Whitney
Sometimes, you burn your bridges so your past can’t drag you back.
Crystal Anderson was like any other girl in rural Blaine County. The daughter of Chad and Erin Anderson, she grew up in a single wide in Snake Oil Mobile Estates, an incredibly fancy name for a trailer park. Folks knew her as a clumsy child. Always falling down stairs, falling out of bed, running into doorknobs. It was a poorly kept, but seldom discussed, secret that her parents were abusive. Some seven year old girls got dolls for their birthdays, Crystal got an arm cast.
She got quite good at hiding the truth. From her teachers, her friends, even her parents. When she was fifteen, she discovered herself and fell in love with a young girl named Whitney. The two of them spent four months together, seemingly best friends but secretly much more. Until her father found out.
One morning on the way to Whitney’s home so the two could walk to school together, she was passed by fire trucks headed in her direction. She looked ahead and saw smoke, and her heart froze. She ran after the trucks, and her worst fears were confirmed. The trailer that Whitney and her family lived in was in flames, with firefighters putting out the blaze. So much had already been destroyed. Her head swam. Maybe Whitney had left for school already. Maybe she wasn’t at home when…
It wasn’t until two days later that she had her second fright due to flashing lights. She was returning home from school and saw Blaine County Sheriff’s Office cruisers in front of her trailer. She feared the worst… that Whitney had died because someone found out about the two of them, and now it was her turn. Her family dead because of what… of who she was.
She was confused to see two BCSO troopers leading her father away in cuffs, until she heard him screaming. “I sent that temptress right back to Hell! The fire in that trailer is nothing compared to the flames she’s in now!” He then spotted Crystal standing there, and his eyes narrowed. He spat out, “You’ll be there too, harlot! You are unnatural and you will burn in Hell just like that Jezebel!”
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Not knowing what else she could do, Crystal ran. She never looked back, and she left for Los Santos. She came to the decision that the best way to get revenge on her father was to be better than him. Instead of living in squalor, she’d lift herself up and educate herself. She got her GED at 17, and immediately enrolled in community college, transferring after two years to ULSA. She completed her BA in Finance in four years, working all of her off hours and saving what she could. After graduation, she changed her name to Whitney Pruitt, so a part of her love would be with her forever, and to be rid of the last vestiges of her own past. Two years later, she had her MBA.
She was successful now, but she discovered the gulf between successful and wealthy. Student loans loomed, and she began to chafe under its weight. That’s when she took the first step on a new path. She decided she was going to skim some money. Not a lot, just enough to pay off her loans. She spent over a year building contacts, setting up fronts, and researching her clients. She knew which ones she could deceive, and which ones she could pay to help her. Eighteen months later, she was debt free.
But then the siren’s call of greed enchanted her. She figured that if she could be debt free in a year and a half, imagine what she could amass in two years. Five. Ten. She stepped up her efforts, widened her net of contacts, and her fortune grew.
But after a time, she began to feel concerned. She was in too deep to stop, and she felt that people were beginning to suspect. She took a few weeks of vacation, and started to make plans to disappear. She was in a rented cabin in Blaine County of all places when she received a phone call. She felt apprehensive for some reason, but answered anyway.
“Hello?”, she asked. “Miss Pruitt. I’d like to discuss a business opportunity.” The voice was formal, firm, but not unfriendly. “I’m actually on leave, maybe we could discuss it when I return to work,” Whitney answered. “If you go back to work, you’ll be walking out with FIB. You’ve done an admirable job covering your tracks, but not quite good enough. They’re on to you. If you’re as smart as I believe you are, you know that.” Whitney froze. “Now listen here,” she started, but the voice on the other end interrupted. “At ease, I’m on your side. Our organization’s about to have an opening, and we think you’d be an asset. In exchange, we can make this problem disappear.”
“Miss Pruitt, are you still there?” Whitney started. How long had she sat there in silent shock? “Yes, just thinking,” she lied. “You say disappear, disappear how, exactly?” “To be frank, that’s not something I’d care to reveal at this time, nor is it something to discuss over an unsecure line. If you’re interested, meet me at eighteen hundred hours one block west of the place your life changed forever.” And with that, the woman hung up.
Whitney set her phone on the table and ran to the window, peeking through the curtains, expecting to see someone out there, but there wasn’t anyone. The place where her life changed forever. That would have to be the “actual” Whitney’s trailer, the one that burned down. But if they knew that, then they knew who she was originally. How much did they know about her? She knew there was only one way she’d get answers.
It was stretching into evening as she arrived a block away from what used to be the home of the love of her life. She sat behind the wheel, debating whether to drive away or not when there was a knock at her window. She glanced over, and saw a young woman dressed in a long grey coat. She almost mistook her for a homeless woman, except you didn’t find many homeless people in trailer parks (the panhandling opportunities aren’t great), and she looked very well kept. Whitney rolled down her window. “Can I help you?” she asked. The woman, stone faced until now, gave a slight smile. “No Miss Pruitt, but I think we can help each other.”
