[cis woman and she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [MIREYA CARDENAS]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [FIONA PALOMO]. You must be the [TWENTY-FIVE] year old [BARISTA AT SERENITY TEA SHOP]. Word is you’re [HOPEFUL] but can also be a bit [CLOSED-OFF] and your favorite song is [DEEP DIVE BY WALLOWS]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [OCEAN CREST APARTMENTS]. I’m sure you’ll love it!
tw: teenage pregnancy, tw: car crash, tw: parental death
@aurorabayaesthetic
For the longest time in her life, it'd always just been Mireya and her mom, Angelina. Angelina had gotten pregnant in high school at only fifteen and, despite everyone's insistences (and even her parents threatening to kick her out), kept her baby. The first few years were hard, Angelina having to drop out of high school and do whatever odd jobs she could to keep a roof over their heads, but she made it work for her and her daughter.
And Mireya? She idolized her mother. Angelina worked all day, studied to get her GED, and still made time for her. Her mother was her best friend, the center of her universe, and the day her mother got accepted into a nursing program when she was was only seven was probably the proudest day of little Reya's life--that is until she was ten and in the stands with Angelina's coworkers from the diner she worked at, probably cheering the loudest as her mom walked across the stage to get her diploma.
Her mom's drive helped fuel Mireya as well and she helped out as much as she could, always making sure her room was clean, helping with chores around the apartment, and never wanting to disrupt study time, which was definitely how Reya developed a love of books. She could spend hours in her little tent made of pillows and sheets, devouring chapter books way ahead of her grade level. She excelled in reading and writing, and Angelina encouraged her, all of Mireya's little spelling bee ribbons and role model certificates framed and put up right alongside Angelina's diploma.
When Reya was fifteen and in high school was when her mother met Cole. Mireya never knew her father, didn't really care to. She didn't need a father, but Angelina....she deserved a partner. Her mother dated over the years, but never anything serious, always putting her daughter and her work first. But even when she turned Cole down at first, he gently persisted, the two staying friends until finally Mireya talked some sense into her mother and told her to do something selfish for once in her life.
And the rest was history.
Cole was a kind and loving man. He treated Reya like his own daughter, had asked her permission to propose to Angelina, and this time when it was her turn to walk across the stage and get a diploma, they were the ones cheering the loudest in the crowd. That summer they got married, and at eighteen, Mireya finally had someone to officially call her dad. It was only made better when a year and a half later, Angelina found out she was pregnant, Mireya becoming a big sister just after her twentieth birthday.
Her little brother Samuel truly made their family complete and for a few blissful years, everything was pretty much perfect. They moved into a new home together, would spend their summers down in Aurora Bay, staying with Cole's family there. Every holiday and birthday was a big deal and honestly, they were the picture-perfect little family. So much so that when Mireya had gotten accepted into six different colleges, she ultimately chose Santa Clara University so she could stay close to her family in Sacramento, keeping a stellar GPA and making it a point to come home almost every weekend. Even after graduation and getting her own little apartment, she still was home all the time. In fact, she'd been home babysitting Sammy when she got the phone call that would change her and her little brother's life forever.
It'd been raining that March night, and from what she'd been told by the police afterwards, someone else had ran a red and t-boned their car. Angelina had died on impact (Mireya still hasn't decided if that was for the best or not) and her stepfather died on the way to the hospital. Reya doesn't even fully remember everything afterwards, just....going through the motions. She quit her job and sold her apartment, she took care of the house, she buried her parents. And then she did the easiest and yet hardest thing, she took on full custody of her brother, Sammy only four and half and not fully understanding why he'd never see his mommy and daddy again.
And Mireya tried to keep up some semblance of normalcy for him, but after weeks, she just couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't sleep in the same house where the ghosts of her parents lurked in every room. The house they'd built a home in, where she'd sit at the table and study, where meals were made and birthdays celebrated. She'd been sitting on that very couch when told she'd be a big sister. Every facet of their home held a memory that sucked the oxygen from her lungs and she just...couldn't do it anymore.
For weeks after the accident, her best friend Gianna, really the only 'family' she had left, had invited her to come live in Aurora Bay--a town she'd spent almost every summer in for the last seven years. And now almost three months since the accident, Mireya has finally agreed, selling her family's home and putting most of the money into a saving's account for her brother since her mother's will left practically everything to her and for the second time that year, Mireya's whole life shifted as she moved south with Sammy. She's gotten them a little apartment and got herself a job at the tea shop in town, just trying to get some actual sense of normalcy back in her life.
extras:
full name: mireya inez cardenas
nicknames: reya, mira, miry, rey
birthday: september 23, 2000 (sammy's is november 16, 2020)
height: 5'4
hometown: sacramento, california
fluent in spanish
attended santa clara university from 2018 to 2022
parents passed away march 15, 2025
moved to aurora bay in may 2025, but spent every summer in town since 2017
pinterest board
connections:
@giannasutherland - long distance bestie/reason she moved to ab
@jokangmin - summer fling
wanted connection here
