroyed behind her back. She wasn’t allowed to listen to the music she liked, wear the clothes she wanted (which also included wearing any kind of makeup or using hair dye), and she had to attend her step-sister’s all-girls private school. Phone and computer usage were limited to school use only or talking to her father, though she got the impression even that would be disallowed if it weren’t for the fact it was a legal requirement for him to be able to contact her, simply because her step-father didn’t seem to like her father. 

She wasn’t able to contact any of her friends back in California really, occasionally she could slip in an email while at the library to explain the situation, but a conversation wasn’t really in the picture, so some of her friendships suffered a little due to this. It didn’t take long for her to start feeling depressed, and unsure of how to pick herself up out of it. It wasn’t until a phone call with her Dad where he’d casually mentioned her thinking about college that she found something to focus on. 

While she’d never been a top student, she wasn’t exactly a slouch when it came to grades, and she began to put in a lot of effort into studying and school work to try and get into a good school. Her criteria for now was simply ‘nowhere near Boston’ so she could escape her mother and step-family and be herself again. As a result of this hard work, she was accepted by a few different schools, though she had more difficulty choosing which one she wanted to attend. To her step-family, she said she hadn’t chosen yet, claiming to be waiting for a sign. Secretly, however, she’d chosen the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

Much to her surprise, her ‘Uncle’ David was at her commencement. Her father couldn’t be (though he did call), and Michael was at his grandparents’ winery (though he’d wanted to come, he thought it best not to make a ‘fabulous scene’). Dave was there to help her move, a process which began after commencement and a polite dinner. They loaded up her things into his rental car (she wasn’t taking much – anything truly important to her had been in storage), and he reminded her mother or step-father whenever they tried to protest, that she’d turned eighteen the previous month.

From there they caught a flight out of Boston to Las Vegas, where surprises of a different sort were waiting for her. Her father had enlisted Michael’s help in finding (and decorating) an apartment for her. Her things from storage were already there, and grocery shopping had even been done. Sitting on the sofa was her years long stuffed companion, Sir Mister, holding an envelope from her Dad, promising a visit as soon as he could. 

Dave told her rent and utilities were handled for now, and handed over keys – one set for the apartment, and one set for a car her father had gotten for her. Before she could ask, Dave told her that her Dad had been putting away money for this time for years, and not to worry – just to enjoy being on her own, and to not hesitate to call if she needed anything, or just wanted to talk. 

Up until time to register for classes, she spent her time learning her way around town, though she avoided the strip since she wouldn’t be old enough to gamble for another three years and didn’t want to be tempted. With school, her plan was to focus on studying music and get certified in music technology, though she did opt to minor in history as a fallback.