Thorny kind of Love

Chapter 1

Bell's POV

."Dad I'm leaving now." I shout as I grab my waist apron from the washing line. My dad doesn't respond and I go check on him. He is still asleep and I make sure that I place he's medication on the stand next to his bed. My dad hasn't been feeling well a lot lately and I was a bit worried about him. However, he would assure me that as long as he had his medication, he would be okay, which reminded me that I needed to collect some more painkillers from the pharmacy after work.

I can't help but notice the hardness on his face as he sleeps, my dad had worked on the nearby farm all his life, putting me and my brother through school. My mom died when I was 7 and my brother was ten years old at that time, my dad didn't take my mom's death well, he drowned his sorrows with alcohol for about a half of a year while my brother had to mostly take care of me.

My brother, Brian, had sacrificed so much to achieve a good life for himself and his family, he has an awesome wife and they have two beautiful girls, Ella and Eva, I'm always joking that they are my little look likes. We have the same dark long thick curly hair with light brown eyes, the only difference is that they are a bit lighter-skinned than my medium colored skin. A knock on the door tears me away from my thoughts, it must be Claudia.

Claudia is my friend since high school, we were on the same hockey team, we laughed, cried and shared so much together, she keeps my most intermit secrets of boys as I keep hers, we have been working at the same B&B Guesthouse in town for 8 months now.

"Hey". She greets, "Are you ready?" I quickly check on my dad again and kiss him on his forehead, he wakes and reminds me to pick up the painkillers. I grab my jacket on my way out and join a cold Claudia outside. Claudia is shorter than me, a bit plump, dark-skinned, she has black eyes and short black hair, it's always tied in a tiny bun."Mike will be here any minute now." She says. "I hope he won't be late again this morning," I reply. Mike was the local taxi driver that would pick us up each morning and drive us to work and back home again in the evenings.

"I hope so too, he had a family crisis yesterday morning, you know that he has to take his mom for therapy every morning?" Claudia says. "Yes I know, but at least Mike said that she is getting better now," I respond. "Anyhow, I cannot afford to lose this job, you know that I need it, I depend on it."

This was so true, my dad was not working anymore and I needed to put food on the table and our bills needed to be paid, not to mention but my dad's doctor's appointments were extremely expensive. My brother helped where he could but I did not always want to burden him with our financial matters, I often offered to work double shifts at the B&B and would then ask my dad's friend to a sleepover, I would tell my dad that uncle Danny just wants to hang out with him.

"You know that Chantal and Flynn adore you, they'll never fire you," Claudia says. "There's a difference with adoring someone and tolerating an employee that comes in late and I would never take advantage of them, they're really good people," I say.

Chantal and Flynn are really good people, they're a young loving couple, both aged 26 years. Flynn became the owner of the Richman B&B Guesthouse a year ago, he inherited it from his parents who passed away in a terrible car accident. Flynn was still finishing his Bachelor's degree at the University in Berlin, Germany at that time, Chantal his girlfriend, and now fiancé moved to Cape town with him to manage the place. They left everything and everyone behind in Germany including family and friends. Chantal's parents would often visit and once in a while, her friends and other families would visit.

"So what will we be doing today after work, seeing that we're both off tomorrow?" Claudia asks with a smirk on her face. I know that smirk look of Claudia all too well, it could be of two things, either we will go clubbing at the local tavern or there's something exciting happening that I am not aware of.

"I have a feeling that we'll both end up with a massive hangover on Sunday morning, so No thank you to whatever you're planning." With my dad being sick and all, I was not comfortable leaving him to go and party, and besides it was the same thing happening over and over every weekend and I was getting bored with it."The Blisbou rugby team are having a function at Jerry's tavern. Claudia says exited. "Wesley will be there" she continues, rolling her eyes as she says so.

"He is a thing of the past and besides he will most probably have a new girl by his side there," I say and thankful that Mike arrived to pick us up. I didn't want to talk about Wesley, I had a crush on him since we first met in high school, everyone knew this, looking back now, I only see him as nothing but a womanizer and the Casanova of our town, he is the captain of the Blisbou rugby team, and the one that managed to take away my innocence on my eighteenth birthday. I was so drunk that evening that I didn't even know how strong I was coming onto him, not that he didn't mind taking advantage of the situation, anyhow hours after that he found himself in another girl's pants then impregnated another girl two months later. Thank God in my drunken state, I still managed to force him to use protection that night.

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Authors' note:

Hey guys, so my first chapter describes the main character, her life, friends, and social life. It's just so that you can start to visualize her and her background and get familiar with her. Enjoy Chapter 2 as it will introduce more characters and her place of employment. (Please feel free to comment.)