Page 40 of Tall, Royal Hater
“Mariyah,” Esmeralda said, sounding somewhere between shocked and upset. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lifting my lashes, I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to burden you with my problem when you had so much going on already, especially since they’d only just been getting better too. But I also didn’t know what to say. I’m not…I’m not an anxious person. I don’t usually doubt myself or my choices, but that’s all I’ve been doing recently. And it was hard to come to terms with it myself, let alone figure out how to explain it to someone else. So, I just…kept my mouth shut.”
In the silence that followed, I glanced at Esmeralda to find her cheeks coloured pink and her eyes filled with tears. “Why the fuck are you about to cry?” I said harsher than I meant to. “Don’t fucking cry. I will punch you if you cry, Ez.”
“I’m not going to cry,” she snapped back. “I understand why you didn’t, but I’m angry at you for not telling me, and I’m angry at myself for not seeing it. And now I feel like a shit friend.” She scowled. “I cried to you on the phone about Kai so many times too, and you never said anything.”
“You’re not a shit friend, dummy.” I poked the crease between her brows. “You gave me the best escape when you invited me on this holiday, and I was so grateful for it. I really needed the break from real life, just to breathe and figure things out again. But…”
I sighed and tucked my hand back into my lap. “Mum and Dad told me about some economic analyst job in the Central Bank of Raven that they think I should apply for. But I can’t do it, Esmeralda. Just the thought of it is making me sick to my stomach again. And I know I can’t assume that because I hate my current job, I’ll hate that job too, but I don’t think moving to a different sector will make a difference. As much as I loved studying Econ at uni, career-wise, it’s not for me at all.”
“You need to tell them, Mariyah,” she said.
“I know.” I shook my head. “But they would ask me what my plans were next, and I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know what I want anymore, and as much as I act like I only live for myself, I love my parents, Ez, and I care about what they want and expect of me. They might not voice it, but I feel it all the same, and you know what that’s like.”
Esmeralda scrunched her lips to the side as I gave her a soft smile. “I know I’m the loud and proud wild child of the family, but I don’t want to be a disappointment. I don’t want to give them a reason to think they didn’t do a great job as parents. And truthfully, it’s not just about them. I expect something of myself too…I just don’t know what that expectation is anymore.”
“I understand. I do. But you’re being a dummy too, Mar,” Esmeralda said. “Your parents will not expect you to knowexactly what you want to do next immediately. They’d support you no matter what, even if you wanted to take a break.”
I knew she was right. My parents had pushed me and my older sister to work hard and strive to be and do our best, but they had never dictated what that had to look like. They had given us lots of freedom, but at the same time, they’d still had expectations of us. Now, those same expectations hung over my head like blocks of stone attached to fraying rope, threatening to crush me.
I dragged my teeth across my bottom lip, struggling to sit still while my belly churned. “A career break is supposed to end with another job lined up. I haven’t even thought about one yet.”
“Okay.” Esmeralda shuffled closer. “Then was there any aspect of the job that you did actually like, or do you want an entire career change? They’d support you if you wanted to go back to uni too.”
I sat there for a minute thinking. “I don’t want to study again. But I don’t know…I guess there were a few occasions where I had to plan networking events with a small team of others. They weren’t ever massive events, but I enjoyed them. Connecting with new people and just the whole process.”
“So, something like event planning maybe?”
“I guess…”
She smiled and nudged my arm lightly. “See. You do have some indication of what you might be interested in, which is a start. And it makes sense too because you’re great with people. Maybe event planning is something you should look into.”
I returned her smile. “Yeah, I should. I mean, I will.”
“But not right now, of course.” Esmeralda waved the idea away. “After our holiday.”
“Oh, agreed.” I nodded along with her before we both chuckled. “Thank you, Ez.”
“No thanks needed, Mar.” A mischievous grin swept over my best friend’s face as she swivelled around, crossed her legs, and shuffled closer. “So, can we talk about Shehryar now?”
“Oh, no.” I pushed the duvet off my legs and rolled away. “No, no, no, no. No.”
“Mariyah!” She managed to grab onto my forearm.
I climbed off the bed and contorted my body to turn around in her grasp, facing her at the edge of the mattress. “Nope. This conversation is over. Thank you very much for the heart to heart. Now get out and go wait naked for your boyfriend to come back—sorry, I mean, fiancé.”
“Mariyah,” Esmeralda whined through a laugh, leaning forward at a funny angle as I tried to pull my arm back. “You can’t keep running from this conversation.”
“There is no conversation, Ez. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me. End of story.”
Her face dropped in disbelief. “How long are you going to keep lying to me?”
“I’m not lying!”
“Yes, you are! I know you like him.”
I spluttered in outrage as if she’d accused me of eating the last slice of cake she’d saved for herself—which I had, so the sound came out forced and artificial. She smirked knowingly, and rather than caught red-handed, I was caught red-in-the-fucking-face.
