Like I said, we’d met when I was in middle school, so when I was nine. His parents worked with mine and we were allowed to hangout now and then. It wasn’t until I was almost nineteen that our relationship developed, and I was careful to hide it from my parents. We’d known each other for so long that I trusted him, I even let down the barriers and showed emotions that I didn’t normally. My parents loved him as a person, but I was worried that if they’d known we were together, they’d have stopped it.
Anyway, on the night in question, I’d come home from the library preoccupied with the fact that Eric had been acting weird, and wanted to take our relationship to a new level immediately. He’d just cornered me in the library and told me to suck him off because the idea of public sex was a huge turn on for him. After that, he said he was going to fuck me over the railing that looked down onto the entrance of the building. Yes, we’d fooled around, but doing something like that was a hell no for me. I’d told him my parents were expecting me, knowing that it would make him back off, and had driven home and walked in on the argument – and every minute after that changed my life.“There’s no reason for her to ever know,” Dad yelled, the sound of something slamming following it. “You were the one who forced the adoption after Kelly-Anne died, not me. I told you when I found out that from now on I would be in charge of what happened, and that you were never to defy me again.”
A condescending laugh interrupted him. “Defy you? I think you forget who you’re talking to, dear. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have the reputation you have now. You wouldn’t be the respected surgeon you are now. You’d be working in a city hospital, earning jack shit for your time and effort, dear.” I heard the sound of her heels clicking on the marble floor and tensed in case she was headed toward where I was standing outside the door. “You’re the one who got that girl pregnant and had to pay her off, not me. That night when she killed herself, I acted to protect our reputations. What do you think people would have said if they found out you’d had an affair? That you’d gotten the receptionist pregnant? Yet again because of me you have a good reputation, so don’t you dare accuse me of ‘defying’ you.”
I was swallowing harshly over the lump in my throat, so I almost missed what happened next.
“At least I wanted to fuck her, Raquel,” he shot back, and I heard a crack after it. “That was a cheap shot, but then that’s you in a nutshell, isn’t it?” My dad’s voice took on a tone I’d never heard from him before. “Listen carefully, that’s the only time you’ll ever get to hit me. You seem to forget, dear, I have a whole file of evidence of the shit you’ve done. It would be a shame if people ever saw it.”
Evidence? What kind of evidence?
“You need to stick with the plan for her, Ed. She’s just graduated and is taking those damned nursing exams soon. All of that time and money for nothing because she wants to be a nurse, not a doctor. We’re paying people enough to do what needs done, so she’ll be re-enrolling in college to do the degree we chose for her and starting it in the fall. I’ve already paid for her to be accepted, just like we did before…”
“And that’s the problem,” he interrupted her. “All I do is pay out for her, money that’s being wasted. Ten thousand dollars a month for both of them, one hundred thousand to the Dean, school fees, a car…”
I couldn’t listen to anymore, so I turned around and ran out the door. I drove blindly to the one person I had left that I figured I could trust – Amber. When I got to her apartment, I let myself in with the key she’d given me, and walked in on her fucking my boyfriend as he snorted a line of white powder off her lips. They were both so high and caught up in what they were doing that they didn’t even notice me standing there, or look up when the door shut behind me as I left.
It was an hour into my drive around the city that I came up with a plan. Money talked – my ‘parents’ had proven that tonight, so I was going to make it talk for me, too.
The next day, I went to the group of guys that I knew would be able to help me at the hospital that I’d be taking my NCLEX-RN exams at – ones that everyone was scared of apart from me – and I outlined my plan. They were good guys who were judged because of their backgrounds, and to that day I’d never even thought about them like that, so of course they asked why I wanted what I was asking for – an old car that wouldn’t draw any attention. A lot of people in the area we lived in knew me and my parents, so if I was seen buying it myself, my plan would have been blown before I got the chance to leave. The guys knew I was good for the money, but they wanted to make sure I was ok.