Chapter 1: History

Grace's POV

I quickly and quietly attempted to sneak back into my house. I could only hope that my father hadn't noticed that I was gone when I got up this morning.

"Grace is that you?"

Damned! I should have known that my dad would have noticed that my bed was empty when he woke up this morning. Why did my father have to be so overprotective of me?

"Yes dad it's me" I tried to remain as calm as possible so that my father wouldn't suspect anything.

"Would you mind explaining to me why I woke up seven this morning only to realize that you were already gone young lady?"

"Well I went shopping with my friends" It wasn't technically a lie but shopping wasn't the only thing that I had done. No, I wasn't out partying or drinking or smoking or doing drugs if that's what you are thinking. I was at one of my horse riding lessons. They went from 7:30-8:30am every single Saturday. I love horses and for a long time it has been a dream of mine to learn how to ride horses. Actually I had this dream of becoming a jockey but I don't exactly meet the height and weight requirements so if I want a career that has to do with horses I'm going to have to go a different route. All I do know is that I want to work with horses.

If my dad ever found out that I was taking horse riding lessons he would completely lose his mind. My dad has always been extremely overprotective of me. He never lets me do anything that he considers to be too dangerous such as going on extreme roller coasters. As a matter of fact he keeps me away from amusement parks because he thinks that pretty much every single ride is too dangerous for me to ride which I think is completely ridiculous. I mean, my friends do it all of the time! Why can't I do it?!

That's why I decided to secretly sign up for horse riding lessons. Usually my dad was already gone for work when my friends Nicole and Cassidy would come for me. Therefore there was no reason to sneak out. However, my dad decided to take the day off of work today. My dad was a veterinarian. Many people around here say that he is one of the best, so he was almost always at work helping some poor sick animal.

"You weren't out a party now were you young lady?" he eyed me questionably.

"No dad I was not. I promise. I left just after 7 this morning to go shopping with my friends. We wanted to get there just in time for the mall to open. Dad you shouldn't worry so much"

"Grace you are my only and only daughter. No you're my one and only child. As your father it's my job to worry about you. I love you and I don't want anything to happen to you. You're all that I have left"

Thinking about my mom was a painful subject for him. It always had been. No one knows what happened to her. She just simply disappeared the day after I was born. She just vanished from the hospital. No one had ever found her. I didn't know much about her other then the fact that her name had been Helen Grace Black. Her parents were Renesmee Carlie Black and Jacob Black. I had never met them before but from the pictures that I had seen of them they looked to be the exact same age as my mother. Actually my mother's side of the family always looked completely weird to me. I had never met them before but I had seen them in pictures. They were all impossibly pale and had gold eyes. My father didn't talk about them too much though.

"You're thinking about mom again, aren't you?" I always knew when my father was thinking about my mother. He always had this sad look on his face when he thought about her. I think it happened a lot because I happened to look a lot like her.

"Yeah, I am" he said. "I just wish that she were here. I wish that I knew what happened to her. Her disappearance didn't make any sense then and it still doesn't make any sense now"

"Dad have you ever thought about trying to reconnect with the rest of her family? I mean, I wish I knew more about them. Why don't you ever talk about them?"

"Reconnecting with them would be impossible. Believe me" he said.

"Why?" I asked, even more curious now then I was just a few seconds ago.

"I guess I should tell you the story. When I first met your mother her family hated me. Her family expected a lot from her. Her parents expected a lot from her. In college her entire family put a lot of pressure on her to get the top grades in the toughest of classes. If her grades even slipped a little her family got upset. She was expected to be perfect and excel at everything. I, on the other hand, was completely different. I cared more about parties then I did about grades. I was a frat boy-"

"Wait, what?" I just could not imagine my father being that type of guy. A party guy? My father? It didn't make any kind of sense to me.

He just laughed. "Yes, I was. I know that it's kind of hard to believe now, but I was. All I cared about was parties. I didn't care about grades at all. That's why her family didn't like me. I was so far from perfect that they didn't want me near your mother at all, let alone date her. They expected nothing but perfection from your mother and they thought that I would be nothing but a distraction to keep her from reaching that goal. They didn't like mistakes at all"

"But dad you always say that it was okay to make mistakes" I pointed out.

"It is okay to make mistakes. They just didn't realize that. They didn't seem to realize that making mistakes is what makes us all human. It's okay to mistakes. The important thing is that we learn from them. Because learning from your past mistakes is what makes you a wiser person. It's okay to screw up every now and then. Your mother's family thought that I was headed nowhere in life and that's why they didn't want me around her. But look at me now. I have a great job. I have a wonderful daughter that I love very much. Everything turned out okay"

I couldn't help but to hug him and give him a kiss on the cheek. I really did have an amazing father even if he was just a bit too overprotective at times.

"So what happened?" I asked, hoping that he would continue the story.

"Your mother told me a very big family secret and they grew to dislike me even more-"

"Wait what secret?" I asked him.

"I can't tell you" he answered.

"Why not?" I questioned, even more curious now.

"Honey you wouldn't believe me if I told you. So please don't ask. Anyway, they grew to dislike me even more just because I knew their secret. They didn't think that I was trustworthy. They were also angry at your mother for revealing that secret to me. Eventually it became to much for your mother. The whole situation was very stressful for her. So she came to me asking if we could run away together. So that's what we did. We ran away. Then a year later you were born. I haven't heard from your mother's family since we ran away. Honestly, I'm not even sure how I would react if we ever did meet them. How would I explain to them that your mother disappeared?"

"I guess I don't know" was all that I could say.

"anyway do you want to eat lunch?" dad asked me.

"No thanks dad, I had McDonald's with my friends-"

"You had what?!" my dad shouted, clearly upset.

Did I mention that my dad was obsessed with healthy eating? Well he is. He doesn't allow me to eat anything that's processed or anything that has to much sugar or sodium in it. He only wants me to eat the freshest and healthiest food possible. He gets upset when I eat anything with too much grease in it.

"Dad, it was only a cheeseburger and some fries-"

"You know that I don't want you eating any of that stuff Grace" dad said. "It's bad for you-"

"Dad a little bit of grease and sodium is not going to kill me. My friends eat this stuff all the time and nothing ever happens to them"

Dad sighed heavily. "Please tell me that you at least remembered to take your vitamins" he had a pleading look in his eyes. He really did tend to worry too much.

"Yes dad, I did"

My father was the type of man that overreacted to everything. He worried about me way too much. That's why I never told him about the chest pains that I get sometimes. Mainly it happens after horse riding, but it's happened other times as well. Whenever I told him about any kind of chest pain he would overreact by taking me to the doctor the very same day, plus he would have the doctors run all kinds of tests on me. That's why I just stopped telling him about it. I mean, the pain was never that bad.

I loved my dad, but he worried way too much for my liking.

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