The Flaws We Bear

01

D A V I N A

•••
chapter one

three hours earlier...
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I hated this.

The overwhelming crowds, the bright lights, and the loud cheers.

It was all too much.

But all I could do was smile. Smile and look pretty for the flashing cameras.

Bethany made sure to remind me of that every five minutes. Her cherry-red lips pressed thin as she scolded me from the side of the stage and mimicked a bright smile.

I bit my tongue and curved my lips into what I hoped was a genuine smile. The cameras flashed and blinded me as the paparazzi became excited at our arrival.

Or rather yet the arrival of my father, Senator McClane.

I was just a pretty little accessory that could be used to further my father's campaign.

Everybody loved a family man. Especially a widowed one who lost his wife in a tragic accident just four months prior. His numbers had exploded the following weeks after the accident and Bethany made sure the paparazzi caught plenty of staged moments of my father caring for me in the hospital.

His opponent hadn't stood a chance.

My father waved, a handsome smile curving his lips as the women in the crowd began to swoon. You'd have thought he was the one working to cure cancer with all the love he was receiving.

As he stepped up to the podium, I took my place by his side and gave a few waves of my own. Coos and awes sounded from the crowd as I smiled and played with my hair.

I felt six instead of sixteen.

I must've looked it too in the getup Bethany had forced me into this morning.

A navy blue tweed Jackie dress with gold buttons sewn into the sides paired with white tights and black flats. My golden brown hair was lightly curled and pulled back to expose my forehead.

    I was a perfectly prim senator's daughter.

    It was the part I had to play.

    Smile and wave.

Bethany had even insisted that I let a few tears fall when my father got to the part in his speech that talked about my mother and the grief we were facing together at home.

We were grieving all right, but not together.

He refused.

Said I reminded him too much of her which was odd considering I looked nothing like her and everything like him.

My mom was a bombshell with bouncing blonde curls, a curvaceous body that any woman would be jealous of, and a heart-shaped face that perfectly suited her. But she never flaunted it. She was conservative and preferred to stay indoors, but she had fallen in love with my dad and was willing to give up her comfort to make his dreams come true.

Becoming a senator.

That was his main focus then and even more so now.

I never saw him anymore. I couldn't remember the last time I had spent time with him that wasn't connected to his campaign.

He loved me in his own way, but he never loved me like he loved her. After her death, he shut down and put all his focus into the polls and I was forgotten until I was needed to be a trophy daughter.