Prologue
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
So goes the story of my life. My life has been anything but ordinary. I grew up a normal kid in an upper- middleclass family. My dad was a lawyer and my mom was a doctor. Which meant lots of money. Which in turn meant, I got everything I wanted. I was never spoiled though. Oh no. My parents taught me that to be successful in the world I had to work hard at it. Nothing was ever handed to you. I put that to the test in saving up for my horse. Most girls go through a "horse crazy" phase at least once in their lives. Mine set in when I was fourteen. One of my best friends in high school had horses. I was in love the moment I saw them. So my goal was to buy and off the track racehorse. I worked odd jobs for anyone who needed anything done. I did everything from washing cars to catching pigs. Catching a pig is not something I want to relieve. Boy those things can kick. Anyway, after a year of saving I got her, my dream horse. Her name was Belladonna. What a perfect name for my lady. And what a lady she was. She had an almost regal air about her. She would have been royalty had she been human. In the horse world though, she was blue-blooded royalty. Her grandsire was Seattle Slew, something much to be said in the racehorse world. After I had raised ten thousand dollars, we flew from our home in San Antonio, Texas to Kentucky. That's where I first met Belle. She was perfect in every way. I've had her ever since.
Back to my life now. So I had a pretty normal life during my grade- school days. I got good grades, but not by chance. I studied hard every night.
Then came middle school. It wasn't much different than grade school. The only different thing was that we changed classes every day. Which wasn't all that difficult in all reality. Middle school flew by.
High school was when things got all flipped around. I met my soul mate of best friends there, Tanya. She was the pretty girl that no one seemed to like. So I befriended her. Then Joey joined our little circle. He was my first boyfriend. We broke up after three years. Quit a while to be going out. Pretty normal though. Tanya convinced me to play soccer my sophomore year and I agreed, for her sake. She was good. She'd been playing soccer forever. During tryouts though, I nailed everything from passes to dribbling to shooting. I nailed it all and I'd never even played before. I was stunned. I was varsity teams best player.
Then came graduation. That was a day of tears and hugs and pieces of paper. Tanya and I had been accepted into Harvard along with Joey. We were studying to become doctors. I decided to play soccer on the side.
My first semester at Harvard was great. I loved the countryside and the beautiful buildings of the ivy-league college. I got to bring Belle with me, which was extremely comforting. It was like bringing home with me. My first spring break in college was one I won't ever forget. Tanya, Joey, and I went to Cancun with some of our friends. I got so drunk one night I couldn't remember a thing. Then next morning I woke up to find a tattoo on my back. It was a pretty heart design. Tanya was just as drunk and Joey didn't even know what we had been doing.
When we got back, my whole life seemed to stop. My parents had died in a horrific car accident. My whole world came crashing down on me. I was suffocating. Blackness shrouded my once happy life. There was nothing left to live for. The only thing that kept me going was Tanya and Belle. Tanya spent every second with me. She was my replacement sun. And so begins the story of the greatest summer of my life.