Southern Comfort

Everyone always heard the stories about the girl who managed to snag up some irresistible hockey players heart. The true versions of the fairytales that you fantasized about when you were just a little girl. The tales weren’t always the same, but somewhere along the road, the heroine always struggled through the lies and heartbreak. Whether it was a happy ending or not, it was always worth telling, and it always left you begging for more.

Some were fortunate (and possible unfortunate) to see the entire ordeal unfold before their very own eyes, but then some weren’t. And for those of you who weren’t in the select few to see my story go down in Sioux history, that’s exactly why I’m here. I’m here to tell you how everything happened. How my life got flipped one hundred eighty degrees, turned completely upside down in a matter of months.

The girls this seemed happened to were always the same. From a wealthy suburb of some city in the states, a rich daddy to fund anything they could possibly need in college, and a naïve heart that was open to be broken by any boy who would look twice.

Despite my wishes, I packed up and left my rich town of Oakleigh, right outside of Mobile, Alabama, and drove the day long drive up north to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

I was a southern girl through and through. From my daisy dukes, cowboy boots, and my strong southern accent, it was highly apparent that I had never been away from the most southern tip of Alabama in my entire life. And just like any other southern belle, pride didn’t even describe what I feel for my home.

Oakleigh Heights was like any small southern town you could ever imagine. The large, beautiful antebellum houses stood proudly, reminding us all of the struggles and courage our soldiers went through during the Civil War.

Everyone in the town knew each other, and everyone got along. The children were raised to respect their elders, and the kindness to help anyone in need. Growing up, if I didn’t respond with ‘yes ma’am,’ or ‘yes sir,’ I would have been annihilated by my papa. In the south, respect was a huge deal.

It was always my dream to stay in Alabama and attend Alabama University. I wanted to be just like my momma, hoping to settle down fast and become a house mom to a few children. But when my older sister Rory was offered a full paid scholarship to the University of North Dakota for softball, she ditched her dream to also attend Alabama University and travelled up north.

Only a year later, when it was my turn to be shipped off to college, my heart was still set on Alabama. But after being guilt tripped for almost a year, I caved and sent my application to North Dakota, where I was accepted with flying colors. There was no turning back after that.

Momma didn’t want her baby going so far. Let’s be honest, growing up, and still to this day, Lorelei was always the wild child. Staying out until well past midnight, leaving with random boys, and run ins with the law was something that I was never involved in, but Rory was a regular with that kind of stuff.

During high school, I was always the honor student, the good girl in class with the southern belle thing going on. Boys always tried too hard to get with me, and I always denied them without a second thought.

Boys were something that my mind was never fixed on, much unlike Rory. But with my father so overprotective of his baby girl, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. When I was only eleven, I was I wasn’t permitted to date until I was thirty.

Growing up, I was always jealous of Rory and our parents’ passive attitudes towards her. She was the softball super star of the town, and she had no rules or consequences, and she was allowed to do what her heart set on doing. Me? My mother planned everything out for me, it was never about what I wanted, it was always what she wanted for me. I was the town beauty queen, but papa was always more protective of me. It makes sense, but I always just wanted to do my own thing, like Rory does, but that never happened.

At the age of only three, my mother decided she wanted a girly girl. I was forced to enter county beauty pageants. By the time I was ten, I was in the states, and into the tri state pageants. When I was seventeen, after countless crownings, awards and titles, I finally convinced my mother to let me concentrate on my studies, instead of dresses, glitter and fake tans.

It was no unknown fact that the Maloy girls were blessed with the natural beauty it seemed that only southern girls could posses. It wasn’t just outer beauty, it was the inner also. The respect, kindness, and sweet character that made the Maloy girls loved around Mobile.

But I always wanted more. I wanted to do what I felt like doing, instead of living for my mother. I wanted a steady boyfriend who could love me for me and now what everyone thinks I am. By senior year of high school, I realized that’s just too much to ask for.

Maybe the reason I decided to go north was because it was something that my mother didn’t want to choose for me. It was something completely random, and since my sister was there, my parents didn’t really have a problem with it.

North Dakota was a huge change from Alabama. Unlike boys in the south, these boys had no respect for women. The girls dressed like prostitutes, and at first, I wasn’t sure if I could make it up here.

But my sister helped me get through all of that. It was always refreshing to hear her warm, southern voice over all of those slurred, drunken profanities that floated around campus.

I promised myself I wouldn’t get involved. I told myself I had more values than that. But something triggered in my mind when he spoke my name. My heart started to beat faster, and my head started to spin. Once again, I knew there was no turning back.

And that’s when the other got involved. That’s when everything got turned upside down. Everything I have ever promised myself, all of my respect for myself was just thrown out of the window when his hand lightly brushed across my cheek. And I couldn’t do anything about it.

From there, everything was just the feeling of a rush. I loved the way it made me feel, and I got caught up. I was stuck in a vicious cycle, and there was no way to get out of it without a broken heart.

Every girl wants to avoid a broken heart. Especially when a boy of their kind is the one bound to do it. No matter how fake her tan was, or how rich she was, there was no escaping it.

And I was just like all of those other girls that had previously got caught up in something similar to me. Something about my French manicured nails, long, shiny hair, and high class demeanor just screamed that I was just another one of those girls that most guys seemed to be drawn to. I’m nothing different from three fourths of the other girls on this campus, so how did I manage to get two different boys completely smitten with me? Well, that’s something I didn’t have answer to, but I can tell you how everything happened. It’s a bumpy road, but I would change what I did or how I did it for anything in the world. I’m Gracianne Maloy, and I'm going to tell you exactly how everything I've ever known fell apart, then fixed itself at the same time.