Dashing Through the No (Summersweet Island 3)

Happiness would be wearing matching Christmas pajamas, sitting in front of a tree in a cabin in the woods with people who let me be me… whoever that is. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever know who I am or what I really want to do with my life. I’ve never been given a choice about anything, and it’s never been more glaringly obvious how weak and pathetic I’ve become than right now, being stuck at a party I don’t want to be at on Christmas Eve, surrounded by people I can’t stand.

“What’s your problem?” Brandon scoffs, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at a group of our friends a few feet away, who are most likely sexually harassing the female server in a pink onesie trying to offer them a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “The guys said you’ve been in a pissy mood all night. We got an invite to the Parker Christmas Eve party, man; get in a good mood already. I heard this is going to be a yearly thing, and it’s going to be bigger and better every year. Thank God Richard Parker kicked the bucket and his wife decided to have a little fun in his honor, am I right?”

Brandon nudges his elbow into my side and laughs, and I suddenly have the urge to flip a table. Anyone who’s anyone in Hollywood knows who Richard Parker is. Or was, I should say, since he just passed away a few months ago. I met him a couple of times over the years when I was out with my dad, and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Owning one of the biggest real estate companies in California, Mr. Parker’s firm only caters to the very wealthy, and the majority of his clients are celebrities. I guess since his passing, his wife took over the real estate business, and she decided to throw this pink nightmare of a Christmas Eve party at the request of her YouTube-famous twin daughters. And since my father is one of the most widely known celebrity attorneys in California, I’m forced to attend this thing, just like the other couple hundred people here, not doing anything Christmassy on Christmas Eve.

“I heard Tori and Zoey are getting ready to sign a deal for a reality show. Have you seen the asses on those two? I can be patient until they’re legal,” our friend Trent adds with a wink when he walks over to us, referring to Richard Parker’s twin daughters. Richard Parker’s twelve-year-old twin daughters.

“You’re disgusting,” I tell him, which just makes Trent snort, and the rage continues to build.

Technically, this feeling like my world is spinning out of control has been building for a while now. Ever since I started taking surfing lessons a few months ago on a whim, when I saw a flyer for them on the bulletin board at the Kappa Sigma house. For the first time in my life, I did something I wanted to do, that my father and my friends still know nothing about. Something just for me because it made me happy. Being out there alone on my board with nothing but miles and miles of ocean stretched out in front of me, with nothing but possibilities stretched out in front of me, it makes me forget who I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do, and it makes me feel… free. Not tied down and not strapped into a future I didn’t sign up for. The closer I get to graduating from Stanford in May, and the closer I get to securing a future I haven’t wanted since the day it was decided for me, the more I crave that freedom. And the closer I get to tipping over the edge and losing my shit.

When I hear a loud, boisterous laugh from the other side of the room, I turn my head to see my father squeeze the ass of a woman. A woman who is not my mother and is closer to my age than his own. It takes everything in me not to actually flip the small pink bar table next to me with a four-foot-tall pink flower arrangement on it. Not for my mother. She wouldn’t even care or notice that my dad is fondling another woman in public. She left an hour ago so she’d have plenty of time to fuck her driver before my father comes home.

I’m about ready to rip this constricting tux off my body and climb out of my skin because this is my future. All of this. I’m friends with these assholes because my father is friends with their fathers. They are the sons of politicians, celebrities, and the wealthy and elite, who have never had to work hard for anything they have. These are the people my father has deemed as the “right” people to associate with to further my career and make him look good. I’m graduating from Stanford in the spring, just like my father. I’ve been accepted to Harvard Law, just like my father. I already have an internship at my father’s firm waiting for me, as well as a job when I graduate law school, and I’m well on my way to becoming a card-carrying member of the Douchebag Frat Boy Club, just like my father.