The C Word

Chapter Nine

The parent enforced house arrest was starting to wear thin on Shailly but she refused to talk to anyone including Livy Marie. She was polite and respectful but only provided small talk when necessary. Livy Marie knew that Shailly was bottling up all her emotions but also knew that it was only a matter of time before she exploded. Most people from the outside looking in would think it was weird that two daughters over the age of eighteen years old were still being tightly controlled by their parents but money was the true ruler. Neither Livy Marie or Shailly could even function without the financial stability that their family provided. But that comfort came with a steep price of always having to "respect" their parents which really meant doing anything that they requested. The black culture of old school parenting included always doing exactly what your parents said no matter how old you are and especially, if you're​ living under their roof.

Livy Marie didn't really feel the pressure to conform as much as she felt the ultimate burden of keeping the Green family's livelihood. With the taste of college on her tongue, she was scared to venture out on her own but also eager to make her own path of success.

She didn't have a trust fund and her bank account was joint with her parents until last year. She secretly obtained her own checking account and applied for her first credit card to build her credit. Her parents would probably kill her but Livy Marie was determined to live on her own without her family's monetary support. It also wouldn't be fair to continue to take money from the family business if she wasn't contributing to its success.

Obviously, Mandi felt the same way since she left most of her belongings behind and had turned off her cell phone. Her personal social media accounts had no updates except for her last post telling people that she was off to be a star. She did keep her word and emailed often but Livy Marie deleted the messages without even reading them. She was clearly still salty.

Aunt Harley and Uncle Trooper hired a private investigator to find her in LA and found out that she had created all new social media accounts under the name, Devlin Anders. Her parents flew to Los Angeles to bring her back home but Mandi refused to return. Considering the fact that she was well over the legal age of eighteen years old, they couldn't force her to leave LA. Instead, she was officially disowned and Aunt Harley and Uncle Trooper returned back to Cole attempting to erase Mandi from existence. Everyone was informed to never mention her name again.

With Mandi's unannounced escape from the small town clutches, Livy Marie was now stuck on how to tell her parents about her post graduation plans. She was focused on not returning back to school without telling them. She was nervous that they could possibly withhold her funding for the last 2 semesters of college or disown her like in Mandi's situation but that was a risk she was willing to take. She would have to stand up for herself and hold firm to the decision that she had already committed too. Unfortunately, she couldn't support herself for longer than a month with her savings but hopefully Judd could change that.

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Livy Marie knew that long distance relationships were a recipe for disaster even if she would only be two hours away when school started. She was hoping that by the end of the summer, she would be able to convince Judd to move to Dallas. He could still visit his mom once a week in Duncan and to be perfectly honest, she was hoping that his mom would be dead soon. With his mom out of the way, Judd would have no other reason to stay and could move to be with her. Plus, Livy Marie didn't want to deal with all that baggage.

Hands down, Dallas was a major city that had many opportunities for Judd to grow his resume as an Engineer. Livy Marie would definitely wait to address that subject later on in the upcoming weeks but couldn't stop herself from thinking about The Architect and The Engineer. It definitely had a nice ring to it.