Rubble (Riders of Apollo #7)

Chapter One: Juniper Channing

I can't believe this.

Surely my parents would not do this to me, their only daughter. Selling me off like a broodmare to the highest bidder just because of a short rebellious streak that was stunted almost as suddenly as it began. I went to the club once, drank once, played pool once and somehow I'm the one being backed into a corner.

Not like my brothers haven't been doing the same since they turned sixteen.

I've always been the perfect daughter.

My blonde hair always in perfect curls, makeup always covering my face to prevent people from seeing the real me. Everything dictated, controlled and horrible. I haven't had a breath to myself since the day I was born. Twenty-two long years being told what AP classes to take, what extracurriculars to participate in, what college to go to.

Everything.

And now my marriage is being decided by the two people sitting across from me. Two vile people who I have hated from the day I understood my own emotions.

My own goddamn parents.

My mother looks just like me. With long blonde hair - she wears hers straight to distinguish between the two of us - and blue eyes that sometimes look purple in the right light. The same cheekbones that I was born with, though hers have been advanced by the extensive plastic surgery over the years.

The same boring silk dresses that hug her figure but can only be worn in dull colours because it is the woman that makes the dress shine but they must never outshine their husband. Pearls and diamonds adorn her neck and fingers because anything less than that is for poor people. Everything must be a designer. She is a designer so it's expected for her youngest child and only daughter to be well put together.

My father looks nothing like me, however, sometimes I even question whether he's my real father. I wouldn't put it past my mother to step out on the man in front of me, it would justify his anger towards me and not his other children. He may be considered handsome, with a well-formed body that is always dressed in designer suits and dark hair that hasn't even begun to thin despite being in his early sixties but if people who really knew him they'd find him as vile as I do.

He always wears his Rolex watch, though he has many so switches between them depending on the day or person he is required to meet, and his brogues are perfectly shined with his facial hair perfectly trimmed.

Everything perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

I had tainted the family name by spending one night out in my entire life. I went to college for goodness sake but my father made me live at home so that I couldn't experience the degenerate behaviour he claims the schools are littered with. He's the one that forced me to go, wants me to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer.

I hated every class. It's soul-sucking and depressing just sitting in the elaborate lecture theatres of my father's alma mater and listening to the classes as if I wanted to do this with my life.

I've never wanted the wealth that my parents throw around like having money elevates your status.

I just want a life where I don't know what's going to happen the next day. One where I'm allowed to explore my options and be visibly excited about something instead of this well-composed façade that I must maintain whenever I'm outside of my bedroom. Hell, I wanted to be a baker when I was younger, always cooking in the kitchen with my nanny before my mother found out I was doing it and fired her.

She said that eating what we made was making me fat. Now I have severe body image problems and can no longer stomach looking at myself in the mirror for long periods of time. I'm forced to when I do my hair and makeup, forced to when my mother drags me to her workplace to be used as a model for her clothes.