Hardened Heart

Chapter 1

As we drove, through the countryside in the middle of Kansas somewhere, I stared out the window from the backseat of my father's car. I hadn't seen any form of life, for about 2 hours. With my father driving, and my stepmother, Stacy, in the passenger seat, we drove with all of our belongings, as well as a moving truck following slowly behind us. We started this trip 2 days ago when we left our home in Ashland, California to move to the "lovely" town of Bakersville, Virginia. It wasn't exactly my first choice in locations, as I have lived on the West Coast, in sunny California for my entire life. Now, off to the East Coast to a small town I have never heard of.

There is a lot I've wondered about. Especially in the last month or so, dealing with issues at school, to this move. Now, I'm sitting in the car, trying to understand it all. I get pulled back to reality when I hear my name being called.

"Ella," I hear my father, Paul, say.

"Yeah, dad," I replied.

"You doing okay back there, kiddo?" he asks. "You've been quiet."

"I'm just tired," I answered. "It's been a long trip."

"You hungry?" he questioned. "How about we stop for a bite to eat?"

"I'm a little hungry, but honestly, dad, even if I was hungry, where are we going to stop to find anything", I ranted on. "We haven't seen any form of life, besides a vulture eating a dead carcass off of the road, for about 2 hours."

"We are getting close to something," he laughed. "I can just feel it."

My dad is always like this. He's a very optimistic person, you know, always looking for the good in everything and everyone. He's 6 feet tall with brown eyes and hair, even though he's starting to bald and got some gray hairs, he still looks younger than 40. He is the owner of a security company, called LockPro. He started that when I was about 8, after our house was broken into. For 11 years, it was just my dad and I. We are best friends, considering I've never really had a mother. Why, you ask? Because when I was just 2 years old, my mother left us. She left the house one day, telling my dad she was running to the store and she'd be back soon, and, to my dad's utter shock and surprise, she never came back. At first, he thought that something bad had happened. He started calling her friends and family to ask if they had seen her, after a day or two, he called the local authorities to report her missing. About a month, he searched, up and down, left and right, everywhere he could look to find her. Shortly after that one month mark, he received an envelope in the mail. Divorce papers and a short little note that simply read:

"I'm so sorry, Paul. I can't do this."

Those eight words, changed my dad's life, and later on, when I understood, would change mine. As far as I know, my dad never faltered. He picked up taking care of me like a pro. All anyone would ever talk about was how my dad totally stepped up for me. It almost seemed like, my mother never existed. I knew better though. As I got older, maybe around 6 or 7, I remember walking the hall from my room and in front of my dad's room. I remember hearing him crying, and if you knew my dad, you knew he never cried. He loved my mother, and I was totally aware of that. Her leaving was just so out of the blue, and he wasn't sure how to react besides to be strong for me.

But, that fateful day arose, around the time I was about 13 when he met Stacy, my soon-to-be stepmother. She was young, and fun, and bubbly, and also 12 years my dad's junior, which I didn't take very well to. Frankly, she is closer to my age than she is to his. But hey, she had him from day one. The story goes, that my dad walked into this coffee shop, one that he went into all the time. It was his daily routine. Well, one day, he went in at his regular time, ordered his regular drink, and paid his regular amount. As he was preparing to leave, he noticed this cute, blonde woman digging through her purse.