Chrome
Full summary: She's a Georgia Peach with a bitter taste in her mouth and a need to find who she was not who she is. She's on the run to California. Will the boy she meets there help her find the girl she was? They're from two different worlds. What happens when two different worlds collide, again?
AN: This is just something I've doing. Chapter one here is all that is done and ready to go but I'll post it up as I get it written. Just don't count on it being too fast. ;) I likely have you all trained to that now anyway. I know, I'm horrible. And I will update RIDE someday, I just have writer's block for it right now and no time for my other stories either so it's the one that has sort of fallen by the weigh side. Let me know what you think....
Chapter 1
The day was hot, as days in Georgia often were. The road was long and winding as it trailed off toward the horizon. The scenery was bland. The yellow line down the centre of the snaking tarmac was winding lazily off into the distance over the hills.
The car was red with a chrome grill and white wall tires on shiny wire wheels. It flew down a two lane road out of Atlanta at about 100 mph under the midday sun. A red Chevelle SS convertible, the top down, '400 turbo' transmission in third, exhaust pouring out of the dual tailpipes as the driver ran out of town.
She'd picked the car for two reasons. Reason one was because it was as far from what her parents would pick for her as she could get. Reason two was because she'd been able to see herself in the chrome grill the way she knew she could be and not the way she was in that moment.
She was sick of her life and ready to make a new one for herself.
She was on a mission.
A mission to remember the girl she had been and forget the woman she had become. She didn't like the woman much but she remembered the girl with fondness. The girl had known how to have fun. The girl had often lived in her own world and had been all the better for it. The woman was uptight and spent a lot of time angry. The girl saw the woman had her reasons, but that didn't mean the girl had to like it.
She was from the coast of Georgia, where her family owned a large plantation and grew peaches and cotton. They were wealthy, but of course a true Belle didn't talk of such things. She'd become a true southern belle not by choice but out of necessity.
She'd never lived the ladies lifestyle. It had never been her style. She'd grown up climbing their peach trees and wearing Levis. She'd never enjoyed belonging to 'the club' or hosting cotillions.
She had never wanted to marry rich or do most of the other things her parents had planned for her.
Then in the 10th grade she'd fallen hard for a boy from the next plantation over. Her parents had approved. The young man in question was from a 'good' family.
That meant they had money.
Being a good southern girl she'd held out against having sex with him when he'd pressured her. Good girls didn't do that till they were married. He'd eventually won her over and for a time she was happy with him.
In time she'd found out he wasn't the person she'd thought he was but by that time she'd ended up pregnant at only 17.
As soon as her parents and his found out they forced a wedding on the two children who'd managed to create another child between them. Neither of them wanted to be married.
They were too young, too unsure of what they wanted out of life.
All her parents knew was it wouldn't do for her to have a child without a husband and they'd hoped that the boy would become her husband ever since she'd started dating him anyway. It would be a case of the two wealthiest and oldest families in the area uniting.
It hadn't been long after her marriage that her new husband had started to get violent with her. The way he'd been was a façade; he revealed his true colors as soon as the 'honeymoon' was over.
It seemed he resented the loss of his freedom so much he was willing to take it out on his new wife. It didn't seem to matter to him that she was two months pregnant at the time. He'd hit her whenever the enormity of his life got to be too much for him to deal with.
Then when she was 6 months pregnant he was arguing with her for wanting to go out and see her friends. He'd done his best to keep her confined to their house because he, in his childish mindset, thought his beautiful young wife was fat and ugly while she was growing thick with his child and he didn't want any of his friends to see what she looked like.
His attitude didn't help her fragile self esteem any either. She was already upset about her growing belly. At 17 she was too young to really comprehend what was happening to her mind or her body as the hormones took over and the growing child swelled out her formerly flat stomach and small breasts.
So she fought back for the first time since things had gotten so bad. She'd been getting ready to go, without his permission. They fought. It was the worst, loudest fight they'd ever had. It ended when he slapped her across the mouth.
With a hand to her cheek in shock she stared at him with her blue eyes filling with tears. She didn't know why the fact that things were so far from right had just hit her in that moment but they had. They hit her like a run away freight train and she turned and ran from the room, seeking only to escape for awhile. She'd go to see her friends and if he didn't like it then that was just tough for him.
He caught her at the top of the stairs and grabbed her arm. She spun around and said something childish and angry to him. She was, after all, not much more than an angry child in a situation she never should have been placed in.
He took exception to what she'd said, as she'd known he would. He released her arm and shoved her backward with an angry curse. She steadied herself with one step back and thought she was fine but then she lost her balance once more. Only this time there was no step for her to catch herself on and she fell backwards down the stairs.
It was a sickening feeling to fly head over feet over and over down the stairs. She passed out from the pain as she lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs while her husband cried out how he was sorry and called 911. She knew things weren't right in the moment before she slipped into unconsciousness, and she wondered if they ever would be right again.
She woke up several hours later in the hospital, wearing one of their cheap gowns with several machines making sure she was still alive and two catheters pumping fluids into her veins.
She knew by the look on the faces of the family around her that the news would not be good.
She'd lost the baby they told her. The fall had caused her to go into labour and the baby had been too undeveloped to survive. They'd done all they could to save the little girl but it hadn't been enough.
For the first few hours she was inconsolable. The first thing she did was send her husband and his family out of her room. Her family assumed it was because of the loss of the child. And while there was sadness in her for the life of the baby daughter she'd never know the tears were because she was glad.
Glad she wouldn't be a teenage mother, glad not to have something tying her to the man whom she hated, who had killed their child and could have killed her.
She got out of the hospital a few days later and told his family and hers she wanted a divorce. She felt no reason to stay with a man she hated when there was not going to be a child.
Her soon to be ex husband looked relieved. Both sets of parents looked horrified. Divorce was just something a nice southern girl didn't think about, let alone talk about or do. She waited till she was 18 and just did it herself.
Her parents told her if she went through with it she was as good as dead to them and she took them to heart. She maxed out all her ex husbands credit cards and used the money to buy her current automobile and figured the rest would be travelling money.
Having grown up on the Atlantic coast she'd always wanted to see the pacific. She turned the car toward California and put it in drive.
She didn't know what was waiting for her in the west, but it couldn't be worse when what she was leaving in the east.
Cerise 'Cherry' Jade Everett took the tie out of her hair and let the wind run its fingers through it as it rushed over the windshield and through the open windows as she sped down the blacktop with the top down.
Things were looking up already.
Full summary: She's a Georgia Peach with a bitter taste in her mouth and a need to find who she was not who she is. She's on the run to California. Will the boy she meets there help her find the girl she was? They're from two different worlds. What happens when two different worlds collide, again?
AN: This is just something I've doing. Chapter one here is all that is done and ready to go but I'll post it up as I get it written. Just don't count on it being too fast. ;) I likely have you all trained to that now anyway. I know, I'm horrible. And I will update RIDE someday, I just have writer's block for it right now and no time for my other stories either so it's the one that has sort of fallen by the weigh side. Let me know what you think....
Chapter 1
The day was hot, as days in Georgia often were. The road was long and winding as it trailed off toward the horizon. The scenery was bland. The yellow line down the centre of the snaking tarmac was winding lazily off into the distance over the hills.
The car was red with a chrome grill and white wall tires on shiny wire wheels. It flew down a two lane road out of Atlanta at about 100 mph under the midday sun. A red Chevelle SS convertible, the top down, '400 turbo' transmission in third, exhaust pouring out of the dual tailpipes as the driver ran out of town.
She'd picked the car for two reasons. Reason one was because it was as far from what her parents would pick for her as she could get. Reason two was because she'd been able to see herself in the chrome grill the way she knew she could be and not the way she was in that moment.
She was sick of her life and ready to make a new one for herself.
She was on a mission.
A mission to remember the girl she had been and forget the woman she had become. She didn't like the woman much but she remembered the girl with fondness. The girl had known how to have fun. The girl had often lived in her own world and had been all the better for it. The woman was uptight and spent a lot of time angry. The girl saw the woman had her reasons, but that didn't mean the girl had to like it.
She was from the coast of Georgia, where her family owned a large plantation and grew peaches and cotton. They were wealthy, but of course a true Belle didn't talk of such things. She'd become a true southern belle not by choice but out of necessity.
She'd never lived the ladies lifestyle. It had never been her style. She'd grown up climbing their peach trees and wearing Levis. She'd never enjoyed belonging to 'the club' or hosting cotillions.
She had never wanted to marry rich or do most of the other things her parents had planned for her.
Then in the 10th grade she'd fallen hard for a boy from the next plantation over. Her parents had approved. The young man in question was from a 'good' family.
That meant they had money.
Being a good southern girl she'd held out against having sex with him when he'd pressured her. Good girls didn't do that till they were married. He'd eventually won her over and for a time she was happy with him.
In time she'd found out he wasn't the person she'd thought he was but by that time she'd ended up pregnant at only 17.
As soon as her parents and his found out they forced a wedding on the two children who'd managed to create another child between them. Neither of them wanted to be married.
They were too young, too unsure of what they wanted out of life.
All her parents knew was it wouldn't do for her to have a child without a husband and they'd hoped that the boy would become her husband ever since she'd started dating him anyway. It would be a case of the two wealthiest and oldest families in the area uniting.
It hadn't been long after her marriage that her new husband had started to get violent with her. The way he'd been was a façade; he revealed his true colors as soon as the 'honeymoon' was over.
It seemed he resented the loss of his freedom so much he was willing to take it out on his new wife. It didn't seem to matter to him that she was two months pregnant at the time. He'd hit her whenever the enormity of his life got to be too much for him to deal with.
Then when she was 6 months pregnant he was arguing with her for wanting to go out and see her friends. He'd done his best to keep her confined to their house because he, in his childish mindset, thought his beautiful young wife was fat and ugly while she was growing thick with his child and he didn't want any of his friends to see what she looked like.
His attitude didn't help her fragile self esteem any either. She was already upset about her growing belly. At 17 she was too young to really comprehend what was happening to her mind or her body as the hormones took over and the growing child swelled out her formerly flat stomach and small breasts.
So she fought back for the first time since things had gotten so bad. She'd been getting ready to go, without his permission. They fought. It was the worst, loudest fight they'd ever had. It ended when he slapped her across the mouth.
With a hand to her cheek in shock she stared at him with her blue eyes filling with tears. She didn't know why the fact that things were so far from right had just hit her in that moment but they had. They hit her like a run away freight train and she turned and ran from the room, seeking only to escape for awhile. She'd go to see her friends and if he didn't like it then that was just tough for him.
He caught her at the top of the stairs and grabbed her arm. She spun around and said something childish and angry to him. She was, after all, not much more than an angry child in a situation she never should have been placed in.
He took exception to what she'd said, as she'd known he would. He released her arm and shoved her backward with an angry curse. She steadied herself with one step back and thought she was fine but then she lost her balance once more. Only this time there was no step for her to catch herself on and she fell backwards down the stairs.
It was a sickening feeling to fly head over feet over and over down the stairs. She passed out from the pain as she lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs while her husband cried out how he was sorry and called 911. She knew things weren't right in the moment before she slipped into unconsciousness, and she wondered if they ever would be right again.
She woke up several hours later in the hospital, wearing one of their cheap gowns with several machines making sure she was still alive and two catheters pumping fluids into her veins.
She knew by the look on the faces of the family around her that the news would not be good.
She'd lost the baby they told her. The fall had caused her to go into labour and the baby had been too undeveloped to survive. They'd done all they could to save the little girl but it hadn't been enough.
For the first few hours she was inconsolable. The first thing she did was send her husband and his family out of her room. Her family assumed it was because of the loss of the child. And while there was sadness in her for the life of the baby daughter she'd never know the tears were because she was glad.
Glad she wouldn't be a teenage mother, glad not to have something tying her to the man whom she hated, who had killed their child and could have killed her.
She got out of the hospital a few days later and told his family and hers she wanted a divorce. She felt no reason to stay with a man she hated when there was not going to be a child.
Her soon to be ex husband looked relieved. Both sets of parents looked horrified. Divorce was just something a nice southern girl didn't think about, let alone talk about or do. She waited till she was 18 and just did it herself.
Her parents told her if she went through with it she was as good as dead to them and she took them to heart. She maxed out all her ex husbands credit cards and used the money to buy her current automobile and figured the rest would be travelling money.
Having grown up on the Atlantic coast she'd always wanted to see the pacific. She turned the car toward California and put it in drive.
She didn't know what was waiting for her in the west, but it couldn't be worse when what she was leaving in the east.
Cerise 'Cherry' Jade Everett took the tie out of her hair and let the wind run its fingers through it as it rushed over the windshield and through the open windows as she sped down the blacktop with the top down.
Things were looking up already.