Searching Hearts

3. Chloe Davidson

Chloe sighed as she tightened the straps of her dress. She was going to do it. She was going to escape the tyranny she lived under, known as her parents. She couldn't stand the silence, the Catholic traditions, the expectancy of her to be perfect.

She looked at the bag hidden under her bed. She knew the plan she had come up with. Every detail had to be executed exactly to the minute. If she screwed even the tiniest detail, her perfect parents would know something is up.

She heard the car horn and hurriedly grabbed her coat. She made her way down the stairs where her mother and father were waiting. Her mother stiffly grabbed ahold of her fathers hand and they headed out the door, with their daughter in tow. She glanced around at her surroundings, the mansion gleaming behind her.

Just as she reached the car, she let out a groan. Her mother looked back. "Chloe, what's the matter with you," she asked, one foot in the car and the other still on the ground.

"Mother, I don't feel so good," Chloe answered, letting out another groan. "May I stay back from Mass tonight?"

Her parents looked at her closely, making her uncomfortable. She swallowed her panic of getting caught in her fib and feigned a look of misery on her face. She put an arm on her stomach and hunched her stature for affect.

Her mother looked at her father and they had a silent conversation between them. "Very well," her father relented. "But we expect you to study while we're gone," her mother added.

Chloe nodded her head and watched as her parents settled themselves in the car. She turned around and slowly made her way up the walk path, listening to the car leave the driveway. She didn't breathe a sigh of relief until she was inside the house by herself. She walked briskly up the stairs, heading straight for her room. Entering it, she closed the door behind her and began grabbing last minute essentials.

Chloe Ann Davidson was born into a wealthy family. They were very staunch Catholics, who raised her to know that there was a God. She was baptized as a baby and went to a private school.

Her parents weren't always cold and haughty toward her. There was a time when they were a happy family who didn't care about being wealthy. Until the age of twelve. Her mother had found out she was pregnant. Everyone was over joyed, getting a nursery ready and planning for it's arrival

The day came when her mother went to the hospital. Chloe was at home waiting for the good news with her grandparents. Ten hours passed and she heard a car pull up the driveway. She had bounded for the window, eagerly pressing her nose to the glass window. The moment they had stepped out of the vehicle, she knew something was wrong.

She learned later that her baby sister had been still-born. They tried saving her but to no avail. Chloe watched as the grief nearly tore her parents marriage apart, only being kept together by a strand.

She couldnt understand why her parents shut her out. Her mother had turned cold and her father worked longer hours, barely being home. The priest at the funeral said that grief would pull them together but all it did was tear them apart.

Since then they've expected nothing but Chloe's absolute best. If she got a B in school, she was grounded for a week. If she didnt act a certain way in public, she always got a severe talking to. She was sick of it. They acted like they were nothing less than perfect when they were in public and she couldn't live like that anymore.

Chloe grabbed her bag and shoved the last minute things she had grabbed into it. She took one last look around the bedroom that she lived in for the past fourteen years, all the memories of it coming to the surface. She straightened her shoulder and quietly snuck out her room. She watched as the servants disappeared into another room and raced down the stairs. She quickly opened the front door and slipped out into the night, shutting the door behind her.