Love Takes Time (Christian Romance) by Kaci Hart Page A

me.”
     
    “Yeah?”
     
    “Mm
hmm . . . and I don’t know.  Maybe I wanted to make him proud.  Or
maybe I didn’t want to hear he and mom arguing about me.  No kid ever
wants to be the reason they hear their parents arguing so I chose to like
it.  I made my self like the business so that my mother could see it as
what I wanted to do and my father could have a successor.  At the same
time, it was a win for me.  I don’t think you could have ever found a
father more involved in their son’s activities than mine was.  He was
always over my shoulder, making sure I did my homework and pushing me to make
sure that I achieved higher than . . . well everybody else.  I was to be
his example of a Chatham man.”
     
    She
reached up, running her fingers through his hair.  She felt so bad for
this man that she was falling for.  He had no childhood.  How much
fun could that be?  He answered her question before she asked. 
     
    “Don’t
you dare feel bad for me Chelsea.  I wouldn’t change my childhood for the
world.  And I still had friends.  One of my closest was my best
friend Trent who I have been best friends with since high school.” 
     
    “Well
that’s good then.”
     
    “I
choose to think so.  What about you, miss freedom first?  What’s
behind you choosing to not take the traditional route of life.”
     
    It
was her turn to share her personal family details and even though she didn’t
really like talking about it, she felt like she owed it to him after he’d been
so wide open with her about his.
     
    “It’s
funny, and I never would have guessed it in a million years before hearing that
but our stories are pretty similar except that I’m an only child.  My parents
were really strict Christians and kept a tight leash on me as a kid, especially
my dad.  Nothing but studying and hard work.  Just like you, my
grades weren’t allowed to be less than excellent.  No boys or dating until
I was sixteen and even barely then.  I only had one extracurricular
activity and that was dancing.  Even though it was expensive and likely
broke the bank for them a few times they made sure the money was always there
for my dance classes and I’ll always be grateful to them for that.”
     
    Chelsea
paused in the middle of her thoughts.  It was easy sometimes for her to
forget the many sacrifices that her parents had made for her.  Ones she
wasn’t so sure that she would have been able to do for a child had she had
any.  She guessed that was what it meant to be a parent and why they were
so upset that something they’d paid for her to enjoy as a recreation was what
made her decide not to go to college.  She continued.
     
    “What
they never banked on is the idea that I would love dancing as much as I
did.  I mean I was a thirteen-year-old girl completely crazy about dancing
in any and every way.  I liked it so much.  It just made me feel . .
. I don’t know.  Free I guess.  After all the rules they’d put on me,
I liked dance.  It had rules but they were bendable and often
breakable.  So, to their surprise and disappointment, I shunned the
traditional academic routes after high school to take up the arts full
time.  Needless to say, that decision didn’t fly too well with my parents
especially since I had waited until after applying for and getting admitted to
several really nice schools.  I’d done my interviews with Stanford, and
Harvard, your alma mater.  They were overjoyed to find that I’d gotten
accepted into both but I didn’t care.  I decided that I wasn’t going to
let anyone dictate my life to me.”
     
    “Wow. 
You didn’t expect any another reaction did you?  I mean they only accept a
select few people each year out of tons that apply.”
     
    Chelsea
felt the tears starting to form.  She wouldn’t have started into this if
she knew she would have ended up crying. 
     
    “I
knew my parents and completely expected them to be upset but their reaction