Buried (Bailey Roberts Trilogy #1) Editing

01: Hello World pt. 1 [3rd Draft]

A/N: I was only going to post a few chapters of the 4th draft, so from here on it's 3rd draft from the beginning!! 

3rd Draft edited by M.A. Trev

Chapter One: Hello World Pt. 1

1:00 pm. Friday. April 16th, 2010.

Broken like I'm never gonna heal.

It wasn't what the song was about, but the Lady Antebellum lyric stuck. It became an unintentional mantra. Reminding her of what they'd left behind, of who they'd left behind.

The leathery smell of 'new car' imprinted on sixteen-year-old Bailey Roberts' mind as the first day of her new life without her father. She would always hate Mondays, the day things changed forever, but now she would hate Fridays too. It would no longer signify the end of a grueling school week, but the beginning of an unwanted change.

Bailey sighed and the gust of air ruffled her chocolate brown bangs, causing a tickling sensation across her forehead. Resisting the urge to scratch, she rested her head on the cool glass of the window in the front seat of the fire hydrant colored hybrid. Rows of different crops and live stock flashed by as her mom drove through miles of country. Taking her and Matt, her eleven-year-old brother, away from the home they'd known, away from their father.

And shouldn't she be angry? Not about the move, not about the different life, but that it was his fault. His fault! He'd forced it to happen, he'd... Bailey bit her bottom lip to stop the trembling. Her eyes burned with the accumulation of unshed tears. She wouldn't cry, not in front of them.

She supposed it wasn't every day a father got caught with a mother's social enemy in a compromising situation; the cliché of a cliché. Why any self respecting person would cheat to begin with was beyond her.

Derrick Roberts, Bailey's father, had respect for himself and other people. Until he struck rich playing the lottery. He played the game like it was his religion, with the same numbers every time, until Bailey told him to purchase another ticket. He wanted to play his numbers, but she told him to have the machine do it at random. It was the winning ticket and after that day everything changed about him. He went from a loving family man, stuck in an unhappy, but successful car salesman career to a multi-million dollar cheating scumbag. When he won, he promised them everything, but followed through on nothing.

It's funny how money can change priorities, isn't it?

It only took two weeks after receiving the money for him to become unrecognizable to his family. He'd been like a snowball at the top of a frozen hill. Had every opportunity to roll through the pure white snow, but somehow he veered and picked up the yellow snow and all the trash it could manage. Then it smashed into smithereens when her mom found out and decided to leave. Just up and decided for all of them.

Bailey wished she'd been away at college like her older sister Amanda. Maybe then she wouldn't have had to deal with this move to another state. At college she could've been away from these foolish people. At college, she wouldn't have had to see the hurt on her mothers' face when she found out the love of her life was banging his younger secretary.

The subtle buzzing noise and the vibration against her foot, tore Bailey's attention from her thoughts. She glanced at her feet, roughly pushing fingers through her frizzy hair before reaching down into her mother's purse.  Bailey pulled the golden zipper and shuffled the contents around before clamping her hand on the cell phone.