Because You Listened

Chapter 1

It was raining again. But this time Sophia Giovanni welcomed the downpour. The San Francisco skyline was dripping with rain, making her smile. Just a little. If there was ever a night she wanted to loose herself in the rain, tonight would be the night.

It's funny how you think that one of these days, maybe, just maybe they'll change. That finally, just this once, you'll find some pride in their eyes directed towards you.

All of her life, Sophia had done nothing but strive to be the best. Not for herself, but for him. She had studied until she thought that her brain was going to explode into so many pieces that she would never find them all again. She took the stuffy piano lessons because he said that he had always loved the sound of the piano. Hadn't she pushed herself through high school and college in less than five years- and graduated both with honors?

But nothing she did would be good enough for him. And it was tearing her up inside. After twenty-three years, Sophia felt herself breaking slowly. Just last year she had been brimming with laughter and joy.

At this exact moment people everywhere were celebrating the coming of a new year. All but one. Her.

She was at her breaking point and she knew it. She wasn't happy with her life, yet she was scared to change it. After all of these years of hearing that she was worthless and nothing more than an inconvenience, she felt as if she didn't do something now – at this very moment she was never going to return. She was never going to be able to have a life of happiness.

But could she really do it?

Running her shaking hand through her long brown hair, Sophia took a deep breath. She felt as if she was about to jump off of a fifty story building. Glancing at her open laptop that she had recently deserted, four words that her best friend used to always tell her when these thoughts popped into her head came in mind.

“You only live once.”

Taking one more steadying breath, Sophia softly walked over to the laptop, her feet silent on the carpeted floor.

Her hand shook as she put her finger on the small square that served as the mouse on the computer.

She clicked on the little red button at the bottom of the page and let out the breath that she hadn't been aware she was holding.

“This is for you Holly,” she whispered softly, thinking of her best friend that had recently died in result to a horrible car accident three months ago.

“I'm going to a writing seminar. I wonder what my father would think of me doing that?”

Anthony Giovanni was not a kind man. Never having one soft word to speak to his daughter – his only child at that.

Everything that she had done, in his opinion, could have been done better if she was a boy. What in the hell can I do with a daughter, were the words that were so often sneered at her. As if she was the gum stuck to the bottom of his designer Italian shoes.

Oh, she had never wanted for clothes, money, cars, schooling, or anything else that money could buy. Anthony cared too much about his family image for that to happen, heavens forbid.

But in the most basic of ways, Sophia had wanted for everything else in life from her father.

But now she was done. He had done the one thing that would make her finally snap. She was done with him. She had her inheritance already, and was quite well off with her own job. She didn't need him, and would never need him again.

And to show herself that she was her own person, Sophia was going to New York City and attending the one thing that she had wanted to attend all of her life. A writing seminar.

“You'll never amount to anything,” is what her father had spat at her hours before when they had crossed paths at a party. Well, she'd show him.

She was going to become the person that he had spend twenty-three years confining into a box.

Authors Notes:

Take two. I think that this first chapter runs a little better than the first one...so this one stays! Haha. Anyways, I'm just going over a couple of errors on the second page, so expect the update soon.

And thank you to Arug for your advice. I hope that this chapter sits a little better with you.

Happy Readings,

Lisa