"I'm what?" I asked in a daze, staring at the two people who were supposed to be my parents.
They had given birth to me.
They had provided for me in every materialistic way imaginable.
But that had been where the 'parenting' had ended.
If there was anything Johnathan and Chrissy Davidson ever excelled at, it was neglecting their children.
At first, I had thought it was because my father had desperately wanted a son, and my mother, as always, wanted whatever my father wanted. So, I had wrongly assumed they never paid me any interest because they'd been disappointed in having a daughter. But, eleven years later, Johnny had come along. My little brother was the sweetest human being I've ever met. He was beautiful, kind, funny, and smart.
All characteristics one could argue I lacked. And our parents still didn't give a shit.
So, they hadn't just not wanted a daughter. They just hadn't needed children.
And to be brutally honest, I always suspected they didn’t even consider Johnny and me as human beings with thoughts and feelings of our own. Their announcement just now confirmed my theory.
For a moment, they stared at me in confusion.
As if I was the strange one for not understanding.
As if I was crazy for being shocked that they had, in essence, sold their child to a stranger.
"You're getting married next week dear," my mother repeated my father's earlier words, but it still didn’t compute. If either of them were inclined to a sense of humor or seeking me out when they were home unless absolutely necessary, I would have thought this was all one big joke. One in bad taste to be sure, but a joke nonetheless.
A humorless laugh escaped my lips anyway.
"To whom?" I didn't know why I bothered with the question. I wasn't getting married to anyone, that's for damn sure.
My parents exchanged a hesitant glance before my father slid a closed file across his desk toward me.
The initial pool of dread that had gathered in my gut seemed to take on a life of its own, growing limbs and slithering into every one of my nerve endings. The fact that my self-absorbed parents seemed reluctant to reveal who this farce of a groom was, already told me it was bad news.
"His name is Phillip Craven," my father volunteered, though he needn't have bothered.
I was already staring at the first page of the file, which was a picture of my supposed groom-to-be.
Even if I was the 21st-century version of rapunzel,---locked in a gilded tower for all intents and purposes--- I still would have known who Phillip Craven was.
The picture was a well-known one. It had graced the cover of Forbes Top 20 Richest in the world.
Mr. Craven, the tycoon who had his hand in every pie ever created, had taken 6th place on the list. His rise to the top had garnered everyone’s attention, his rags-to-riches story had seemed like something straight out of a fairytale.
One of the man’s primary interests was hostile takeovers, which, according to the news, he was the king of. For whatever reason, he also took on failing companies and revived them as no one else could. I knew all this information because two years ago, my father’s AD company had fallen into the latter category. Though I had never personally met the man who was technically my father’s boss, I had sought to know as much as I could about the man that had saved me and my brother from destitution.
The fact that it was this man, made everything seem more real and yet impossible all at once. On one hand, my father did know the man, had been saved by him, and now owed him quite a lot. But on the other hand, at 37 years old, Phillip Craven was one of the most sought-after bachelors in the country. Whether it was for his darkly attractive looks or his newly acquired fortune was anyone’s guess. There was no logical reason for him to be interested in me.
It didn’t matter.
None of this mattered.
No matter how grateful I was, I wasn’t going to bind my life to a complete stranger.
I threw the file onto the desk without going through it.
“I’m not going to do it,” I said, resolutely.
My parents’ demeanor transformed from slightly nervous and impatient to anger. My mother’s look was more of an annoyed anger, much akin to the looks she threw me whenever I couldn’t fit into one of the size zero dresses she had picked out for me, or whenever I tried to get her to pay more attention to Johnny. My father’s look was also one I was familiar with. Jonathan Davidson had quite a short temper. Though hardly anyone outside our household was privy to that bit of information. Whenever things didn’t go his way, he had a tendency to throw tantrums that could rival a toddler’s.
He had gotten physical a few times in my life --- the man could leave behind a nasty bruise whenever he was so inclined ---, but more often than not, he tended towards verbal abuse and breaking anything within reach.
I wasn’t sure which way this one would swing yet, but none of that mattered. I wasn’t going to change my mind.
My mother rolled her eyes in exasperation and stood from her perch on the edge of my father’s desk.
“I told you she would be difficult darling,” she commented as if I wasn’t still sitting there. “Every day, I wonder how I could have possibly given birth to you.”
There was a time, up to very recently, when her words would have had the power to hurt me. She said them often enough that I had gone through a period of having nightmares with those words constantly being repeated. One day, I had simply come to the realization that it wasn’t a *bad* thing that I was nothing like this woman.
“I’m not marrying him,” I repeated.
“You will!” my father yelled --- he liked yelling. “This isn’t a request child!”
I hated when he called me that. He managed to pack so much disdain into that single word, it made my skin crawl.
I was twenty-one years old.! I’m not a fucking child! I wanted to yell that in his face so badly, but, through force of habit, my response came out in a calm, unaffected voice. “This is the twenty-first century. You can’t force me to marry someone.”
“You ungrateful little bitch!” my mother started, “do you think we raised you all these years for nothing?!”
I rolled my eyes mentally. This was a famous line of argument, so I gladly zoned out. She would go on for the next five minutes or so about how much money I cost. The clothes and the food ---and ‘god knows you eat more than your share’ --- and all the extra classes I just *had* to take. And how dare I still live at home at this age? Contributing absolutely nothing to this family? I was leech… blah blah and more blah.
This was going to be a long night. The only good thing I could foresee from this entire debacle was the fact that they would ignore me for a few months. Two at the minimum with how pissed they seemed to be at the moment.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink if I ever left my little brother to the mercy of these horrible people, I would have left this place the minute she’d turned eighteen. They would have probably cut me off, but I’m pretty sure dying hungry and cold on the street would be a step up from living here.
There was a sudden silence in the office, and I realized my mother had come to the end of her spiel.
Cue my response.
“I’m not marrying him.”
“It’s either that or we’re on the streets.” My father delivers that bit of news in an unusually calm voice. It was all the more effectual in scaring me, given he had been red-in-the-face-angry only a minute ago.
“What on earth are you talking about?” I questioned, sure this was another one of his tactics ---definitely new, but a scheme all the same.
“Don’t be obtuse. You know the company was in the red before Craven stepped in a few years ago. He turned it around but my position in the company was reduced to nothing more than his errand boy. Do you think I could keep you and your brother in the same state as before with the money I was being paid as a puppet CEO?”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying father,” I choked out past the dread building in my throat, because, in truth, I did understand what he was saying. “You stole from him...?”
“Stole?!” He swiped his hand across the desk, scattering most of its content on the floor, “everything and everyone in that building is mine. That money belongs to me!”
Of course, he felt that way. I’m certain my mother agrees with him. But in any sane person’s mind, and I’m sure the judge he’d rightfully be brought in front of was sane, my father had stolen from the man that had saved his life, and the life of the hundreds of people that had been in his employ.
He had essentially bitten the hand that fed him. And somehow I was being made to pay the price.
I was silent for a long time. I hadn’t been a straight-A student or anything, but I certainly wasn’t dumb. It seemed I had an ultimatum. It was either I marry Phillip Craven, the man my father had betrayed, or my family would pay the price.
Of course, had it only been me, I would have just let them rot in jail. *I hadn’t been the one that stole the money, but Johnny…
There wasn’t a chance in hell I would ever let my brother experience a moment’s despair if I could help it.
And they knew that.
They had known that the moment they had started this conversation.
“How much was I worth?” I asked numbly, finally realizing my protestations had been for nothing.
They both relaxed, seeming to realize my question was a form of acquiescence.
My mother smiled vindictively over at me, before responding to my question, “certainly not as much as what you were paid for.”
