CHAPTER ONE
Brandy Rowe was not the most beautiful girl to look at. But she was in no way an ugly duckling, either. Her cream-white face was always noticeably long, pointed of chin and square of jaw, and cheekbones abnormally high. Her face was decorated with soft features of French, Irish, as well as questionable decent. Her beady eyes were a pale green, starred with thin eyelashes and above them a pair of thin brows. Her hair was a light brown that sometimes had an auburn tint when hit by the sun’s rays. Its length almost reached her chest but was often mistaken as being short because it was so thin.
Her figure was also incredibly thin. Some would say rail-thin. Throughout her life, whoever bothered to comment would often tell her that she needed to eat more. But in truth, as little of an appetite she had, the food she ate was almost always junk food. Pizza, cereal, french fries, cup of noodle ramen, soda, hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, anything that would satisfy her cravings. But despite this, she never gained weight. For a long time she thought it was all those years of cross country and track in High School, but even after all of that was behind her she never gained an ounce. Eventually it was just concluded that she had a metabolism so high that any girl in the world would kill to have it.
When Brandy graduated High School she was the tallest girl in her class, having already reached 5’9” by the time she was fourteen years of age. By then she was very much used to the stares and pointed fingers she would get, especially from younger children. It was hard to miss the tall girl with skintight jeans, a zip-up black sweatshirt, and combat boots. Most girls her age were wearing uggs, colorfully miniskirts or dresses, but that was never her style. She personally preferred to not look like she was trying to attract a mate.
She hadn’t had a lot of experience outside of the small town community she grew up in, having been born and raised in Cricketsburg, a town in the southern regions of Ohio State known mostly for its iron mills and farming agriculture with a population of 5,316. Often dubbed the name “Smalltown, USA.” In this town, summers were blazingly hot, and winters blisteringly cold. It was the kind of town where people frequently waved from their cars at people on the street. A trip to the grocery store could take two hours because you’d strike up a conversation with someone, whether you knew them or not. There were twenty-three churches in the town alone, sometimes it could feel like you’d spot one on every corner. In conclusion, was very much a bubble town. There was no escaping it.
Brandy had never known her real father, and therefore was always unaware of her entire background. She was raised alone by her mother, Lillian, who worked very hard to provide for the both of them, and who didn’t seem to mind not having a man to provide for her. But things changed when Brandy was eight and her mother married a political man named Robert Hancock who at the time was running to be mayor of the town. Soon after they married Brandy was adopted by him as well. She was pretty sure Lilian had just married him for security, and he married her to make his campaign look good, but there was never any hard evidence of this. Besides her mother constantly saying, “Things will be better now.”
Until Robert came into their lives, things were actually fine for Brandy. She didn’t mind not having a father figure. In fact she loved it being just the two of them, and she enjoyed the small town life that she had. She adored her mother. Lillian loved her daughter like two parents would, so Brandy never felt like she was missing out on anything. After they got married, Robert was eventually elected mayor and continued take care of them both, showering them with gifts and as much affection as possible. But eventually, Brandy caught on that it was just for show. She started to notice that the affection was mostly done in public, for everyone to see, and she hated watching her mother blindly go through the marriage and not seem to notice that he was using them both. At least that’s how it appeared to be. Still, Lillian seemed happy, for the most part, and therefore Brandy was never able to muster up the courage to say anything.
In the end Brandy never got the chance to tell her mother how she really felt about Robert. A few years later, Lillian died after a long battle with leukemia. Of course Brandy was devastated and of course it took a long time to come to terms with it. Did Robert notice this? No one can say for sure. But what Brandy did notice was the lies. The lies he told everyone of how he was by Lillian’s side the whole time. How heart broken he was and how he was doing everything he could to look after Brandy during this difficult time. When from her end it was the exact opposite. All he did was work. When her mother was sick he spent more time out of town and hardly spoke of her illness except for when people asked. Even then he didn’t seem to show much emotion. He hardly ever said a word to Brandy from then on either. That’s when she finally knew he was a phony. It made her angry to watch him get all of the affection from others for being such a supporting husband, and to have people tell her that it was so good that he was taking care of her.
As she got older, Brandy concluded that the only reason Robert was in her life anymore was to provide her with a free place to sleep. That and, for the sake of his public image, to make it look like he still cared for his stepdaughter. It finally seemed understood that she would keep quite about the subject from the public and he would not disown her. They would go to a few public events here and there together, she would smile and nod for the public, and she wouldn’t say anything about what a pointless father he was. Still, she was determined to show the world that she could be independent and take care of herself, just like her mother had done.
And here she was now, twenty years of age, finally finishing her sophomore year of college. Community college, that is. For the past four years she had been working odd jobs, part time jobs and eventually full time jobs to in order to afford some kind of education after High School. It is possible that Robert could have helped pay for her tuitions, but he never offered, and quite frankly she preferred it that way. Ever since people told her how lucky she was to be taken care of, all she wanted to do was prove to them that she was just fine taking care of herself, and right now she couldn’t be more proud of how things had turned out so far. She was successfully providing for herself, she was getting the education that she needed, and everything seemed to be turning out the way she wanted. And even better, her best friend, David, was graduating and she couldn’t wait to celebrate with him.
Brandy smiled at herself in the mirror as she finished getting ready that morning. Now that all the pressure of finals, tests and papers were off their shoulders, maybe this would finally be the evening she would confess how she felt about him. She smiled and nodded at herself in the mirror, knowing today was going to be that day. She had already let that kind of opportunity slip from her before and she wasn’t going to let it happen again.
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