Page 23 of Beach Reads
II
Stolen Summer
Description
Ishould be traveling around Europe this summer.
Instead I’m held captive by a hot doctor.
My father has always been a controlling jerk, but shutting me away in some institute for ‘behavioral issues’? That’s a new low.
I don’t care if the head doctor is the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. No, I don’t care that his stern, clipped words make me shiver deep inside.
I’mnotcrazy, and I’m blowing this joint—letting it all burn as I go.
My father? Dead to me.
My future? Up in smoke.
The doctor? Well, he’s in on this sham. Isn’t he?
Except his gaze is so steady. His voice is so warm.
And maybe I’mnotall alone.
Poppy
You know those action movies with all the explosions and the guys in sunglasses? Those blockbusters packed with car chases and hot people fighting on trains?
That’s gonna be my summer. Metaphorically, I mean. Because over the next few months, I’m gonna burn my whole life to ash.
I will sever every family tie; pour gasoline over all their excuses; carpet bomb the future career my father lined up for me. And once everything is truly ruined, once there’s nothing left of my old life except scorch marks and smoking craters, I’ll stroll away like one of the action heroes in those movies, smirking behind my cool-guy shades. I swear I will.
An institution.
I can’t believe it.
My father is sending me to aninstitution, locking me away like a feral dog. And for what? ‘Behavioral issues.’
Bullshit, that’s what.
I’ve never done half the things he’s accused me of, but a tragic part of me really thought that maybe, just maybe,thistime, he’d listen to me. He’d try to see my side. He’d think about this situation for more than twenty furious seconds.
The suitcase resting open on my double bed says: no. That was such a naive hope, and now what are my options? My father is a powerful man. You either cooperate, or things get much worse.
So I pack my case, stuffing it with crop tops and swimsuits and my To-Be-Read pile, like I really am going on vacation. I go along with this stupid plan, throwing polite smiles at the bruiser in a suit and earpiece watching my every move, and I say my silent goodbyes to the bedroom I’ve lived in for the last twenty two years.
The peacock blue feature wall. The sparkling glass doors, opening onto my own balcony; those wrought iron railings threaded with ivy. My walk-in closet and the desk I studied at for so many long nights over the years, finding solace in the sharpclickof highlighter pen lids snapping back into place.
This room was my home. My only safe space. And you know what? It’s pretty damn nice.
But any minute now, I’ll be torn away and bundled off to some horrible doctor on the coast, sitting quietly in the back seat for the whole drive like a good little parcel.
Behavioral issues. Such bullshit.
So I won’t stay at that place; I won’t let him control me, and I won’t keep quiet about this, never mind my father’s political ambitions.
I will burn. It all. Down.
