Chapter 1

Chapter 1

There he is. That was her sole thought as the car drove down the dirt road and into the tree-lined gravel driveway. From the back seat, Mallory only let herself glance at the man for a moment. Then her attention was pulled to the tiny blue cottage behind him. A winding pebbled walkway led underneath two large lattice arches to the front of the house. The walkway was lined with an annoying display of blue, orange, and yellow flowers and green shrubs. The girl didn’t know what any of these were. They were unlike anything she’d seen in her ten years so far, growing up in DC. Well, except for that one field trip to the US Botanical Gardens.

Mallory grimaced at the memory. She hadn’t paid much attention to the tour guide, the garden, or her mom, who had gone with her. Instead, she had spent almost the entire time talking and goofing off with her friends. The guilt she felt at the memory was the last thing she needed at this moment. Thanks a lot, stupid flowers, she said to herself.

Looking past the colorful garden, she peered into the woods that backed up to the edge of the backyard. The sun was trying its best to penetrate the dense canopy of big, leafy green trees. Through the tree line, she saw the sun shining like a spotlight onto a dark wooden treehouse. A large balcony stretched across the front, in front of a front door taken right out of a Disney movie, and a bright red picnic table stood at the base of the tree. She also noticed a tire swing hanging off the edge of the treehouse. Mallory loved to swing but had rarely gotten the chance lately. The park close to the apartment she had shared with her mom was always too busy. Mallory would have this swing all to herself, which sounded like a dream come true.

However, she knew that this was anything but. She balled up her fists and dug her fingernails into her palms. Her thoughts had shifted from grief to anger.

Mallory hated the blue cottage, hated all of the stupid flowers, the treehouse with the door, the swing, and especially the man standing in the driveway. She looked at him again, her knuckles turning white as she clenched her fists so hard that they ached. He just stood there with his hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans. His short-bearded face showed absolutely no emotion at all. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt and a ball cap. Mallory didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to meet him— she wished they would just turn the car around.

“He’s dressed like a slob! You’d think meeting your daughter for the first time would be a good enough reason to make yourself look presentable,” her grandmother scoffed from the passenger seat.

“Well, Anne, a garden like that takes a lot of time and work. Let’s try to be polite,” her grandfather said gently as he drove the car into the driveway.

Mallory’s anger gave way to a sadness so intense, she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Tears, barely contained, were on the edge of spilling down her face. Her grandparents’ voices, which she needed to hear, would soon be far away from her—though not quite as far away as her mom’s already was. Grandfather had tried to make it sound like they weren’t that far, but the car ride said otherwise. There was a very slim chance that they would make this trip very often.

Mallory had already forgotten the name of the town she was being shipped off to. Whatever you call in the middle of nowhere North Carolina, Mallory said to herself. A moment later, the tears came uninhibited. First I lose my mom, and now I’m losing you too.

“I don’t want to go,” Mallory said, letting her anguish show in her voice.

With mild irritation in his own, her grandfather said, “We know you don’t, little one. I can assure you, we have the finest lawyers, and they won’t stop until we can bring you home.”

Mallory felt hopeless. Why didn’t she get to choose? This man, her biological father, had never been in her life, and he knew nothing about her. He just showed up to court, nodded his head a lot, and because of a stupid DNA test, he was given custody instead of her grandparents. The man had said almost nothing, but the judge just handed her over anyway. Mallory couldn’t believe the judge wouldn’t let her speak at all. She would have begged him to let her stay with her grandparents. She would have told him about how much her gymnastics gym and teammates meant to her. She didn’t want to leave them or all of the memories she had of the time she’d spent with her mom.

Now she was going to go live with a complete stranger, in the middle of nowhere, far away from anyone she loved.