Chapter Two
Four Years Later, Day One: Saturday
Bella Lisa quietly sat in the front seat next to her father, sipping on industrial strength gas station coffee, on the long drive from Stanford to Seaside City. He had made it to the graduation, sat through the endless ceremony and afterwards gave her a bouquet of flowers and a congratulations balloon. Her dad seemed very proud of her getting her degree, if somewhat uncharacteristically subdued. They packed all her earthly belongings in the trunk right after the ceremony and hit the road, avoiding all the post-graduation parties.
It was just as well. She had just gone through another messy break-up a few days ago and didn’t want to bump into the guy, especially in front of her dad. She knew he would make an embarrassing scene again, whinin
