Not with a Bang but a Whimper
High school was over. The mayor was crispy fried snake meat, the ascension was stopped and the school itself was just a smoking hole in the ground. Which felt pretty fitting - considering everything going on in her own life right now. The place she had ruled now just a charred and empty crater - nothing left but ashes. Same as her hopes and dreams and her future. There was just nothing.
Now she had graduated, she was leaving Sunnydale - one way or the other. There was nothing here for the non-incarcerated half of the Chase family, literally. No home, no money, the only job was Cordelia's at the shop … and that wasn't a future she could build on.
The night of graduation, her mom sat her down - poured herself a glass of wine - and told Cordelia that she was going to live with her sister.
Cordelia's aunt lived in a dead little town in Idaho, she had three young boys and only one spare bedroom. Cordy could go with her mom and live with her aunt, but she would be sleeping on the couch. She could get a job in Idaho … but realistically, she was looking at working in a hardware store or a small grocery store. There wouldn't even be a nice boutique like April Fools for Cordy to work in, out in the sticks. She wouldn't know anybody and there wouldn't be anything for her to do: no nightlife, no shopping. Maybe she could go to community college the following year, once she saved enough from her job to buy a car and pay some of the fees.
Mrs Chase downed her wine and poured another. It was completely up to Cordelia, she said. Cordy could come with her to Idaho or she could go … wherever she wanted by herself. She had the money in her trust fund, she would have to make it last - but it would be enough to give her a start.
Cordelia sat on the edge of her bed, ramrod straight - tense and unbelieving. This was the long term plan? Her mom was just cutting and running and Cordelia could do as she pleased? Her fingers clutched at the bedspread, curling and uncurling without her even noticing, as she weighed the options in her mind.
She could go and stay with family, be the poor relation with no space of her own, no privacy. Work in a small time job in the hope that one day she might be accepted into community college. She could maybe go to school - nothing like she should be going to, nothing like she had worked for, but she could maybe continue her education and maybe one day find a way back out of Idaho.
Or she could go off somewhere by herself. Completely alone. Leave her mom behind and find something else to do; blaze her own trail and find her own path in life.
'Like I said, it's up to you,' her mom said, finishing off her second glass of wine, 'but I'm leaving for Idaho the day after tomorrow, so you need to make up your mind and make it up fast.'
