The Hardy Family Chronicles

A Tale of Several SimsA New Beginning – Part 2

While Jake continued to be a highly intelligent teen, prone to long antisocial bouts of academic contemplation...

Hannah struggled to stay at a high standard. She’s far from dim, but has a hard time switching on to what the school offers.

She was just less enthused with words and formulas than she was for paint and canvas. Even her art though, began to bore her after a while.

One morning, she awoke to find her new reason for living at the foot of her bed.

A guitar. Maybe her parents knew her a little better than she’d thought.

Hannah's social life continued to be far more healthy than her brothers. Her childhood friends grew with her and they had many parties. It was her best friend Jesse who first suggested she take her newfound musical skill to the streets.

After her first night went well, Hannah often went out after school to play her guitar in the city park. Her sets grew longer and longer as more people heard of her good reputation.

Jesse loved watching her, and loved her too. Hannah didn’t knock him back either. He, unlike her family, was on her wavelength.

Her dad tried to tell her off about staying out after curfew playing in the park, but she wouldn’t listen. It was her dream to play guitar, he couldn’t persuade her otherwise.

So Hannah ignored him. She knew what direction her life was taking, and it was making money with her music. It was her parents who had fancied the simple life, not her.

Hannah was always one to want to move on to the next big thing, and one night at a party she explained to Jesse out of the blue that she wanted to break up.

This may have had something to do with Ben Hargrove, the local bad boy who sported a killer Mohican. Fact was, Jesse was familiar and safe, and just a little bit boring.

Ben on the other hand... Well they could have been made for each other. They were forever phoning each other up to chat or arrange meetings.

She fell hard, and Jesse didn’t stand a chance.

Kathy and Lee didn’t give up on their wayward daughter, but they did put most of their time and energy into the garden instead. Perhaps they understood trying to control her would backfire, or maybe they remembered their own rebellious days when they had fallen in a forbidden love.

A love that had the seeds of its destruction within. Lee was much older than Kathy, and as such, became an elder earlier than Kathy had suspected.

But Kathy had always known the age gap was there, they’d be alright. She loved her husband in a quiet, content, but ultimately rock solid way.

But despite still loving him deeply, Kathy was slightly uncomfortable with his age, now that it was more obvious.

When her loner brothers ageing up came around again, Hannah tried to make it an eventful one by inviting all her friends over to have a party celebrating it.

This extra boost of confidence meant Jake grew into a young adult ready to show the world he was more than just a weirdly clever kid who hardly ever spoke to girls. He had more to offer than that.

He made a decision that would drastically shape his future, and take him out of his comfort zone.

He joined the air force.

Lee was shocked but supportive, but Kathy was horrified when he told them he’d enlisted. Her quiet boy in the armed forces? Unthinkable!

And it was a tearful goodbye as he left his little sister.

Jake moved into a small house on the militaries territory, and worked hard to shape up after a lifetime of purely cerebral exercise.

He settled in enough to invite his family over for tea, but when they weren’t around he revelled in the life of a bachelor.

All that changed one morning, when he was spotted by so plain a woman that he didn’t even notice her.