Don't Fall in Love

Chapter One - Arrival

Spending three months living with my dad and his new family is not at all what I imagined for my Summer vacation, but it's what's about to happen. I haven't spent a Summer with my dad since I was old enough to decide that I didn't want to spend three months with him. A Summer with my dad meant, being home alone all day, eating fast food when he got home, then going to sleep, I didn't enjoy it. Even now, I doubt I'd enjoy that routine, but my mom thought it was important for me to spend one last Summer with him before I went off to college. I was reluctant at first, but then I found out that he remarried, so things might be different.

Charlotte Rivers, a successful 34 year old writer, with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, and she looks a lot younger than her age. She's my dads new wife, I've looked her up tons of times since he called and told me that they eloped. While she's beautiful and young, my father is 45 and his only pride is his candy store "Enrique's Dulces", he's not that handsome either. I truly don't understand what they could possibly have in common, but as long as they're happy, I can't complain.

Estrella Martinez, a 38 year old well respected lawyer, with gorgeous black hair, and beautiful hazel eyes, the woman who divorced my dad. I've asked my mom multiple times why they divorced and she says the same thing each time, "I dreamt too much, and he didn't dream enough". She usually tells me that when I'm older I'll understand a lot more, but I do understand. While my mom wanted to open up her own law firm and recruit dozens of new lawyers (which she did, four years after their divorce), my father wanted to run a candy store and keep the business between the three of us.

I don't blame my mom for divorcing him, he was holding her back from accomplishing what she truly wanted, I just wish she would've tried a bit harder when it came to me visiting him. I wish she would've pushed me harder to have a relationship with him, because I'm about to spend three months with someone I hardly know.

My mom says I take after my dad, with light brown hair, and green eyes, she says that's what she found attractive in him, his light features. On the outside I may look like him, but on the inside, I'm more like my mom. I have big dreams, I hope to become a software engineer, live in a big city, and one day write a novel. I hope to fall in love with someone who's as ambitious as me, I don't need someone who's going to hold me back. While my mom says I share the same light features as my dad, others say I look exactly like my mom but with light brown hair and colored eyes, which I take as a compliment, because she's gorgeous.

Hating my dad has never been an option, I don't know him well enough to hate him, but I also don't know him well enough to love or care for him. Growing up, my mom never talked down on him, if anything she spoke highly of him. She talked about how brave he is for opening a candy store because it could easily fail (his is actually very successful), she justified the boring vacations with him by saying that he worked too much to try and do something fun, and she always talked about what a great husband he was in the beginning. So like I said, I don't hate him, I just don't know him.

According to my GPS, I arrived at his house, for a second I thought it was a mistake, this house is far too big and elegant to be his. He always said that a big house is useless, that having more than 3-4 bedrooms is an exageration. I slowly got out of my car and walked up to the front step, there was a doormat that said "Beltran-Rivers Residence", so I guess I am at the right house. Before knocking I fixed my ponytail and looked at myself in a small mirror I keep in my purse, my makeup still looks good as ever. I waited patiently as I heard someone frantically run to the front door, as if my arrival were a big deal.

"Oh my gosh! Hi Aurora! I'm Charlotte, come on in." I was immediately greeted by a tall white woman, she pulled me in for a hug, suffocating me with her scent, the smell of roses. She let me go after a few seconds.