Chapter Two: Violet

It was a long week of hearing the rumor mill run wild. Apparently, it went from her wanting to sleep with other people, to Diana being pregnant with another man's baby already. I was so tired of hearing it. The fallout was amusing at the time, but now it was irritating me. No matter where I went or who I talked to, they would always round the conversation back to, "Did you hear what happened between Briggs and Diana?"

I have nothing personal against them. It was just so cliché! At first, they were the school's golden couple. High school sweethearts going to college together and dominating the school as the cheerleader and the quarterback. I'm pretty sure the college even used their picture in a promotion somewhere. The perfect power couple. Even now that they are no longer together, they are still everywhere!

The large, coffee-colored leather couch against the wall of my father's office was perfect for napping but not so good for getting any of my work done. I could feel my eyelids pull closed as exhaustion consumed me. The air conditioning kicked on once again, and I let out an audible groan as my body shivered.

"I think this will work, but we need the kid to get his head in the game. He is throwing like shit right now." Marshal, my dad's assistant coach said as he scanned the play on the board again.

A deep exhale left my parted lips and ruffled the dark brown hair that hung down to the top of my breasts. Of course, he was throwing like shit. The sweetheart of Holden University dumping him so that she could sleep around was the talk of the school. If I couldn't get away from it, I couldn't imagine how much worse it was for him.

The sound of the locker room door as it hit the wall echoed through the office, and I knew that was my signal to get lost. I jumped from the sofa and shoved my papers in my backpack before I gave my dad a kiss on the cheek. His office had two doors; the first lead from the outside right into his office, the second led from his office to the locker room. As I pushed open the door, the fresh air hit me, and I took a deep breath to rid myself of the smell of sweaty equipment that always seemed to linger in my dad's office from the team.

My dad, Spencer, hated the idea of me being around any boys on his team. It was my fault though. My high school years weren't the most innocent, but my chastity belt wasn't locked on until he walked in my room to find me on top of a boy from his last team, Cooper.

Now that was a guy I really felt sorry for. The aftermath of my father finding us in such a compromising position was not pretty, and he took it out on Cooper during practice. The poor bloke had to run extra, lift more and was always given the grunt work to lug the equipment. I'm pretty sure he quit the team after a few weeks, but I wouldn't know. After that, the only time I could leave the house was when I was forced into my own physical hell.

If I had to compare my father to anyone, it would be a drill sergeant. His punishments were normally to run me down like one of his football players or make me scrub the house until there wasn't a speck of dust left.

Unfortunately for me, that kind of 'violation of his trust' resulted in physical agony. In my defense, he wasn't supposed to be home for a few more hours.

When I got accepted to college, the last thing I expected was for him to show up and convince the board to hire him as their new head coach, especially since he still had a year left in his contract with his last University. I have no clue how he got out of that one, but he did.

My dad wasn't uptight or too strict, just clingy. He could make a helicopter parent look like a deadbeat. He had no problem with my piercings or tattoos. Hell, he even took me to get most of them; for a price of course. For example, in exchange for my belly ring, I had to get straight A's for the semester when I was sixteen. When I was 17, he let me get the swallow tattooed on my forearm in exchange for getting a job.

At 18, he no longer had a say, and I got my side piece of skulls and roses done from under my armpit to the top of my thigh.

That one he wasn't too happy with at first, but after the multiple appointments it took to get to complete it, even my dad had to admit that it looked wicked. He wasn't so innocent himself with his entire back done.

We were a good team. I was his spitting image, and no one could deny that I was his daughter.

After 'the incident,' he gave me a long talk about not being ready for me to bring another being into the world, which resulted in me rolling my eyes and then having to run suicides for an hour every day for a month in addition to him taking away my phone and car.

He was a good dad, and he did his best. It wasn't his fault that he had no one to help him raise a little girl.

Can you guess how I was conceived?

I'll give you a hint. It was the stereotypical football player and cheerleader story. Only in that one, the cheerleader got pregnant while she was still in college and then died during childbirth, leaving a little girl and a scared man all alone in the world with no one but each other.