I’m sorry for a lot of things. In a matter of a few hours, years of mistakes obliterated in my face, taking down everyone around me. But mostly, I’m sorry for having to leave them, their once whole girl now fragments of who she used to be.
“Sweetie,” my mom coos. “Don’t you ever apologize. This is not your fault at all. Listen, we are safe, he is gone right now. We are okay, you are okay, and we will catch him. That’s all that matters.”
“And,” my father chimes. “You got a badass traveling gig!”
Here I am, twenty-seven years old, crying to my parents about a boy who broke me. Because he isn’t a man. A man would never do what he did to me.
“We are just so proud of you, Sunny. You are achieving your dreams. You always wanted to be a travel nurse, and now you’re doing it! You are making things happen,” my mother says.
God I just adore my parents.
They have given me such a beautiful example of what love should be like. Hopefully one day I’ll come to learn what that feels like instead of just what it looks like.
I swipe my runny nose with my sleeve. “I really love you guys.”
“We love you too, Sunny girl.” My father smiles.
“I know it’s only been a few hours, but, how about you tell us about the city, when you start your job, all the things!?” My mother asks.
Smiling at my parents through the phone screen, I tell them all about it as I schedule apartment viewings for that day.
Maybe it will be okay.
TYLER
“Don’t forget, we have our dinner with mom and dad tonight,” Sam says as I rummage through a stack of paperwork while she lounges on the chair in front of my desk, snacking on carrot sticks.
I clench my jaw at the words. “How could I forget?”
My office is large, with panoramic windows overlooking the city and water, graced with plants from Sam. Stacked with a full bar and couches for clients that she uses more often than not.
“How the hell didweend up in this kind of family?” Sam asks, noting my gaze peering around the office.
“I ask myself that every day.” The mayor of the city is hosting a campaign at one of the local breweries. As investors to the brewery and the campaign, we are obligated to go. I’mtrying to find the contract that has the list of details they want for it.
My father’s plan is to move up the political chain, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Hence my arranged marriage with the daughter of the current governor. The puppet master doing his best work. It’s what investors are notorious for, and how we own politicians.
“I’m betting a coffee tomorrow morning that they’ll bring up Shelby tonight. Oh, and that they will try and bring up a goodsuitor,” she signs with her hands. “for me to marry.”
I set the papers down. “You’re on. I’m betting that she will ask me as soon as I walk through the door.”
“No. Mom will definitely ease her way into it so that when she does come off as nosy and annoying, she’ll try and claim that she wasn’t.” She plays with a strand of pink hair.
We keep our lives as far as possible from that lifestyle. We were forced to deal with it growing up, but when we both turned eighteen and went to college, we tried to create as much distance between ourselves and our parents. Save for working in the same company. But it’s not like we really had a say in the matter.
Caddell is large so we barely see them as it is. The headquarters is in Boston as the heart of the company, beating life into seedy satellite offices across the nation. My father gave the bulk of the work to me here while he travels frequently to manage our other campuses and contracts.
I make my appearance on those trips if he needs me for myabilities. While I may be heir to the Caddell fortune, I’ve become Mitchell’s personal cleaner. It’s easier to groom your son into doing your dirty work versus having a hitman on payroll and risk everything. Blood runs thick, but certainly not as thick as a payroll.
Thus, resulting in my becoming my fathers personal hitman. He needed someone in the family he could control. His ownadjuster to ensure the necessary people are taken out to reach his business and political gains.
Aside from that, we never see them which lead to every other week family dinners. Our mother tries to push for weekly, but that’s something we just can’t commit to.
We save a weekly dinner slot for the family we made for ourselves. Every week one person from our group hosts a family dinner in their home. It’s the one thing that gets me through each week, if I’m being honest. When you come from a broken family, you cling to the one you created yourself.
“Okay, well I should probably get back. Spreadsheets await,” she says sarcastically.
Although my sister is wild and rebellious, she’s very smart when it comes to numbers. That’s why she became the head of the financial department in our company. In addition to our separation anxiety, that’s also why she went to Harvard with me.
