Finding Home in Redemption

Chapter One

This is Bentley Cooper, our main character.

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March, seventeen years later

 When I woke up that morning, I knew he was going to murder me, my boss, that is. Although I worked for my father, being tardy didn't show good form considering I'd received a promotion the day before. Isaac Douglas Cooper II, founder, and owner of Cooper's Cars & Stuff ran a tight ship. Pop typically let me get away with a lot, but I couldn't imagine him being okay with his Assistant Manager running so late on her first day. I reassured myself that it wasn't my fault.

After setting my alarm, I laid awake in bed. I'd worked at Cooper's since I was sixteen years old and this move up was a huge step for me, especially since I'd one day own the business. Excitement prohibited me from being able to close my eyes but eventually, after at least two hours, I was able to pull back my thoughts and retreat into a deep sleep. Little did I know, the universe had plans to ruin my day and around two o'clock in the morning, those plans became evident.

It all started when the couple that lived above me began fighting. In my two years living below them, I'd never heard them fight, so being caught off guard by their behavior; I tried and failed to ignore it. An hour later they were still going strong. Irritated and confused, I walked to my kitchen and grabbed the strainer I'd used for dinner the night before. Climbing onto my counter, I started banging on the ceiling.

I knocked a few times, ignoring the few wet noodles that fell onto my shirt before they got the hint and took mercy on me by shutting up. I wish I could say that was where my misfortune ended, but sadly, that's not the case.

My brand new alarm clock failed me on this of all days. I woke up thirty minutes later than I should have and rushed to get my shower started. To make it, I'd have to skip washing my hair, but as I waited for the water to heat up, minutes continued to disappear.

Eight minutes was how long it took me to realize my water heater wasn't working again, and thanks to the useless piece of junk my landlord had yet to fix, I took the coldest shower of my life.

Finally dressed and in my kitchen, I planned to defrost myself with a hot cup of coffee, but when I opened my pantry, all there was, was an empty canister.

"Did I wake up in a parallel universe?" I asked my empty apartment. I didn't get an answer.

Even though I was the one who put the empty coffee canister back into the pantry, I scoffed at the idiot who did it. Only idiots did that, right?

With no time to grab a coffee from The Market across the street from where I worked, I did what I had to do. After two years of turning left out of the apartment building, that day, for the first time, I turned right.

My building happened to sit on a line dividing two tiny towns in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio. While I technically lived in Taylorsville, if I moved three feet to the right, I was in Hillview. The differences were astonishing. Taylorsville was light, homey and welcoming, whereas Hillview was the opposite.

Other than the diner that was diagonal from my building, the homes and businesses within sight were boarded up and abandoned. There weren't many people wandering around Hillview, outside of the people who worked in the diner and the homeless man that called their parking lot his home.

There was a policy that the residents of Taylorsville seemed to follow. Residents didn't cross the line into Hillview, and I had never witnessed anyone break that unspoken rule.