Breaking Hope (Finding Sky edit)

Chapter 2

I startled awake as the car - a 2004 Peugeot with a dodgy exhaust we had brought from a second-hand car dealer near Denver airport - juddered into the driveway from the small road we had been driving on. It took me a while to place myself - not sitting in a dark and damp car park, smelling on petrol and bonfire, but in the back of my parent's car in a ski town in Western Colorado. Moving in after months of planning.

'So, Girls, what do you think?' Mark asked, sitting in the driver's seat in the loaded car, our suitcases and hand luggage thrown recklessly in the back. The house my parents and I had been relocated too was a four bedroom Swiss-chalet styled house, located right at the edge of the suburban ski town. The paint job on the window has been worn off, and was in desperate need of a new coat of paint. To be honest, the entire house could use a new coat of paint whilst we were at it. However, the cream clapboard exterior facing the woods on the left of the house had been repainted recently, and had a few leaves stuck to it, the brown beams bringing out the height of the two floor house. The slightly worn and dodgy exterior didn't fill me with hope about the interior.

But the mountains that framed the house looked amazing. They peered over the town, reminding all the petty, mortal humans who was really in charge. They froze like a tidal wave, created by the God's got stopped in its tracks to remind one how pityful their successes were in life.A light dusting of snow had fallen on the tips of the mountains, which was now reflecting as a dusky pink, as the sun had started to set, setting long shadows along the mountain-side, and the empty fields below. These were the Rocky Mountains that would make our home for the next 18 months. When my parents, Maria and Mark, announced they had been offered a limited time contract as local artists at a near-by art gallery in the town centre, I researched the ski resort of Breckendale, and found that, apart from being isolated from the main towns; it was known for its excessive heavy snow and skiing, and a large privately owned recreational pool within the town. I wasn't exactly good at any of those sports - at any sports at all - and even on the school trips to the local ski hill I didn't show much promise. I wasn't looking forward to the day I was taught to ski, whilst other teenagers zipped down the black runs whilst I learnt to stand up. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

'Oh, it's absolutely stunning!' Maria exclaimed, clambering out the front passenger seat and looked at the house, shaking off her pins and needles, clasping her hands together. 'Look at those shutters on the windows, I bet they're the originals, but they do need a bit of paint. Nothing we can't solve, though!'

Maria always managed to make the best out of a shitty situation. A terrier puppy, as Mark had once described her. Even in the worst situations, she found something exciting to latch onto. She flicked the end of her light scarf over her shoulder, pulling down her blazer of her executive-cut suit she had especially purchased in Harrods' for flying, although I bet it wasn't exactly comfortable. My dad, Mark, was ruffled in oil-stained jeans a bit too big for his frame, and a year old shirt with various stains on it. I felt somewhere in between them in skinny black jeans, a baggy shirt and a thick zip through hoody. As I watched the house, not too sure if it was excitement or disappointment I felt, Mark got out the car to join his wife.

'Once we settled down and redecorated the garden in spring with a few more plants with a brash of colour, and maybe a table set for the porch, it'll be wonderful!' She said, gesturing for me to leave the car. Reluctantly, I opened my door and hobbled over to where they were standing, rubbing the dream out of my eyes. Was I jet lagged, or sleep lagged? I couldn't quite tell, but something was still dragging on me like an anchor.

Mark pulled out the key from his back pocket, putting it in the slightly rusty lock. The door creaked at every millimetre it moved but it didn't fall off its hinges. Yet. Which was probably the first success of this American adventure. The interior was not as bad as expected, but it still wasn't brilliant. The walls had been partially washed with a light cream paint for a neat, uniformed look but the painters had only just left, leaving walls only half painted and dust sheets still covering the floors. The previous owners who had just moved out must have had young kids, as there was crayon marks trailing the walls.