Dreams

Prologue

Prologue

Everything in this place looks illegal. Danger in manifest. Living in the uptown of Los Angeles where there are mixed races, graffiti coverings, broken houses, and carjacked vehicles. Who would ever want to live in a place where a man stands on a porch with deathly eyes? The sad part is, she lives here.

"Brittany!" The deep voice of her father rings from the kitchen. He had a brown bag, most likely his sack lunch, surprisingly not for his daughter.

Brittany, twenty-three, walks inside the kitchen. "Yes?" She says as a polite rendition of what.

"Daddy's got to go to work. Tell mom that I'll be home later, okay?" He says. He was dressed in overalls with his name imprinted on his left chest. Living one of the most dangerous jobs you could find in town, mechanism. Why is this so dangerous? Carjackings happen in the best strategic places. Not once, but twice has a man hold up a gun to her father's head and demand the keys to the Toyota or Chevy. Why was he not fired? Two cars on a single employee was the least that's ever happened.

"Yes dad," Brittany responses. She kisses his cheek and smiles, "Be safe." He nods and walks out the door

"No!" She screamed. A man in a suit approaches her to calm her down. "I don't wanna do it dad." Anna was never the person to take the high road. She won't let this argument drop even though her father was right. She's the type of person to wait for the fight to abandon itself.

"This is best for you, sweetie." Her dad said with a grin of reassurance.

"But we're rich dad. We- I mean, I don't need to go to this school. Hell, I don't even need to go to college to get a job."

"I know, but it's better."

"Then what? I'll hand in résumés stating that I went to community college?" She questioned angrily.

"You need to earn your way up. I won't give you everything you want just because I can." Anna crossed her arms knowing that that was just half of the true reason. "Sit down," he claims. "I gave you all you wanted when you were young. You were born in a rich family, but guess what? I wasn't. Don't you see where I am now? I have a beautiful - even though a bit spoiled - daughter. I worked my way up to the top because of hardwork. Two years of college then you can start your own company. That's all it took for me."

"Dad, all it took for you was luck. Not everybody gets to bump across the head of a telecommunication service. I don't know if I can do this. I can go to college, Yale, Stanford, maybe even Harvard, but I can't go to some disgusting cheap school in Los Angeles." Her dad seemed suspicous, obviously hiding something. Being her skeptical self she asks, "There's something else."

He sighed and sat down with her. "Last year, I sent out applications to Berkely, Yale, and NYU."

"And?"

"Sweetie, they didn't accept you." He said as gentle as he can.

"They what?" She asked in disbelief. How could this be? She didn't know. She's always been a fine student, she never failed, was never suspended, great all around worker. This wasn't something she was used to, rejection. She got everything she wanted, all of them coming from her father.