Unconventional Love

By Janice Hart

When you're young, there is always that one kid who doesn't fit in: too fat, too poor, too quiet, too annoying… the list goes on and on.

The thing is, that had been me. I'd been that kid.

I hadn't fit gracefully into life's jigsaw puzzle; I'd been that piece in the wrong box. Cocooned in the wrong life, I'd been like a butterfly waiting to emerge, waiting to take flight, and at eighteen, that's what I'd done.

Hope had soared as I'd unfolded my wings. I'd been free to start a future of self-discovery. It had been time—time to finally find the right box and complete my journey.

I'd never imagined myself where I am today or who I am today.

This is that story of how I found an unconventional love, one I choose for eternity.

 

Read what readers thought of Unconventional Love:
Amazon review: This is a story about hope and new beginnings; about bravery and strength. Charlie is an incredible woman who I admire immensely. The secondary characters added to the story perfectly, each bringing something that enhanced my enjoyment whilst reading. I do believe that Charlie's story will stay with me for a long time to come.

I don't often reread books but this is one that I plan to go back to in the near future. You'll understand why once you've read this yourself. (Ann)

Amazon review: For a story of new beginnings I was enraptured from beginning to end. I loved the main character Charlie. It honestly felt like you were there for the ride with them. Honestly you need to go into this book blind and enjoy it like I did, the lessons of new beginnings, of acceptance, of bravery and strength. (Sarah)

Goodreads review: This book would not let me put it down from the moment that I started reading it. I had to finish it in one sitting there was no doubt about that. It moves along at a speed which suited the book being neither too fast nor too slow. The characters are interesting and you want to know more about them and no matter what happens you want to see them overcome everything in their way. This is a book that needs to be read, no doubt about it.
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Goodreads review: Unconventional Love by J. Hart was a beautiful, poignant story about Charlie. A young woman with a horrible childhood who decides to make it on her own. She picks a town and moves there. She falls in love with the town, the people, and especially…Ben. But, she's carrying a secret….one that can change everything.

I truly loved this story….loved Charlie….loved the beautifully haunting writing of this incredible author. I was near tears in every chapter….simply because of how the author can wring emotion out of the reader with naught but the written word….a masterpiece!!!!!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Hart
• Release date: Oct 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9798682028726

Book preview

Preface

When you’re young, there is always that one kid who doesn’t fit in: too fat, too poor, too quiet, too annoying… the list goes on and on.  

The thing is, that had been me. I’d been that kid.

If life were a jigsaw puzzle, I didn’t fit. I’d sat in that box, a piece with angles that couldn’t match the others. Cocooned in the wrong life, I’d been like a butterfly waiting to emerge, waiting to take flight. At eighteen, I launched myself from the precipice of despair.  

Hope soared as I unfolded my wings. I became free, I could start a future of self-discovery. Finally, the time had arrived to find the right box for me to fit in.  

Where I am today and who I am I could never have imagined. 

This is the story of how I’ve found an unconventional love, one I choose for eternity.

Prologue

W e’re going to miss you so much, Charlie, I can’t believe your finally going. These past few weeks have gone way too quick, Savanna says as she wipes her eyes.

Her fiancé and my other best friend Mitch moves in closer, putting his arm around her and pulling her to his side. Her tears spread a damp patch across my shoulder, but I know she isn’t sad about my departure, in fact she’s my biggest cheerleader and has encouraged me all the way. She’s crying because she knows the significance of this journey and what it means for me.

And me? Well, I’m terrified.

I step back and smile at them both, taking them in, committing their faces to memory. I’ll miss her, miss both of them.

Pulling the ticket from my back pocket, I glance down at it. Such a simple thing, a piece of paper with a destination, a date and a time. To me it means so much more.

This is it!

Last call, a man shouts.

I turn, make my way towards the steps of the bus and with one final wave, I leave my closest and dearest friends behind.

As the bus pulls away from the station and embarks on its journey, I sit back and let out a long sigh, resting my head against the window. After a few moments I glance down and notice the ticket still clutched firmly in my hand. As it unfolds a smile spreads across my face at the destination staring back at me, just like it did the day I chose it.

Arkansas—my new terminus. A place called Garland to be exact. The place I hope to call home after years of travelling. I’m ready, I think—ready to finally call somewhere home. Well, that’s what I keep telling myself, reminding myself… It’s what my therapist, Linda keeps telling me too.   You’re ready, Charlie. You have been ready. You just have to let go of your fears and remember what we discussed. You’ve worked hard for this…it’s time, she’s said more times than I can count.

Time... 

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.  

We seem to have so much of it until the clock of life triggers the fundamental fear of an expiration date. It’s the final target we all eventually hit. 

It’s finally time for Charlie Granger to plant her roots, so that she can blossom into the woman she was always meant to be.   

For seven years I’ve been floating around, going wherever I’ve felt drawn to be, wherever I’ve felt the urge to travel to next. My life over these past few years has resembled one of the petals from the old blossom tree outside my childhood bedroom window. I used to watch them as they soared through the air, letting the wind gracefully carry them away. As a child I always envied those petals.

Born in Hampshire, England, at the age of eighteen I left, without so much as a backwards glance. I wanted to be as far away from my old home and my old life as I possibly could. For as long as I can remember I’ve yearned to be able to go wherever the wind would take me. So that’s what I’ve done, and I haven’t looked back since.  

After floating around and travelling from place to place, this time seems final. It’s time… to settle.   

Is there a reason for my choice in this final destination?  No, not really…

After two years travelling Europe, I then made my way over to the United States. Since then I’ve gone from state to state, working in bars and restaurants—wherever I can find work really. I’ve been like a drifter and It’s taken years to eventually feel ready for this. Like I’ve been waiting for the chrysalis stage of my butterfly moment to evolve, to feel ready, to take flight. Now that it has, I’ve bravely let fate decide for me. A few weeks back I closed my eyes, put my hand in a hat that held all my ideal choices— ideal destinations—and voila, Arkansas came out clinched in my fingertips. Arkansas will be the first and last place I plan to willingly call home.   

A place that this petal can finally fall.   

To be honest, travelling around has been tiring, it’s taken its toll. So, with a little encouragement from Linda, and after gathering up all the sound advice she’s given to me over the years, I agreed with her. I’ve had my taste of freedom, and I’ve made all the changes in my life that needed to be made.

I’ve done everything I set out to do apart from this one thing—find a home.  

I made a promise to myself once that I, Charlie Granger, would never allow myself to be reliant on or controlled by anyone ever again. That I would never allow another person to get under my skin or have a say in what I do with my life.   

Sure, I’ve gone for drinks, the cinema and had meals with friends, work colleagues mainly, but I knew getting too close would only lead to loneliness, heartbreak and to questions at the time I wasn’t ready to answer. So, although I’ve made friends, none ever got close enough to really get to know me—the real me. Not until I met Savanna and Mitch last year. They became the only exception.  

I first met Savanna at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I’d been there for a few weeks when I saw an advert in the window for a bartender. Savanna interviewed me, and basically gave me the job on the spot. 

Tourist places or cities are always easier to find work in, and I automatically drifted towards them. Not that I was short of money, the opposite. I have money, lots of it in fact, but I would go out of my mind if I sat around doing nothing all day. I suppose I like keeping busy.

I was undergoing therapy when I first arrived in Myrtle Beach with Linda who has been my therapist since I first arrived in the states. She basically knows everything about me. She’s the only person who’s ever made me feel like she gets me, like she knows me inside and out and that she completely understands me. The fact that she’s been paid a considerable amount over the years to do so is beside the point. Linda has been worth every penny. I’m comfortable with her, and that woman can smell a bullshitter a mile away; that’s what I like about her the most. She’s always known when I’ve been stalling, when I’ve been about to run again for no logical reason, or take a trip down the dark paths within my own thoughts, which is often. She has a way of pushing me in all the right directions, and believe me, I’ve needed a push or a kick up the backside. A lot.    

So, last year on Linda’s orders, I agreed to stay somewhere for a while, to try to settle— allow myself to feel what it’s like to have, what Linda described as, a ’normal life’.  

But I’m not normal. I’ll never be that, not the way society views normal anyway, but apparently, it had been my time to try.   

Linda said that moving around from place to place had not been good for my mental health, that I’d been constantly on the run from reality—running from my past. Being afraid of staying in one place physically had been symbolic of that.  

Of course, I hadn’t been looking at it like that: I’d been looking at it like I was still searching for my special somewhere. My only regret was that I just hadn’t found it yet, that it’s taken so long to feel ready to move forward. That I let fear hold me back.

It was Linda’s words that became my pivotal moment. I realised that I had been running. And so, I relented— I’d agreed to stay somewhere for a little while, at least until I could decide on what I’d wanted to do next—where I’d wanted to go next.

So, Myrtle Beach became the place where I gathered my thoughts, built up courage, and where I planned my next monumental journey—the place where I eventually decided I would take this last final step in my life.

I promised Linda that I would try, and that’s what I’ve done. At the time it was an agreement begrudgingly made just to keep her off my back, but that’s before I welcomed Savanna and Mitch into my life. So, I suppose Linda was right, and I’m glad I listened.    

Savanna started working at Miller’s Bar years before I met her. Being a waitress at Millers bar had been her first job to earn extra cash, while she was at college. Now Savanna is the fiancé of the owner’s son Mitchell, who is a Paediatrician. The day I started to work at Miller’s, I instantly hit it off with her, and it hadn’t been long before we became close friends as well as work colleagues.  

Savanna and Mitch immediately took me under their wings. They helped me to settle into my new apartment after weeks of living in a hotel. They even took me to buy furniture and showed me the sights in the area. They became the kind of friends I had always hoped for, the kind of friends I’d never allowed myself to have since leaving England.

After work, or on weekends, I would spend most of my time with Savanna while Mitch worked, or the three of us would go out for a meal together. But South Carolina wasn’t home, I’d known that the day I arrived. It has just been another place. Another destination on a map. Eventually it dawned on me; I was staying in Myrtle Beach for them, not for me. But because of their support, because I’d allowed someone into my life, my time with them had also forced me to stop running. My time with them allowed me to focus, to look at things differently. Savanna and Mitch helped me to prepare for what I had to do next. And my time with them made me realise that I am capable of staying in one place for longer than just a few months.  

When I first shared my past with them, told them all about my life— I blamed the tequila.

Once it was out there, once the words had left my mouth—after I had told them everything —my past, my present… all of it really—I’d braced myself for rejection. I braced myself for the laughter in case they thought what I’d shared with them was some kind of sick joke or the tequila talking.

But the rejection or the laughter never came.   Savanna had moved first. She stood up from the sofa, walked towards me with tears streaming down her face, and pulled me into her arms. I glanced over at Mitch from the corner of my eye, he’d been silent for such a long time, so long in fact that I became worried. He sat with his mouth gaping open, before he finally shook himself out of the shock of it all and joined Savanna. We ended up having some sort of group hug. Savanna broke our silence and our group embrace first as she outstretched my arms and looked at me— really looked at me. She then raised my head with her finger, so I would look directly into her eyes and see her sincerity as she spoke, You are who you are, Charlie, and we wouldn’t change you for the world. You…You, Charlie Granger, are our Charlie Cherry Blossom.  

Despite my friendship with them, despite letting them into my life— breaking the promise I once made to myself—I knew that I would be leaving again someday. South Carolina just hadn’t felt like the place I always hoped I’d finally settle. I’d always pictured somewhere more relaxed, somewhere with less hustle, somewhere with a community. That’s the kind of place I’d always hoped to find.

I still believe that Arkansas could be that special place. I hope that fate has been kind—because that’s all I can do now… hope.

As I lean back on my seat on the bus, I close my eyes, my mind drifting back to my departure at the bus station and the tearful goodbye.

All I’ve ever wanted is to be is completely free from the old Charlie Harrington—the old me—my old life, the memories. That’s my real final destination. That’s what I hope to find one day. I don’t mind starting again in new places, I mean, I’ve done it enough times over last few years, but this time it feels different. It feels like the conclusion to a story—my last chapter. That’s what scares me.  What if I don’t like my own ending?

My past still visits me, creeps up on me when I least expected it. Thoughts triggered by a smell, a word, a sound. Most of my memories are written down in tattered notebooks I’ve hauled from one place to another. They’ve been with me, living securely at the bottom of my rucksack unopened. I never look at them. I haven’t needed any reminders of where I’ve come from while desperately trying to look forward. I haven’t needed to be reminded of what my life was like before leaving England all those years ago. However, while sitting on the bus, thinking about my new life, the future ahead of me, and what I’ve already achieved, my mind battles with me. The lid on the memory box rattling, desperate to lift and take me back to dark places where hope didn’t exist.

I fight it, unwilling to go there, until exhausted and with my folded jacket now beneath my head, my eyes close, giving into those thoughts. Slowly I lose the battle and I allow my mind to take me back to my past.

Part I

Then

Chapter One

THE LIFE BEFORE CHARLIE GRANGER

Fairy tales: I think my mum believed in them once...

Elizabeth Jones: an orphan, a foster care leaver… a survivor.  

My mum was many things, but no matter what, I will always see her as a survivor of circumstance. Not the woman I grew to know.  

At seventeen years old, Elizabeth—no middle name—Jones, had only just started out her adult life. She’d been a penniless student, working all her spare hours in a high-class restaurant and cocktail bar when she’d met my father.

My father... the man who swept in like Prince Charming and rescued her from a life of poverty. It sounds like the makings of a song, right? A harmony of a love song, filled with hopes and dreams? A fairy-tale? The Pretty Woman kind of moment where Richard Gere plays his part and climbs up the fire escape, becoming the hero in the main character’s life. However, you want to picture the hero of this story, however you envisage the man who rescues the poor girl, that’s what he is. In her eyes he becomes the hero.

I suppose he had been at first, in the beginning, when he first met her.

Everything about them had the makings of a perfect love story. But it wasn’t, far from it in fact.

Elizabeth Jones probably thought all her Christmases had come at once the day she caught my father’s eye—that all her dreams had come true—until the reality of it become more of a nightmare.

Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about what it must have felt like for her being swept up by my father like that at just eighteen years old. Especially as my own life really began at that age.

She probably spent her working hours watching the upper-class people come and go at the high-class bar and restaurant where she worked. Maybe she longed to be just like them; wearing their fancy clothes, dressing to impress. While tips left on the tables had probably been the only reward the job had given—the only thing that had allowed her to put food on her own. There had probably been no money left over for fancy clothes or shoes.

My mother was a beautiful woman with long, wavy chestnut hair, large dark brown eyes, olive skin, and an hourglass figure. Men found her attractive. Neither small nor tall at a rather ordinary five foot six, nevertheless when she walked into a room all eyes would be on her—even the women looked on with envy; she had that sort of allure about her.

Elizabeth Harrington was always dressed perfectly, especially after she married my father; it had been a requirement of her position as the wife of an aristocrat; her hair in a perfect top knot, her makeup flawless.

Elizabeth Harrington epitomised ‘the complete package’.  

Me though, I’m not tall like my father, I only inherited his pale skin. Thankfully, I looked more like my mum, with dark wavy hair and large brown eyes. Not looking like my father became a blessing and something I became thankful for later in life. I don’t think I could have looked in a mirror and been reminded of my father every day—that would have been too much to bear.   

My mother, though, hadn’t known who she looked like. Orphaned at just one week old, apparently, the local Priest found her on the steps of the church one morning when he was opening up the church for Sunday mass. The priest discovered a small note inside the pram asking whoever found her to give her a better home. From that moment on, she became a child of the system, an orphan. Despite newspaper pleas, her parents were never found.

I don’t know too much about my mother’s history, only what I’ve later discovered myself from newspaper articles and reports. What had happened to her after that day? Where she went? Where she lived? Was she taken in by a good family?

I never did find out the answers to those questions. 

I hope she felt love at some point in her life though—she at least deserved that. I would hate to think that the whole of her life had been a shit show.  

---

My mother met my father just before her nineteenth birthday at The Royal Mandarin restaurant. I can understand what Charles Edward Harrington II had seen in Elizabeth Jones: attraction, lust, desire. And I can understand the appeal my father held for my mother.

My father was handsome with his chiselled jaw, perfectly flawless skin, dark blue eyes, and sandy blonde hair. His charm though made him stand out the most.  

Although women turned their heads at my father’s appearance and the way his tailored designer suits fitted him perfectly, it was his charm that attracted people to him... like a moth to a deadly flame.  

My father demanded attention. Tall and towering above most people, he couldn’t help but be noticed when he walked into a room, but his outgoing charisma got him noticed the most.  

He always made sure his presence was known. So, even if you hadn’t seen him enter the room, you would’ve heard him, and for some reason, unknown to me, people gravitated towards him.   

When I look at it all like that, at the cold hard facts, I can understand how Elizabeth Jones became swept away by his snake-like charm. That’s how I see it: Charles Edward Harrington was a snake charmer and had charmed my mother until he had her right where he wanted her. Then, he’d struck. Only she’d been too blinded by the rich, handsome package and charm to see past all the bravado and lies.

So, with that—and probably because Elizabeth Jones saw a glimpse of hope for her life, she was only too willing to follow—willingly falling into sweet temptation, laced with lies and deceit, just like Eve in the garden of Eden. The only difference between my mother and Eve was Charles Edward Harrington. It had been his charm that my mother had fallen for, and she’d eagerly taken a bite.  

What I couldn’t understand was how she’d been blind for so long, and why she hadn’t been able to find an escape?     

Fairy tales… Yes, Elizabeth Jones had definitely believed in them once.

Until, she hadn’t anymore. 

Me though, I haven’t had what you would call a normal life, or even an average life. My life was nothing like my mum’s. I at least had parents, well in theory anyway…

My father, that’s how I had to address him, was strict; I prefer the term controlling. A snob through and through, a socialite, he abhorred anything common, or common people for that matter.

They were Mother and Father… God forbid should I ever address them wrong.

I might have lived in the twentieth century, but my childhood resembled an eighteenth-century version of hell. My father didn’t allow me to own things that other kids would have considered life destroying if they didn’t own. No gadgets, no internet, no mobile phone.

All I had were my notebooks and wayward thoughts to keep me company throughout my childhood years. 

The only way to explain or express who I was back then, what I felt, what I experienced, was to write it all down on paper. 

I read a quote a long time ago, while sitting in my father’s library. I’d been idly flicking through the pages of a book—one I probably wasn’t old enough to understand or read then —yet the quote stood out. 

It said: There are two powers in the world: one is the sword and the other is the pen. 

I don’t know why it made me stop on that particular page, but from that day on I began to write down all my feelings, my thoughts, my hopes… and as time went on, and the hourglass of my life started ticking over, the pen became my escape—my protection—fighting off the demons that would dance around in my mind. 

The pen kept me sane. The pen became my sword. 

So, from the jumbled-up messes, the incoherent scribbles in ink that grace many of the notebooks; this is my life—my life in black and white.

This is my story.

This is how Charlie Harrington became Charlie Granger.

Chapter Two

Home. My Only Version of it

Agrand old house standing on acres of land, The Harrington Estate had once been a manor house surrounded by woods and trees. With its fifteen bedrooms, a large dining room, two kitchens, sitting rooms, a function room, a library, and many other rooms within its walls, you might say the Harrington Manor was a property you could quite easily get lost in. But back then, I’d only been allowed to go where I’d been escorted—where my father permitted. 

Staff members came and went. Those who did leave, and there were lots, didn’t come back once they walked back through the estate gates.

Like Sophia. 

She eventually left, even though she stayed with us for a few years, unlike most. 

One of my favourite Nannies, Sophia had kind eyes and a Spanish accent. She came to see me in my room, even on her days off and we would play games like scrabble and drafts. She even taught me how to play cards. Until the day she stopped coming. 

At only five years old, I couldn’t understand why Sophia left without a goodbye. I remember thinking to myself; didn’t she love me anymore? Had she grown tired of spending time with me? 

Like a mother to me, she’d basically taken care of me since being born. I missed her something rotten. As the days went on, I started to miss her more and more. I missed the games we played