Love Lies In The Eyes | Paul Lahote

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For the last fourteen years, Arizona has been the home of Vanessa Swan. The state, which was constantly covered in heat to where her pale skin would crinkle with burns and was possibly drier than the entirety of the Sahara Desert, was a place that she never grew to love all that much. Sure, she found herself thanking the place for helping her grow up until the age she was at now, nearly sixteen-years-old, but it was never her style.

She wasn't the type of person to enjoy laying out back to gain a tan that she could flaunt by wearing shorts and tank tops. Never did she relish the sun and from the burns adorning her arms and stomach, she knew it didn't like her that much either.

In her younger years, on the rare occurrence when she would head to Washington to visit her father, Charlie, she could remember loving the state. Up there, it was always raining or snowing, and more often than not, her father would have to haul her indoors and keep her there in order to not find her soaking wet from running around outside.

She missed Washington dearly and when the chance was offered for her to return, she accepted it immediately. In a matter of hours, Vanessa had belongings packed for her trip which both amused her mother and hurt her mother. She could understand why as the mother and daughter did have a rocky relationship. Part of it could be blamed on Vanessa finally arriving in her teenage years and developing a personality that made her question her mother a lot more than accepting her. The other part could also be blamed on Vanessa always placing blame on Renee for the reason she rarely saw her father and therefore, lacking a great relationship with him.

Charlie wasn't a man to express his feelings all that well, but Vanessa knew he was always hurt by what Renee had done. Should they have stayed together? No, because Vanessa knew how wild her mother was, and sticking with someone like Charlie wouldn't last forever. However, should her mother made more of an effort to bring them together still? In Vanessa's eyes, absolutely.

Tossing her black, Jansport backpack into the backseat, Vanessa finds herself gazing at her old home. Her mother and step-father, Phil, were leaving Arizona too in order to fulfill his dreams as a baseball player. The teenager never had that much of a strong relationship with him, but she appreciated what he had done for them all.

"Missing it already?" Her mother asks as she stands beside her daughter, glancing from the house to her. The redheaded women wore a tender smile. "The new homeowners will know we were once here by how much you girls put your personality in the house."

Vanessa wasn't the only daughter of Renee's, she had an older sister. Isabella Swan, but she preferred the name Bella. The Swan sisters were very much alike in terms of appearance as they took a majority of it from their father. Both girls have long, dark brown hair and equally dark eyes that many dubbed to be doll-like. They were short in height with Bella just standing an inch taller than her sister, but growing up, Vanessa did tower over her at one point.

Yet, they differed in personality. Bella resembled their father a lot as she kept quiet, keeping herself reserved, but if you were able to crack her open enough to see what her soul was hiding, she would become Renee. Sassy and a klutz. Vanessa, at times, could be like Charlie with her quiet demeanor, but more often than not she was the one to express her feelings out to the world without a second thought. A wild spirit, as Phil would call her.

"I'm sure they will," Vanessa mumbles, sticking her hands in the pockets of her light-colored mom jeans. "Where is Bella anyway?"

A red bun bounces as Renee twists her head back, a freckled finger pointing in the direction of an open field near the house. There, Vanessa could spot her sister trying to locate what she could only guess was a cactus to take to Washington as a reminder of their childhood home.