HIYA!!!!! I'm back! (after a not so long break) I am so excited to release this new book! For anyone that is new to my stories, I put in songs to every chapter and mark the area to listen to the song with a <>.

Anyhow, lots of love for all of you.

Darla H

Stella POV

Have you ever had those dreams about falling, just when you are about to hit the ground you wake up? I am not afraid of hitting the ground, I never have been, but what scares me the most is falling. The feeling of uncontrolled motion... that is something that terrifies me the most.

All my life I could remember being in situations that were controlled, neat, wrapped up, even from an early part of my life. Both of my parents were highly educated and handled everything with logic. They quickly taught me to think the same way and now as a 17 year old, I lived by that line of thought. Logic and common sense was my rulebook and I made sure everything in my life reflected that. My whole life was filled with schedules and predictable things that I craved like water.

Even my parents' divorce was practicable. My parents didn't have a terrible break up, it was quite civil actually. I remember having a conversation over dinner about it, they talked as if it was something everyone did, fall out of love. The way they talked about it, made me believe them, thinking that love had its time and it wasn't forever.

I looked at my friends in LA and knew that their parents would fall out of love at one point because that was the predicable thing, just like my father did with my mother. Soon after they divorced, mom stayed in LA and my father went to his hometown to practice law.

I stayed with my mother, of course, the smart, driven university professor for UCLA who I called my role model was the logical person to stay with. I was never very close to my father, so I never missed him when he left. In fact I distanced myself farther as I got into middle school. By then, all summer vacations and winter ski trips ended as I became too busy to take time from my life to visit him and he was too busy to visit me in LA. My father quickly turned into someone more like a distant uncle more than a father, sending cards on my birthdays and Christmas.

So you can only believe the awkward conversation I had with her when she told me about her sabbatical in Ukraine. I will be honest, going to my father's for the two semesters wasn't my first pick, but it was the logical me and sometimes logical ideas weren't the things people wanted to do.

<>

Now I found myself walking down the aisle of some town supermarket, trying to have a conversation that I never thought I would have with a man that was my father in name only.

"So Stella, do you like cereal?" he asked as he stared at all the options to pick from.

I shook my head as I looked at the empty shopping cart. We had been here for 30 minutes already and the cart was still empty. I could see that he was trying, but that didn't make this any better for me. This was the smartest choice but I wished I was with mom instead of the cold Jackson Hole WY. "I am not really a breakfast person," I said to him as I pulled out my phone for the fifth time this shopping trip even though no one had texted me.

"You know, Bec is like that," he said, referring to his wife who I hadn't met.

Her name sent me back to when I got an invite in the mail almost a year ago saying this woman and my father got married. I was shocked by it, but not as shocked as my mother, who took it quite hard for a few days. I never understood if she was mad he never told us or that he had moved on from her. My father never told me he was dating or that he was engaged. It was just as if one day he had a wife, a stepmother to me, who was even more of a stranger than my father. I didn't know the first thing about her, I didn't even know how they met which made her feel even more distant.

"Do you eat cereal?" I asked, realizing that as much as he didn't know me, I didn't know him either. We were both strangers living in the same house and as painful as this was for me, it probably was for him as well.

He shrugged as he looked at the boxes then picked one up and put it back where he found it as if deciding it wasn't good enough. "Used to... Not any more, though. Do you eat Pop tarts?"

I shook my head as I remembered the health kick mom went on about five years ago. She convinced me I should eat just as healthy as her and after some fighting, I agreed.  "Used to."

"How about fruit?"

"For the morning?"

He nodded as he pointed to the fruit options in the produce section.

He was really grasping at straws now to make me feel at home. "Sure. If you get some banana's, I'll eat them," I told him as I watched a smile appear on his face.

"Great. Let's get that."

"Sounds good," I said, as he pulled out his phone to check it.

"Looks like Bec is back from her trip. Let's get these..." he said as he looked at the nearly empty shopping cart. "Bananas then get home."

With a nod, I took the bananas and headed to the checkout with my dad on my heals.

After a short drive, we were back in my father's spacious lavish gated community house. I looked around the all and noticed photos of his wife in the hall with their dog. I couldn't help but feel a bit frustrated when I did not see a photo of myself in the hall. But I reminded myself that since I hadn't been here in at least five years, he wouldn't have many photos of me.

Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself down, then took off my shoes.

"Do you see that photo? That's from when you were here last," dad said as he pointed towards a photo down the hall that looked about five years old.

"Yeah, I remember that," I said as I remembered spending the entire day with him, which was the only day that summer he spent the entire day with me. That photo reminded me of another reason why I stopped coming to visit. He was a workaholic and what was the point of visiting when he was hardly around.

"Come on there, Bec is upstairs," dad said as he walked down the hall. "We will get your bags later. But you will be staying in this room." He pointed to a large room with a queen bed in it.

Besides the bed with fancy bedding, the room remained empty. It was bigger than the master bedroom at my mother's place.

"We can get things to decorate the space if you want. I figured that is something you could do with Bec."

I nodded then followed him down the hall and up the stairs to the main level where the main hosting and living was. I looked around in awe since he didn't have this house last time I visited. It was large with its open floor plan and looked expensive. Quickly my thoughts went to the 1500 square foot house my mother had. That was not small, but this house dwarfed it.

"It's a beautiful house," I said to dad as he kissed his thin, toned, tanned wife on the cheek as she continued to cook something in the stove.

"Well, it's your place too. Make yourself at home," Bec said as she smiled at me. Her smile was warm and welcoming, but it didn't set me at ease. As I looked at the two of them in their house, I couldn't help but feel as if I was intruding on their life somehow.

My mother never remarried after her divorce. She always had some kind of excuse for why she wasn't dating. I never really understood why she chose not to date. A part of me believed it was because she had me and didn't want to make me uncomfortable. But my father, since he didn't have to worry about me, dated tons until he finally committed to the lady in front of me.

"Thank you so much. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Nope. Just take a seat, relax. Hank told me it was a long flight."

I nodded. "It didn't help that they routed my through Denver. It just didn't make sense."

"No that makes little sense at all," she said as she turned to cook again.

For our first-time meeting, the encounter was casual, as if we knew each other for longer. I think her goal was to make her fee approachable, but I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable.

"So what do you think of the little Jackson hole airport?"

"Quaint." It was a fraction of what I was used to. Honestly, everything about this place was a fraction of what I was used to. I grew up in LA my whole life. I was not used to small towns that didn't even have a Trader Joe's.

"Bet you it's a lot different from LAX."

I chuckled. "This whole place differs from LA."

"Ooh, please share. I would love to hear your opinions about the subject."

"Well, for example, everyone dresses differently. Here it's like sporty formal? I didn't even realize that was a thing until I went to the supermarket with dad."

"Sporty formal... that's a new one. Haven't heard that one before. But that's a great way to describe it," she chuckled as dad got out the plates.

"My black skinnies will probably not fit in as well as they did in LA," I frowned as I realized I wouldn't fit in as well as I thought I would.

"I'll be game to take you shopping if you want," Bec said as she moved the pot to the table. "Hank, get the rice please."

He got it obediently and stuck it on the table as I moved to take a seat with them.

"I hope you like lentils and rice. It's an easy meal and after working, this was the best I could do."

My mother wasn't one for cooking so our meals often were basic, but this meal in front of me looked fancier then any of the basic meals my mother made. "It's perfect. Thank you."

"So how was work today?" dad asked as he started dishing up a plate for himself.

"We are flipping the art gallery around so it's been busy today. How was your day?" she asked, then dished herself some food.

Dad shrugged with a frown. "Working on this case where the couples are getting a divorce, but it's messy. It's a headache, honestly. They kept on fighting saying it started with the large wedding they had a year ago."

"It's times like this when I'm glad we eloped a few months back."

I sat back quietly as they talked about their daily schedule and I couldn't help but I was spying on their conversations. I thought staying silent would help not only my mother but my father. I thought this would be a chance to reconnect with a man that I didn't know, but this conversation made me feel more awkward and out of place.

"So Stella, you wouldn't believe what I found out," Bec said as she went for a second helping. "Did know that the Vice President of the United States just bought a summer house in this neighborhood."

"That must be exciting," I said, trying to be pleasant with her. I know she was trying to be friendly, but she was getting on my nerves by now. Her conversations were so basic, which made me wonder if my father actually loved it or if he just viewed her as a trophy wife. At least 10 years younger than my father, she was no more than a pretty face to keep for company. Although the thought caused me to frown. She didn't deserve that assumption, but yet I still gave it to her.

"It is. Oh Stella, just wait until ski season hits. We are going to have so much fun. Do you enjoy skiing?" she asked, as if she couldn't hear my sarcasm in my voice already.

I shook my head. There was a reason why I stopped visiting in the winter. Snow was the absolute worse. "No." She looked defeated as she looked at the table for a second and for a second, I felt bad for her. Just like my father, she was trying, and she had been nothing but friendly towards me. "But I could maybe try. It's never too late to start, right?"

She beamed with a nod, then took a bite of salad.

"So Stella, are you set for your first day of school tomorrow?"

My attention turned towards my father, who asked the question, quickly changing the topic so his young wife didn't have time to get hurt by my lack of conversation. "Actually, I have to pack a bag. Can I be excused?" I asked as I looked at my empty dinner plate.

He nodded. "Of course. By all means go for it."

I smiled at him kindly, then I walked back downstairs where my bedroom was.