If I Fell

1 | Family Portrait

❂ CHAPTER ONE ❂

If I could use only one word to describe myself I'd use ambitious. Even as a little girl, I've always wanted more. More than what was reasonable at times, yet reason never could stop me. I was unreasonably ambitious.

I had always wanted to grow up to be like my father; not exactly a CEO of a multimillionaire security software company, but in a position just as powerful. I wanted to get the same looks of esteem he would get, to always be at the top, and to never let anyone make me feel like second best again. I wanted those things more than anything.

My wants had made me more than a bit uncompromising, I'd admit. Sometimes to achieve a goal, it meant I had to be assertive and cut-throat, which Scarlett had told me was a "sugarcoated synonym for a female dog." In response to my well-mannered best friend, I quoted the unapologetic Madonna: "Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done."

I lied and schemed when it served me, but most of the time I was just a bitch. It was my default setting. I knew it, and besides my friends, most people knew it too.

Some kids at school experienced first-hand my meanness while others heard the exaggerated stories about me, all claiming I was too prim, too competitive, and too snobby.

It wasn't like I was always uptight or unwarrantedly mean. I was usually fun to be around. And I usually only did the really bad things when seriously provoked.

Whatever I had done in life, it shouldn't have warranted this punishment: "Cancel anything you're doing tomorrow," my mother said over the phone.

"Why?"

"To go to dinner."

I frowned. "But aren't you staying in Hawaii until next week?"

My mother was always going out and traveling. Her globe-trotting paled in comparison to my workaholic father though. He was rarely home; and when he was, he spent most of his time at his company's headquarters. But just know that he compensated his physical absence very well. A five-digit monthly allowance and a massive college fund stopped me from ever crying any tears.

"I'm getting on the earliest flight to California right now. I'll be back home by morning."

"Okay..." My frown deepened. I could sense there was something else. I just couldn't guess what. "Why?"

"I want you to meet a good friend of mine." She had no friends, not any genuine friends that I got to meet. Not for a while now.

For a moment, I figured she was talking about a friend from her group of socialites and trophy wives from the country club she went to, but the way she emphasized the word made me rethink they were more than just friendly.

I couldn't say I was completely surprised about the affair part since she hadn't exactly been discreet in the past months; buying sexy lingerie, the condoms I had found in her Moynat bag once, and coming home smelling like a different male cologne every month or so. Yuck, it was obvious.

So obvious that my father probably knew. And if he did know, he couldn't claim to feel betrayed. Not with conviction anyway.

My parents were still legally married but they weren't together. It was like an open marriage where they slept with other people but never each other. Maybe infidelity was more acceptable or maybe divorces were too messy.