~~Young~~

Chapter Two

   Of course the fact that the Senator was entertaining a certain clientele while on vacation in the tropics and wasn’t in the city- never mind the country- would make her presence in the house an anomaly, but not an impossibility.

   At least that was the theory because there were several factors that could negate that quickly. The two biggest? One that she didn’t drive there-not that she could- so there was no car in the driveway and two, she was bag less. Both a little suspicious when the college she attended was not on break and the five hour car ride into Vancouver from Kelowna wasn’t exactly an on the whim kind of thing, especially on a weeknight.

   But Sera had earned a name amongst her family for her tendencies to not behave according to expectations, and for her to break into her Uncle’s otherwise empty house wouldn’t raise any real alarms.  To her family she was the black sheep, the one who wouldn’t conform to their fake sense of righteousness and for her to break another law was merely an annoyance. Not at the offense itself, because coming from a family such as hers laws meant nothing, but it would bring the wrong kind of attention to their otherwise picture perfect family.

   Ah, but pictures can lie, can’t they?

   As the child of a federal crown attorney- just as shady as her Uncle- and future senate hopeful for a father and a materialist socialite of a mother, Sera was never given the opportunity to be jaded by it all. Her mother choosing to tell her everything as it was, never even trying to protect Sera from the world, forcing her to grow up quickly. Sera was just an accessory for her mother, like a scarf or a watch. Just another pretty thing for the crowd to oohh and ahh over and to make sure the camera lenses stayed focused on her.

   But maturing at a young age meant Sera also understood all the things that she saw, both the good and the bad. And when she began questioning her parent’s actions they quickly enrolled her in a boarding school, a prestigious one of course so that it all looked legitimate, but one that an entire country away in the States. They were washing their hands of her, a fact they didn’t try to hide. Not once did she ever receive a visit or even a letter from her parents, never was she called home for the holidays by them. The only correspondence she received was her monthly allowance, an expense that the schools themselves encouraged and not something her parents would have done willingly.

   But none of the schools stuck. If she wasn’t running away then she was causing trouble, getting expelled time and time again. She realized very quickly what they were, grooming schools, meant to break kids such as her so they would conform to society’s standards. So they would become good little drones who would take orders without question from their superiors. She wouldn’t be brainwashed, and she fought tooth and nail against their visions of what the future generation should be.

   Realizing that her parents wouldn’t give up, sparing no expense to keep her far away from them or the camera lenses that could catch the behaviors of their out of control child, and tiring of the game Sera eventually settled in one of the schools. Choosing instead to concentrate on her courses knowing her education would do much more for her then rebellion to finally free her family and their appalling ways. Though to her delight, her parents had run out of conditioning institutions, leaving her to spend her teens in the respite that was St. Anthony’s of Killingly, a Catholic school for girls set deep in the woods of Connecticut. She may not have been a believer in God herself, but it was much easier to tolerate the prayers of the nuns then the never ending lessons in proper behavior at her previous schools.

   No, there was no God, because God wouldn’t let children suffer their parent’s intolerance as she had seen so much of in even in her youth. She may have found a way to survive it, but being led to believe that no one loved you could scar a child in a way no wound ever would.