Set Me Free

CH:1 Disappointment

Issa

If I had to describe my marriage with one word it would be good, or perhaps silent. A living breathing contradiction we were. We lived in a good neighborhood, drove nice cars, and we both had gainful employment. We lived in a fancy condo and paid our bills on time and had excellent  credit. We both came from well off  families, myself from a family of doctors with the exception of myself and my youngest brother. I majored in Fashion Merchandising and opened my own string of successful boutiques. He came from a long line of lawyers and just recently made partner at his firm. We looked good together, we had sensible good married couple friends. We participated in local charities and were good citizens contributing to society. We were good people.......... and good is great, until you've had extraordinary. Extraordinary was introduced into my life in the form of Cassius Wolf, but let me go back a little, to the beginning.........

It was a regular morning like all other mornings with nothing out of the ordinary. I must have rolled over in my sleep because I was jolted awake when my arm landed on the other icy side of the bed. I awoke like all other mornings alone in our bed. I got up and showered and cooked and ate breakfast alone at the high rise counter top surrounded by the painfully dull brand new stainless steel appliances. I dressed myself in a long form fitting knit yellow turtle neck dress and took my hair down from the perm rods and separated my curls out to frame my heart shaped face. I masterfully applied my eye makeup in shades of yellow and brown to match my dress and finished off my look with mascara and a nude lip stick. I gave myself a once over in the mirror was pleased with my look. I was attractive. I was fit-looking even though I hardly ever exercised but definitely should. I took care to dress myself well and I've always been told my smile and my eyes are my best features. I smile at myself in the mirror and I see my dimples winking back at me and I'm right, still pretty.

I heard the word pretty directed at me most often my mother. Lately its always followed by, "so pretty but can't keep a man," or "so pretty with such wasted potential." My mother and I always had a tumultuous relationship but after Derek and I divorced last year our already strained relationship took a blow it could not withstand. Or I should say her ego took another blow from the black sheep (in her eyes) in the family that it wouldn't allow her to hold her razor sharp tongue anymore and I wasn't about to keep listening to her continuously talk down to me so I stopped talking her is what happened. Out of my parents four children I was the only girl and the third child born. My two brothers before me followed in my parents footsteps and both became doctors and together even opened up our families second practice.

My mother and father were ecstatic, I mean who wouldn't want their children to become successful doctors right? Their happiness was an addition but not my mothers only reason to be giddy over Eden and Tazeems career choice. My mother had always been something of a social butterfly but longed to rub elbows with the elite snobs she and my father would come home from banquet dinners and talk about. After raising twin handsome doctors my mother had all the superficial power among her snob friends and that pleased her very much. My brothers had attended my fathers alma mater Johns Hopkins and my mother had decided probably when I was still in the womb that I would attend Stanford like her. We would all be knee deep in Purell and be a happy little family of braniac doctors. Although both of my brothers had become doctors it wasn't practically shoved down their throats but more of a desire of theirs to be just like the best man we all know, my father. I on the other hand was given no choice.

For my 16th birthday my mother bought me a brand new G30 5 Series, far nicer than the cars either of my brothers received on their birthdays. It was a master piece and the greatest thing other than life I had ever been gifted. I was absolutely out of my mind with joy and ran outside with my phone in my hand already dialing my best friend ready to tell her about how I had the best parents in the world. There was a gigantic bow on the top of it and I raced to the other ride to open the car door and came to a dead stop. My smile faded and my phone hit our perfectly manicured lawn right along with my jaw when I saw the gigantic decal basically covering the left side of the car. Stanford's logo stared at me and I stared back at it.