Cherry Blossoms

C1

Growing up in the small town of  Forks in the State of  Washington Cherryldene have never been anywhere as far as the city of Seattle .

She had grown up wanting , wishing , to see what was outside of Washington ,but she never got the chance to even set foot on an Airplane ,let alone get on a bus .

Her Dad , Police Chief Charlie Swan was her only parent and he was overprotective of his little girl that had been born from one night of letting loose in his younger days a few years after he got divorced from his first and only wife Renée who'd fled Forks with their daughter Isabella .

Cherry ,as Charlie called Cherryldene , never knew her own mother . Darlene Pierce had left a mere week after giving birth to the now fifteen year old Cherry .

Charlie and Cherry never heard from her again . No phone calls . No letters . Nothing .

It was like she didn't exist .

Even so , Cherry , like most kids who experienced the absence of a parent ,would sometimes wonder about Darlene .

Not overly much, though , but the thoughts were there . She'd see girls in her school on outings with their mothers and the thought would invade her mind that she would never ever have that with her mother .

On Mother's Day she would have no one to make a card for and would sit out feeling lonely and unloved .

Sometimes the other kids ,being cruel as kids could be , teased her of being the Bastard or The Oops .

When she was younger she didn't understand what it meant ,but when she got older she realised that it was nasty names for someone born out of wedlock .

It absolutely hurt more than she would have let anyone know .

Forks was a small town with people living in the last century and that meant Cherry wasn't really considered as one of the people because of the status of her birth .

She had no friends at school . The only ones she did have was living on La Push Reservation. She only got to see them every other weekend because she doesn't own a car and her father only went there on his off weekends .

Jacob Black,Embry Call, Quil Ateara ,Jared Cameron and Paul Lahote was only a few names of her friends at La Push .

She mostly would visit Jacob and his Dad ,Billy  whenever she had the chance and the others would just  show up .

They would laugh and talk like there was no tomorrow until her Dad and she would leave for home in the evenings .

Sometimes she'd have a sleepover with them . Those ended when she turned thirteen and her Dad told her that she was a teenager now and sleeping in the same room as boys was a big resounding NO.

She understood and agreed with him .  That was the end of her nights in La Push .

Summer times up until she was twelve brought her half sister's visits . Something Cherry wasn't happy about .

Isabella and Cherry never got along since the younger Swan could remember .

Isabella, or Bella as everyone called the older Swan girl , tolerated Cherry , yet never tried making friends with her .

When Bella was fourteen her visits stopped and Cherry found herself being shipped off to her Aunt Darcy in Seattle every Summer ,for three years straight while her Dad spend time with Bella in California .

She liked her Aunt . The woman was passionate ,funny and full of love for the world. She told Cherry the most amazing stories about life outside Washington . Cherry would listen for hours about small things like riding on a camel in the Zahara or drinking wine in Italy .