Let me start by saying that this is the first story I have ever written. Therefore I honestly believe it is not my best work. Don't get me wrong, it's good if I do say so myself. I've heard from many of you that you enjoyed it, liked it and even loved it, which makes me happier than you could know. All that is to say that my writing has really improved since starting this story (January of 2016) and I can see my progression. I hope you enjoy this, especially after I just dissed my own work!!

I Know Places - taylor swift

Hope Smith woke up on the morning after her high school graduation determined. She knew that her plan may be completely crazy but she was going to follow through with it no matter what. It was the first Saturday of the summer and she had a tradition to uphold even if the rest of the family could care less.

Ever since she could remember, the family would pack up their car, or van or truck, whatever her dad was driving at the time, and head to the central California coast for a weekend of camping. "Let's beat this heat" her dad would say and they would begin the four hour drive from their Southern California neighborhood to the same camping site near Morro Bay for 14 years, and Hope loved every minute of that trip.

It was trees, crisp mornings and ocean; her favorite scenery. Hope's earliest memories were of standing on the shore, holding her mom's hand and looking out at the ocean while the sea breeze blew through her hair. Her dad had even snapped a picture which Hope kept in a frame in her room. She loved to look at that picture during the year as a reminder of what she could look forward to as soon as school was out. When she was younger, it was just her parents and her. They would hunt for sand dollars and visit aquariums. Her dad would sometimes take her out on a boat to fish with him. Then when she was six, her brother came along and the family of four continued to enjoy the surrounding nature, although they slowed down a bit while he was young.

Hope loved being near the water. It always brought her a sense of calm, peace and joy. This was her escape, her chance to reflect, and a time to escape her worries and frustrations. The entire area was her sanctuary. She could always rely on this trip to renew her spirit and ease her anxieties, which she had more than enough of. That is until last year.

Her parents had gotten a divorce at the start of her junior year. They never fought much, or talked much for that matter. She and her younger brother, Brad, were stunned when her parents told them that Dad was moving out. Everything had seemed the same; peaceful, calm, normal. Then one night her parents sat them down and said they had some news. Yeah, some news alright. Hope didn't bother asking questions but Brad did. He mostly asked why, which frankly she wanted the answers for also. Her mom just said that sometimes when you got older, life became too busy to make time for your spouse and they just grew apart. Neither parent had a bad word to say about the other but, it was better if they lived apart.

What a load of crap. If there isn't anything bad about your husband or wife, why get a divorce? Hope felt like her parents were lazy, and selfish, and couldn't spend the time doing whatever they needed to do to keep their family together. But Hope kept that to herself. She decided that her opinion wasn't going to change anything, so why stir the pot by bringing it up.

That's mostly what Hope did, keep things to herself. She was shy, which some seemed to take as stuck up. She was uncomfortable around small groups of people, even if she knew them. She would rather be up on stage in front of thousands of people than be in a room with two. Small talk wasn't her thing. She didn't know what questions to ask and usually felt like she was tripping over her own tongue when she was talking to someone new. She had no confidence in herself at all in social situations.

Hope never felt like enough. She knew she was smart, she got decent grades, but she wasn't smart enough to be in the brainy crowd. She was pretty, but not pretty enough to get a second glance from a cute boy, or any boy for that matter. Her hair was a dark shade of brown with reddish highlights during the summer. It was wavy and sometimes frizzy, so she kept it long, just past her shoulders, in order to put it in a ponytail when it wouldn't behave. She had deep brown eyes and skin too pale for her liking. She was naturally thin, and naturally short (thanks mom and dad).

She was a good actor, but not good enough to get the lead parts in the school plays. She was usually in the background, much like she felt in real life. It didn't bother her that much, her nervous butterflies would probably make it impossible to be the lead in a play anyway. How could she even win a lead roll to begin with? She was just average in every way. She didn't stand out from the crowd. Hope felt like vanilla ice cream: just okay, nothing special.

During the school year that her parents split up, actually it was on a Wednesday afternoon as she was writing a report on the famous female surfer, Bethany Hamilton, it suddenly occurred to Hope that her family wouldn't be going on their camping trip. Most high schoolers would be glad not to go camping with the family, more time for friends, right? But Hope was devastated. She needed this escape, she ached for it. Not only was she upset that she wouldn't be able to have that peace, but this was the first real change caused by the divorce. The fact that there would be no camping trip meant that the family really wasn't whole anymore, in a way that nothing else had demonstrated to her since her dad left.

Her dad, James, hadn't been around the house much before he moved out. He worked a lot of hours during the week and spent the weekends at his brother's house watching any and every sporting event on t.v. "I need to unwind" was his retort as he strolled out the door. It hadn't always been like that. He used to play ball with Brad, help Hope with her homework. But little by little, he was less and less available to the family.

Her mom didn't seem too upset by his absence before the divorce. She just went about her day doing whatever she wanted to do: getting her nails done, having lunch with her girlfriends, shopping. That also had not always been the case. Her mom was a Girl Scout leader and little league team Mom. She helped out in their classrooms. But as her dad spent less time at home, her mom found her own interests and a job. She worked part time as an assistant to an interior designer. She was always working on these really expensive homes and doing what she loved most, shopping. It brought in a decent amount of income for her. They never seemed to have money concerns anyway. Her dad made good money doing something in the tech industry, Hope never really understood what it was. The family wasn't rich, just comfortable. Vanilla.

When Hope asked her mom about the camping trip, she just said, "oh honey, I think it would be so much nicer to just relax at home. Camping is so much work, it was really your father's thing" although it hadn't seemed like just her dad's "thing". The whole family looked forward to it all year. Her mom had seemed to have a good time, for the most part, when they went. She wasn't as into the fishing as her dad was, but she liked to relax in the outdoors. At least Hope thought she did.

She figured maybe her dad could still take her and Brad. When she talked to him about it, he told her "not this year, kid. Uncle Joe and I have tickets to the Angels game that weekend. Big game against the A's, really excited." Her dad did like sports but she never thought he would choose a game over time with his kids. Even though that's what he had just done.

So that year, they didn't go camping. They didn't go anywhere. Her mom went to downtown L.A. with her boss to a big gala, and she and Brad hung out at home. Watching the game on t.v. that her dad was at. Eating vanilla ice cream.

That was the moment she made her decision, sitting on the couch with a spoon of ice cream in her mouth. Next year she was going camping, even if she had to go alone. Although she really didn't like the idea of camping by herself, she would do it. At the time, Brad was all for it. Hope had made plans to take him to their traditional camping spot right after school was out, their usual weekend. She would be driving then and maybe even have her own car. She could drive them up there and set things up, with his help if she could get him to pitch in. She knew it would work out fine.

But as they got closer to this summer, he was less interested in hanging out with his sister and more interested in skateboarding with his friends. He was spending less time at home and had started having that teenage attitude, even though he was only twelve. Hope didn't think she could stomach a whole weekend alone with him anymore.

She tried again to get her mom or dad to go again. No luck. They had similar excuses as the last time she tried. Her frustration with them was at an all time high, but she kept it all locked up inside. She asked a couple of friends if they wanted to go with her on an "amazing" weekend camp out but none of them were really interested. Even her closest friend, Angela, thought she was a little nuts to want to go camping 4 hours away. Her mom had put her foot down at the mention of Hope going alone. "Too dangerous. These days there are a lot of crazy people out there" she said.

So Hope did something she never thought she would do, lied.

Its not that she wanted to lie, but she wanted to go as much as she had ever wanted anything in her life. She wasn't even quite sure why. Something about that place called to her, drew her in. She didn't know if it was the ocean, which she had always loved, or the weather. She wasn't sure if something about the way the trees reached into the cloud cover, the way the town was so isolated from the others around it or the quiet atmosphere. She just knew that she had to go this time. And she felt like there was a reason pulling her to it. It was a pull that she couldn't ignore, like a voice calling her name. She had to get there no matter what it took.

"Mom, Angela said she would go with me. Her parents are cool with it" She lied with as straight a face as she could make. Her mom wasn't looking at her anyway, she was busy texting someone, so she couldn't really tell what face Hope was making.

Now that she bought it, Hope had to figure out how to go camping on her own.

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Author's notes:

So what do you think of Hope so far, too whiney? Don't give up on her yet! She is starting a journey to a new life, one that will change her whole outlook.

Notes on the chapter title: I Know Places

This song is about a couple trying to escape prying eyes and keep their romance from being picked apart. As you can tell, this chapter has NOTHING to do with that! :-) I was going with the bigger idea of a "safe place" as the campsite and surrounding town has been for Hope. This is her "place" of that safety.

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