Fix My Heart

1 ~ A Mother's Choices

A/N:  This first chapter of my new book is dedicated to two of my close friends who's birthdays were yesterday pplhater1k and @crazyangel99.  Happy Birthday!!!  

I will try to get a new chapter up every Friday.  Let's see how that goes because each chapter is technically a third draft (I hand write a first draft, edit that, and then type it while correcting little things until I like it).  Enjoy, vote, comment, and follow!  Love you all!  Oh and this chapter is a little depressing so....just warning you!  Love you, guys!! 

Impossible wasn't a word she like to use because she believed in what others thought was impossible.  Her father had drilled that truth into her head as a child.

A straight-A student, Kelsea spent her free time  when she was younger following her father around.  Bill Cartlan was an inventor.  He was famous for the creative computerized things he created and shipped for selling in the big cities nearby.  He met with a lot of trouble from his long-time rival Blake Dot who went big in the technology invention industry as well.  Blake had a huge company called Dot Technology centered in the closest city with a population greater than 3,000--Orlando.  Bill, on the other hand, was an at-home inventor who preferred the chance to be with his family over late nights at an office.  His basement was his lab/office.

At every  chance, Blake sought to obliterate Bill until he had successfully reduced him to a struggling, basement inventor who had the brains but not the money or research for inventing anything extremely useful.

Money was scarce at the Cartlan home and Kelsea's mom was tired of struggling to feed both her and her little girl with her job as an assistant clerk at the town hall while her husband pursued a failing craft that plunged them all into poverty.  So she found a job as a lawyer in the big city of Cincinnati, Ohio and fought for legal custody of their child.   Soon Kelsea and her mom were boarding a plane to take them away from the small Florida town that, according to her mom, had "no prospect of any growth." "Even Mr. Dot," she said to the crying 10 year old, "chose to establish his business in Orlando instead of a tiny place like Donte, Florida." 

With that they flew far away from the only place Kelsea had ever felt at home to the big city up north.

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It had been six years and Kelsea still missed him more than ever.  She stood and stared out the big living room window of her mom's 12th story apartment in the bustling city of New York City.

Her mom was rarely home.  Her lawyer job kept her busy.  When she would get home she would put on a skin tight, revealing dress and act like a 21 year old girl to impress her boyfriend who, in her words, was an "important man to society who could care for the two of them for the rest of their lives" aka Mr. Allan deJones.

  Sometimes Kelsea wondered why her mother fought for custody if she rarely felt the need to spend time with her 16 year old child.   It wasn't much of a "fight" though.  Kelsea remember her ten year old self standing in the small town courtroom as her mom told the judge why her dad wasn't a good dad or husband.  Like the lawyer she had become, her mom knew the law and had her facts in a convincing order.

Kelsea's dad just sat there and looked drained and defeated as he watched Sandra Maine- Cartlan take his daughter away.  Kelsea distinctly remembered a tear sliding down his cheek when the judge ruled in her mom's favor.  Even then he didn't speak a word against his ex-wife's actions.