always wondered if a real parent—not a paid replacement—would have given up so easily.
The waist-high walls of the garden hedges don’t conceal me now. Nor do they do anything to appease me. I’ve been pacing along them for nearly an hour and I still feel sick to my stomach. Holly got tired and gave up trying to follow me half an hour ago. She’s curled up on a lounge chair by the pool, waiting for me to finish whatever it is I’m doing so we can go back inside.
As I walk, navigating the various twists and turns of the complicated network of sculpted shrubs, gurgling fountains, and heart-shaped flower beds, I mentally work through my options. Trying desperately to find one that doesn’t result in a dead end.
But even though I’ve been walking this garden for nearly fifteen years, even though I know this green maze like the back of my hand, I still feel trapped at every turn. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No matter which direction I choose, my father always wins.
I’m not sure why I ever thought I could go up against Richard Larrabee and succeed. No one else ever has. Why should I be any different? In this game, my father is the one who holds the advantage. In every game he plays, actually. It’s simply the way it is. The way it’s always been. And it’s pretty clear to me now—with a wallet full of canceled credit cards and a bank account as frozen as the arctic circle—that he isn’t going to just change his mind. He isn’t going to reconsider.
This time, I’m the one who’s going to have to surrender.
So with a hollow feeling in my chest and a bitter taste in my mouth, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and call Bruce.
THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
I lie on my bed, staring out through the small slit in the curtain canopy that I’ve drawn closed around me like a cocoon. I wish I could stay in here forever. Hidden away from this cruel world that I inhabit. But my life is like a ticking clock now. Like a bomb waiting to explode. Because in less than twenty-four hours, everything will change. Nothing will be the same.
Bruce said on the phone that he was proud of me for making the decision to go along with my father’s plan. I snorted in response. For one, his choice of words annoyed me. He’s proud of me? Please. How many times do I have to remind this man that he is not my father? And second, since when was there ever a “decision” to be made here? When was I ever given a choice in this matter? The answer is … never.
My father doesn’t give choices. He doesn’t leave options.
Bruce told me to come into his office first thing tomorrow morning so we could get started. I mumbled some kind of agreement and hung up the phone, anxious to end that particular call as quickly as possible.
Now all I can do is wait. And imagine how horrible my life is going to be for the next … wait for it … year . This is by far the worst birthday in the history of the world.
The second phone call I’ve been dreading comes at eight p.m., an hour after I’m supposed to have arrived at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I don’t really want to answer. I don’t want to have to tell my friends about everything I’ve been through today. It’s too humiliating. Too heartbreaking. Too horrific. But I know I have to answer. I can’t just not show up to my eighteenth birthday party without an explanation.
“Hey Ji,” I say into the phone. My voice sounds far away and defeated.
“Hey sweetness,” Jia drawls. “What’s taking you so long? Is there traffic? You’re going to die when you see what we’ve done with this club. You won’t even recognize it! T had this awesome idea to—”
“Jia,” I interrupt her before she has a chance to tell me about all the other fabulous things that I’ll never be able to see because my idiot father decided to schedule a tornado to strike on my eighteenth birthday. “I’m not coming.”
I wait through the stunned silence before she finally
The waist-high walls of the garden hedges don’t conceal me now. Nor do they do anything to appease me. I’ve been pacing along them for nearly an hour and I still feel sick to my stomach. Holly got tired and gave up trying to follow me half an hour ago. She’s curled up on a lounge chair by the pool, waiting for me to finish whatever it is I’m doing so we can go back inside.
As I walk, navigating the various twists and turns of the complicated network of sculpted shrubs, gurgling fountains, and heart-shaped flower beds, I mentally work through my options. Trying desperately to find one that doesn’t result in a dead end.
But even though I’ve been walking this garden for nearly fifteen years, even though I know this green maze like the back of my hand, I still feel trapped at every turn. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No matter which direction I choose, my father always wins.
I’m not sure why I ever thought I could go up against Richard Larrabee and succeed. No one else ever has. Why should I be any different? In this game, my father is the one who holds the advantage. In every game he plays, actually. It’s simply the way it is. The way it’s always been. And it’s pretty clear to me now—with a wallet full of canceled credit cards and a bank account as frozen as the arctic circle—that he isn’t going to just change his mind. He isn’t going to reconsider.
This time, I’m the one who’s going to have to surrender.
So with a hollow feeling in my chest and a bitter taste in my mouth, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and call Bruce.
THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
I lie on my bed, staring out through the small slit in the curtain canopy that I’ve drawn closed around me like a cocoon. I wish I could stay in here forever. Hidden away from this cruel world that I inhabit. But my life is like a ticking clock now. Like a bomb waiting to explode. Because in less than twenty-four hours, everything will change. Nothing will be the same.
Bruce said on the phone that he was proud of me for making the decision to go along with my father’s plan. I snorted in response. For one, his choice of words annoyed me. He’s proud of me? Please. How many times do I have to remind this man that he is not my father? And second, since when was there ever a “decision” to be made here? When was I ever given a choice in this matter? The answer is … never.
My father doesn’t give choices. He doesn’t leave options.
Bruce told me to come into his office first thing tomorrow morning so we could get started. I mumbled some kind of agreement and hung up the phone, anxious to end that particular call as quickly as possible.
Now all I can do is wait. And imagine how horrible my life is going to be for the next … wait for it … year . This is by far the worst birthday in the history of the world.
The second phone call I’ve been dreading comes at eight p.m., an hour after I’m supposed to have arrived at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I don’t really want to answer. I don’t want to have to tell my friends about everything I’ve been through today. It’s too humiliating. Too heartbreaking. Too horrific. But I know I have to answer. I can’t just not show up to my eighteenth birthday party without an explanation.
“Hey Ji,” I say into the phone. My voice sounds far away and defeated.
“Hey sweetness,” Jia drawls. “What’s taking you so long? Is there traffic? You’re going to die when you see what we’ve done with this club. You won’t even recognize it! T had this awesome idea to—”
“Jia,” I interrupt her before she has a chance to tell me about all the other fabulous things that I’ll never be able to see because my idiot father decided to schedule a tornado to strike on my eighteenth birthday. “I’m not coming.”
I wait through the stunned silence before she finally
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