All it takes • remember the titans

1

It was a warm, sunny day in California. Not a cloud in the sky as the sun beat down onto Alexandria Hardey, while she stood facing her childhood home. Not even the birds were chirping, seeming to sense her sorrow. She had a small frown plastered on her lips as her father, James Hardey, shoved the last bag into the trunk of his car, a deep blue Chevrolet Chevelle.

She took another look at the house before making her way down the driveway, and over to her father. "Daddy why can't we just stay here? Didn't you say there was a lot of fightin' goin' on in Virginia?" asked the teen, her accent slightly peeking through. She looked over her shoulder again, before looking back at her father with her eyebrows furrowed.

Alexandria, or Ally, had lived here since she was just 3 months old, originally being from south carolina. Her mother had died when she was 2 months old, leaving her, her 3 brothers, and her dad. They had moved to Cali when her daddy had gotten a job offer to work at a small business. As the years went on and she had seen more pictures of her mother, she had realized how alike she looked to both of them. Just like her mother, she had blonde, wavy hair, and soft brown eyes. She also had a southern accent like her mother too. From her father, she had two dimples that appeared whenever she even slightly smiled. Her skin was slightly tan, just like her daddy's.

James Hardey was their small town's business man. His job allowed him to earn just enough money for his family to get by. They had always lived in the side of town that had been classified as "bad", but Ally had never seen anything wrong with it. She would often receive greif from her peers, them saying she didn't deserve to be at their school, it wasn't fair that they had to go to school with someone who associates with "the other kind". Although the comments were quite awful, Ally payed them no mind. Her father had always taught her to love everybody, no matter the color of their skin.

Her dad sighed, looking at his shoes while slightly shaking his head. "I told you darlin', there's important things happenin' over there. I wouldn't be leavin' here if it wasn't for this important of a reason." He explained before looking up, smiling sadly at her. He knew it was hard for her to leave everything that she had ever known behind. He then opened both arms, watching as she shuffled into them.

She looked up at him through her long eye lashes, "I know I'm sorry daddy I just don't wanna leave." She sniffed, squeezing him tightly. Releasing from the hug they both looked at the house they had known for so many years, before slowly getting into the car. Ally clutched her camera tightly in her arms, admiring how it looked. This was her most prized possession, the camera her dad and brothers had pitched in money for in order to give it to her for her birthday last month. They had seen the way she gazed at it sitting in shop windows while walking by. She had always asked to use her daddy's when they boys were playin' football in the backyard, but her daddy didn't want to waste the film.

She looked out of the window as they began their journey across the U.S. She had argued multiple times that it just wasn't safe for him to be driving so long... 'Daddy are you outside your mind? There ain't no way i'm gonna let you drive all the way to virginia! That's 39 hours daddy!'. It's safe to say she lost that argument, him claiming that he wanted to keep his baby, aka his car, with him. Since he refused to take a plane, she insisted on pitching in her 30 dollars she had saved for gas and food money.

He sighed again and put his large hand on top of her small one. She glanced over at him with a sad smile on her face. He looked down at their hands, rubbing the top of hers with his thumbs. "I know baby doll, im gonna miss it too." He said, turning his head back to the road.

She rested her head on the window, watching as houses of all colors wizzed by, counting how many yellow ones she could spot. A soft smile came into her face as she began to hear a familiar tune on the radio. 'Brown Eyed Girl' by Van Morrison began to fill the car as her dad turned the volume up, knowing this was her favorite. Her and her daddy had quickly claimed this song as theirs when he started telling her Van Morrison wrote this song for her.