Stolen Love

Prologue

Love.  Quite possibly the most misunderstood and confounding feeling one can experience.  It's complicated and enticing enough to always have you craving more, no matter the pain that you know it will inevitably bring.  I've always wondered why love is destined to be difficult, why can't it just be simple and easy?  It's a question I've asked myself on too many occasions and most certainly way too many times to count.  Life is really just made up of two different moments; moments where we are either breaking another's heart or having our own heart shattered in two, sometimes by our own hands.  They say it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but I often find myself wondering if that's even true in the slightest.  Is it worth it?

I'm more than familiar with the old adage that all is fair in love and war as it was something I had to come to terms with rather early on in my life. You see, the crazy thing about love is that everyone knows it eventually leads to heartbreak.  We all know growing up is hard, but it wasn't made any easier for me when I lost my mother at the young age of six.  Looking back, I can remember the love my parents use to share together and I always envied them the way a young girl envies a fairytale with an innocent heart. 

I suppose the death of my mother broke my father in a way that was far beyond repair, which was why things deteriorated so drastically after she died.  My father changed from a man of God to someone I couldn't even recognize.  I could no longer feel the warmth of his affection radiating from him like I used to and it led to me believing I had done something wrong to lose his love.  Throughout my childhood, I would often look for ways I could earn his attention, so to put it mildly, I was not a pleasant child.  I can faintly recall the many pranks I would pull on the random women my father would bring home which normally led to the women shouting at my father and, in turn, my father shouting at me.  As I grew older, the shouting became louder and eventually turned into a combination of a blow to the face and being locked in the attic.  It's silly, but I would often imagine myself as the princess locked away in her tall castle, just waiting for someone to save her.  Crazy how as we get older, so many things change, but some things never change at all, apart from the fact that this time, I was not experiencing this fairytale with an innocent heart.  My fairytale would slowly transform into a horror movie, and I was just the young girl locked in the disappointment room, ready to haunt the next unknowing person I encountered.

Don't get me wrong, my father didn't do all things wrong.  In fact, he actually did one thing right.  When I was younger and still not old enough to be left on my own at home, my father would bring me along on his business trips.  My favorite place we would go was a hotel located in Chicago, Illinois called The Drake.  Of course, I was supposed to be "locked" in the hotel room while he was in his meetings, but the hotel was my world and I was ecstatic to explore it.  I could finally get lost in my own little world and be nothing but happy in a place that was so large and mystical as The Drake.

Due to the fact that I had such fond memories of The Drake, I guess it called to me when I was old enough to flee from under my father's broken wing.  When I turned eighteen, I took what little money I had managed to save and I escaped to the only place I had ever felt truly safe.  Starting my new life at The Drake turned my old fantasies into a new reality which inconspicuously led to a new outlook on life.  The old Jennifer Parker was gone and in her place, someone much better and happier emerged.  However, happiness couldn't buy groceries or rent, so I spent most of my time working as a valet attendant and bellhop.  It wasn't much and I had hardly any free time to make friends, but it allowed me the freedom to be on my own.  It wasn't long before managers were noticing my hard work ethic and I began to work in different departments around the hotel, slowly making my mark and earning the respect of many of my coworkers.

Somehow, throughout this busy time in my life, I managed to make a few friends, the most notable being Lexie Drake.  Her name has no relation to the actual hotel, but everyone likes to joke around that she is, in fact, the true owner of the hotel.  Having never had a best friend before, Lexie was a breath of fresh air.  Lexie taught me how to have fun and that it was okay to laugh until you cried, that brown and black certainly do not go together, and that most of all I am deserving of being loved by someone. 

Somehow, I eventually managed to save up enough money to go halfsies on a house with Lexie.  It's nothing fancy, but it's definitely enough for two young girls living the bachelorette lifestyle.  We are the queen's of our household and we can do whatever the hell we want to do.  Typically, that means going to our favorite bar downtown called Cuvee and having one too many drinks.  We live our best lives during the night and somehow still manage to get up and kick work's butt in the morning.  It really is a full on miracle that we are able to force ourselves to wake up after a night out at Cuvee.  As for dating, there's no miracle going on there.  I haven't touched a man in over two years and I'm perfectly content keeping it that way.  For some reason, I still have those pesky fairytales stuck in my head and I can't help but wish for my knight in shining armour.  Sadly for me, all Chicago has are nasty wannabe heroes and men that prefer to play the princess role. Yeah, love is definitely not simple and I can go ahead and tell you, my life is far from a fairytale.