Hello! First of all, thank you for taking time to read this story! Second of all, I love music, I listen to it a lot when I write to help bring emotion to words. For every chapter, I tried to find a song that went well with a part of the chapter. Please look out for the <> marking when to listen to the song.

Hope you enjoy the ride!

DarlaH

The air was icy and as Sophia looked up at the sky; she felt the cold drops of water hit her face, causing her to shiver. As she looked around, she knew that never once had she seen a place look so beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

She was on an edge of a high green grass cliff, she could hear the sound of waves beating down on the shoreline below her. As she walked close to the edge of the cliff, she saw the ocean lay a significant drop below. There was something so intimidating about this place but she couldn't place it.

"Sophia, I thought you would come," a man said, coming into view from the left of her.

Silently she looked at this tall, slender man standing about 40 yards away from her. There beside him was a bound young man struggling against the bounds. He stopped struggling for a moment as he looked at Sophia with such fear in his eyes.

Suddenly she felt a gut retching sorrow for this young man and she didn't know why, since she had never seen this man before. But as she stared at him, she was sure that she had never seen a man so handsome in her life. Even in the night light, she could see his brown wavy hair standing out against his piercing green eyes.

Those eyes were something that Sophia would never forget. They had a world of secrets, desires, and fear that Sophia knew she would never understand. The boy tripped on the grass and fell to his knees, breaking eye contact with her.

"Please, don't," Sophia begged, but her voice was inaudible against the sound of the waves pounding on the shoreline below.

The man smiled at her as he pulled the bound man up to his feet again. He looked over the cliff, then back at Sophia as if ready to do something terrible to the bound man. "It's too...."

Snapping her from her nightmare slumber was a voice that demanded attention. "Sophia! Sophia!" a young girl said, while jumping on Sophia's bed with full force in attempts to wake her up.

Suddenly Sophia felt the ground move, causing her to shoot straight up in her bed. There, right beside her, staring right back at Sophia with the blondest hair, was a little girl.

Sophia frowned slightly, knowing that her dream was over all because of this young girl that she called her sister. She was convinced that Eloise came up with the most creative ways to wake her up in the morning, but Sophia wouldn't let her attempt work this time since her bed called her name too strongly today.

"Cosa vuoi Eloise?" Sophia said with a tone then rolled to her side to avoid her.

Eloise frowned at her older sister, not wanting to give up yet. Their mum asked Eloise to wake her up, and determined she would do just that. "Get up for school!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't rush me," Sophia said and closed her eyes hoping to get another ten more minutes of sleep in hope to see that man again.

Eloise rolled up her sleeves, giving one last attempt to get her sister out of bed. She grabbed the sheets from the bed, then gave a hard tug, ripping them off of Sophia. "Mum says you have to get out of bed now, or you're going to miss the bus," Eloise said as forcefully as she could.

Sophia shivered, feeling cold without the covers. With a frown, she rolled back over to face Eloise, knowing she wouldn't give up unless she got out of bed. "Ok, you win," she said as she got out of bed and picked out her clothes for school.

She looked back at Eloise with a hint of anger in her eyes as she thought about the dream she was just awoken from. Sophia had that dream for the past year off and on but she never got to the end. Every time she had the dream, she seemed to get closer to seeing who this bound man was and today was the first time she could make out his beautifully chiseled face.

Sophia slipped on a shirt as she took a deep breath, pushing her anger off to the side. Eloise was only 7 and she couldn't stay mad at her. For a second she watched as Eloise bounced around the room and sang top 40 songs, causing her blonde curly hair to bounce around her face, highlighting her bright blue eyes. Even though she was almost ten years younger, she was Sophia's only sister, and she loved her.

Quickly, Sophia walked down the steps of the old creaky farmhouse, finding herself in the kitchen with Eloise on her heals. Already waiting for her was her mum, Lucy, cleaning up breakfast for her two other siblings, Alessandro and Bryce.

Lucy looked at her daughter with a frown. Sophia was always late, and this wasn't the first time that she came down the steps, with only minutes to spare. In a lot of ways, Sophia reminded her of herself when she was younger. "Sophia, you're late so I'm sorry but you'll just have to stick to a Pop-tart for breakfast," her mum said in her soft British accent.

Sophia had an interesting family dynamic, never understanding that it was different until she was older. Her mom came from a rich and old bloodline from England and her dad was from a quiet, simple farm family from Italy. They met at a university in Rome and soon got married. Before Sophia was born, her parents hopped between England, Italy, but eventually placing roots in the United States.

As Sophia stopped to look at her mother, she was reminded that Eloise looked the most out of the kids. This fact made Sophia slightly jealous since she found her mother beautiful, with her long, lean frame, sharp jawline and bright blonde hair.

The four Romano kids had unique looks, but one thing they all had in common was the same beautiful blue eyes, as blue as the Mediterranean sea. At least that was what Sophia's father said. "Um, I'll just stick to a yogurt," Sophia said, and went into the fridge.

"You always have yogurt. When are you going to get sick of it?" Bryce asked while putting his plate in the sink. Bryce was 14 ½ which made him the oldest boy in the family and made him entitled to being Mr. know it all, or at least in his mind to Sophia's dismay.

She turned around to face her brother, not having the patience to deal with him in the early morning. "You know what I'm sick of? Your voice," she replied and got a spoon.

"Well I'm- I'm always sick of your voice," Bryce said, stumbling over his words, trying to think of a better comeback.

"Is that the best you got?" Sophia asked, eyeing him from head to toe, ready to take him if needed.

Lucy stood in the background, waiting for a proper moment to step in. She couldn't stand to see her kids fight and lately that happened often now always. Something had made Sophia more irritable, and she was sure it was because of the stress with school since Sophia was a senior.

"Bryce, Sophia, cut it out," Lucy said with her standard mad face, which resembled a kissy face while making her lips into a thin line. The kids liked to call this look the mad 'mom lips' and knew they had to stop whatever they were doing when she made that face at them.

"He started it," Sophia said stubbornly, pointing to her brother as if that justified her actions.

Lucy threw her hands up in the air, tired of this fight. All she wanted was for them to stop and have a nice breakfast together as a family. "Oh for petty sakes, I don't care who started it, I just want you to finish it." She paused and looked at the time and went on to say, "Oh goodness, you missed the bus, I'll have to take you guys in."

"You know if you let me borrow the car I could drive them," Sophia said, crossing her fingers behind her back, hoping with all her might that she could drive to school this time.

Even with her licenses, her mum continued to drive her to the door of her high school like she was a child. But not today. She could feel it in her bones. Today was the day that she was going to get to drive.

Lucy thought about it for a second, then remembered all the errands she needed to do with the car. "I need the car though today," she said flatly.

"Please! Mum, I'm a senior and I have to be one of the few cheerleaders that doesn't have a car!" Sophia pleaded with her. She knew that a lot of the team talked about this behind her back, and she was desperate to make it stop.

"Well, once you have enough money, you can buy your own car." Even though her mum came from a rich family, her parents believed strongly in 'making it for yourself'. This meant that she had to buy all her own clothes and she would have to buy her own car.

Sophia thought this was cool and all, but making only $10 a week out of chores and babysitting jobs weren't cutting it. She wanted a car now. As Sophia stared at her mother for a second, she could sense that this was a losing battle. "Fine."

Marco, Lucy's husband, hands shook slightly as he walked down the stairs carrying the letter he just printed from the computer. He didn't want to have this conversation with his family, not now, or ever. He read the letter at least five times already to help brace himself for what was going to happen next. "Sophia, Eloise, Bryce, Alessandro, we have to talk," Marco said, coming into the kitchen with a white letter in his hands. "I just got this e-mail, and it's important."

When her dad said the last sentence, Sophia shifted her weight uneasily. There was a tone to his voice that she didn't hear often, it was stern. In the second, Sophia felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"We got an email from England," Marco stated.

"Ooh can you read it? I want to see what Gran wrote!" Eloise said excitedly.

Sophia smirked at her. She was so cute with her innocence. If Eloise could remember Gran never emailed them anymore, she just texted or used face-time. No, Sophia knew that there had to be something else going on.

<>

Her dad unfolded the printed letter and started reading.

To the Romano family,

I'm very sorry to inform you but Vitoria Ainsworth passed away last Friday night. I'm sorry we haven't got to you sooner, but we thought this would be the most formal. The funeral will be held on September 12, imminently following I will read her last will and testament.

If you have any more questions, please call.

Sincerely,

Aaron Hallchurch

Sophia shook her head, not believing what her father was saying. She just talked to her grandmother on Friday morning. Her gran sounded completely fine, happy to talk to Sophia. This email had to be a joke, but as she looked up at her parents, the look on their faces said that this wasn't a joke.

Her mother stumbled to a chair and let out a silent sob as Marco held onto her for comfort, whispering words like it would be ok, everything will look up. Over come with emotion, Sophia felt her eyes well up with tears as reality hit her like speeding train. She shook her head, denying the fact that this could have happened. Her grandmother was healthy.

Her mind was spinning, trying to piece together the clues that she knew of in order to figure out how this happened. She took a step back as she tried to take a breath or fresh air that wouldn't come to her.

Eloise looked at everyone, confused. She was positive that this was not true. She had talked to her gran so recently. "I don't get it," Eloise said after a minute.

Bryce looked at his younger sister, not having the patience to deal with her. He knew that she was too young to understand these kinds of family matters. "Gran's dead Eloise, she's not coming back," Bryce said bluntly as tears ran down his cheeks.

"Gram can't be dead though," Eloise said. Her blank stare replaced with tears as she finally pieced together in her head what the letter meant with Bryce's blunt help.

"She is, sweetheart. But it's going to be ok; we're going to be ok," Lucy said and hugged Eloise, trying to comfort her youngest daughter even though she was crying herself.

Unwilling to accept this answer yet, Sophia got up from her seat and went back into her phone to call her grandmother. Sophia quickly dialed her grandmother's number and sat back as it rang until Sophia realized her Gran would not answer, not now or ever. Sophia held back a sob that wanted to come out of her mouth as tears fell. Her grandmother was dead, just like that.

Just when Sophia was about to end the call, someone answered, but no one was in front of the camera. She only saw mounds of books piled high. Hoping that someone could hear her, Sophia spoke up. "Gran, I know you're not there but, I want to talk. I just I ... You can't leave me..." As the phone call went dead, cutting her off from video.

Marco watched as Sophia talked to no one and it killed his heart. He hated seeing his family like this, wracked with sorrow. He remembered when his parents died, that felt like years ago and his children were so young. They didn't understand the pain of lost. But this was different. This was their last grandmother.

"Sophia, we need to talk again," Marco said and knocked on her bedroom door.

She did a sharp nod of her head and wiped the last of her tears, then followed her father down the stairs into the family room where everyone was sitting around waiting for some kind of direction.

Sophia silently took a seat next to Eloise as her father spoke up.

"We are leaving tomorrow for England," he said to the family.

As soon as those words left his mouth, Bryce gave a small smile and did a little fist bump in the air, while Alessandro looked confused. But Sophia just sat there in shock. First she looses her grandmother and now she was going to England at the start of the school year? No, she didn't want to leave. She had plans for tomorrow with her boyfriend and she had a test at school. She couldn't leave tomorrow."What?" she choked out.

"Pack your bags the plane leaves at 11 a.m."

"But I have a date with Matt," Sophia said, as if this would help her case to remain here.

"I guess you'll just have to call him, won't you? And relax, we're only missing a couple days of school and you should be back on Wednesday of next week," her father said as if that gave her peace of mind.

As much as she wanted to protest, she knew this wasn't the time nor place. "Fine," Sophia mumbled and got up from her seat, ready to leave this conversation.

Deep down Sophia knew she had to go to England, but she couldn't face the fact that England would never be the same without her grandmother. Going back now would just be a slap in the face for her, memories that would never happen because her grandmother would not be there. She was relaying on every excuse she had to stay here because after all, her life was here, and she would miss all of it.

Sophia's phone buzzed in her back pocket and without a second to wait, she answered it with a "Hello?"

"Hey it's Matt..." a deep voice said on the other end.

She smiled, enjoying this moment of distraction he was providing to her. "Hey matt, I need to tell you something."

"Ok shoot," he said calmly.

"I'm going to England, for a few days. My Gran died and I have to go to her funeral. I'm sorry that I have to miss voting and stuff but I'll be back over here for homecoming," Sophia said all at once, the words flying out of her mouth like bullets.

There was a second of silence then he said, "It's ok. I understand. I'll hold down the fort here. I'm really sorry about your Gran. You can't stop things like this from happening. It's not your fault."

Sophia sat on her bed with her mouth hanging open, not believing how cool he was about all of this. It brought peace of mind to her knowing that he was supporting her through this moment. "Thanks."