Page 7 of Illegal Formation
When I told them about a new tattoo.
When I brought home a new boyfriend who wasn’t from a well-off family.
When I broke the news that I wasn’t going to Oxford, but rather was going to take a gap year to travel the States, instead.
When I ended up going to college at a small private school in Arizona.
It was even worse in person, when I had to watch them give one another this not-so-subtle look that askedhow should we respond to this? What should we say?It was usually followedby one of them forcing a smile, which prompted the other, and whoever had the biggest balls that day would say something along the lines of, “That’s wonderful, sweetie.”
I was their only child, and I knew without them ever saying it that I was a big fat disappointment to them.
I’d never forget that first pause. Or maybe it had happened before, but this was the first time it really stuck. When my parents found out I was majoring in dance.
“That’s interesting,” he’d said, nodding his head as he chewed it over. We’d been driving my belongings from New York to Arizona, one last family road trip before I locked into my studies. “Where do you see that going long term?”
“That’s just it. The doors are wide open. It could take me to New York, or to London, or even on a cross-country tour with a pop star!”
He’d looked at my mother then, the two of them sharing this… look.
Eyes a bit watery. Smiles not fully materializing.
“That’s lovely, darling,” Mom had said then, turning to squeeze my knee from where she sat in the passenger seat. “I wonder if you might consider a second major in something more business-like, just as a backup?”
It was the first time I realized they were ashamed by my choices, that they didn’t have faith in me figuring life out.
I’d never forgotten it. And that sentiment had only grown louder over time.
What made it worse was that they neverwouldsay it. In fact, they loved me so much, so fiercely, that to anyone on the outside, it looked like I was their pride and joy. After all, they supported me financially and always had. They assured me I never had to work a day in my life if I didn’t want to. Between my father’s rich ass family in London, and his successful career as a hedge fund advisor, plus my mother’s legacy in the law firm of high-profileclients, the one she became partner at when she was just twenty-eight, well, I was set.
Instead of that fact feeling like freedom, it felt like a weighted chain of expectation.
I could do anything I wanted with my life. I could go anywhere, be anything.
I just had no idea where to go, what to do, or who to be.
The only thing that filled me with passion was dance — and that was far from what they had in mind when they told me I coulddo anything. Dance wasn’t going to lead me to a career — at least, not one where I made the kind of cash my father aligned with success. It also wasn’t something that sparked pride in their hearts.
I wasn’t a ballerina trained at Juilliard or a backup dancer for a sold-out show on Broadway.
I was great, but not incredible. I had talent, but not quite enough.
I was a dancer, but I’d never make a comfortable living off it.
Which was why I rarely visited my parents’ bougie condo on the Upper East Side; why I always had excuses not to fly to London for the half of the year they lived there; why I usually kept our phone calls to ten minutes or less; and why I was content to live thousands of miles from them where I couldn’t feel them silently judging my every move.
They were waiting for me to figure it out, to have this big breakthrough.
And I knew, yet again, that I’d disappoint them.
I closed my eyes on another drag of the joint, making the decision to let all those negative thoughts go when I exhaled. It didn’t matter what they thought, because tonight, I was happy.
I was officially a Seattle Seahawks cheerleader.
“Are you fucking crazy?”
My eyes popped open just in time for a hand to jut out for what little bit of the joint I had left. In the next instant, said joint had been squashed between the fingers of Mr. Hot & Bashful Wide Receiver.
I smirked at Braden Lock as he looked over his shoulder with a panic-stricken face before hastily tossing the dead joint into the dumpster we were hiding behind.
