“Are there any news crews out there?” I ask timidly. The last thing my family needs is another headline this week.
Oaklynn peers over the balcony and shakes her head. “Not yet, the room was under my mom’s name, so they probably don’t know the party was for you.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my voice cracking from the weight of this colossal disaster.
“It’s not your fault, babe,” she soothes me, shaking her head. “I can’t believe all these douche canoes didn’t show up. Who cares what your dad did? They’re still your friends!” Were they though?
When I move my head in agreement, the pressure in the front of my skull builds and thrums painfully. I thought they were my friends, too. I should have known tonight would be a disaster, especially when people started distancing themselves from me since the news broke at the beginning of the week. I chose to ignore it, just as I chose to ignore my dad’s shady phone calls at odd hours of the night, the way we suddenly had money to move to Manhattan and attend the most prestigious schools, the way he started going on business trips and would be gone for days at a time. The biggest sign should have been the wear and tear I noticed in my mom, but I closed my eyes to it all. I knew she rarely slept. Even though she was lavished by my father in designer label clothes, shoes and make-up, the smile on her face was tense. She stopped making our evening meals and let staff, because we had staff now, too, do it. She suddenly had headaches when my younger sister, Mila, would ask her for help in math. All this should have been the biggest clue that our world was about to be flipped, but I kept on going as if things were normal.
On Monday, a local New York news station broke the story that my father, Calvin Torre, had been laundering money through the company he started five years ago, as well as a litany of other fraudulent practices. Before noon, every major channel, including CNN, was covering the story. My dad had bankrupted thousands of people who had invested with him and broke business deals with the parents of the kids from the school. And now, our family was being investigated by some of New York’s finest criminal investigators. It was also discovered his company was involved with oversea accounts, making his crimes international. His face was plastered over every television screen in the country. Needless to say, prison time was hanging over his head. And what made everything worse was the fact that people questioned how my mom, my sister, and I had no clue what was happening. Our family was torn apart in front of the nation. Paparazzi waited outside our home to tail my mom as she dropped us off at school. We were accused and found guilty, without having the opportunity to defend ourselves.
By Tuesday, we were made aware that my father had depleted a different offshore account in the Virgin Islands, purchasing a one way ticket to Cuba. He was gone, and the coward that he is left my mom and me to face the world by ourselves, to be shamed and ridiculed for his sins. When my mom’s monthly payment for Mila’s Christian middle school bounced, they were unsympathetic and gave my mom one week to pay or Mila could no longer be enrolled.
On Wednesday, my school locker was checked, making sure I wasn’t stashing any evidence or information on my father. I stood by, fuming, while the principal wore a smug smile. Almost like she enjoyed humiliating me more with this process. The school was now fully aware what was happening with my family because of my father, and that’s when my peers, people I had started calling friends, couldn’t meet my eyes. The whispers started. The glares commenced. The shunning at lunch tables and lab stations had my stomach dropping. I was used to being looked down on by them. I was able to get past their prejudice that I wasn’t good enough because I hadn’t been born into a blue-blooded family. But now my family and I were seen as criminals, and the hate that flared in their eyes and the evil twists in their lips are what made the week completely suffocating.
Thursday, I started receiving notifications that the friends I had invited could no longer make it to my party. But I refused to cancel. I refused to let the fuck up that my dad was responsible for have any impact on the person I was. Even if it was only my best friend and boyfriend who showed up, I had a point to prove. I wanted to show everyone that this wasn’t going to break me.
Today, my mom kept me and my sister home from school because there had been numerous threats to our family and my father. She tried to hide most of them without us seeing. But even if she destroyed the letters in the mail, it didn’t stop the YouTube videos. People holding grudges, people who lost everything because of my dad made videos with graphic details about how they wanted to kill him. Another detailed everything about myself and Mila and the best way to kidnap us before school. My face paled after it was over. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the police were currently working on trying to figure out who threw the brick through our living room window with another death threat attached to it. My mom couldn’t work; her anxiety and lack of sleep over canceling clients made her more on edge. For the first time since we first moved into this home, her face broke with real emotion: fear. As I was getting ready for my party, we fought the whole time I curled the long strands of my dark auburn hair and rimmed my deep brown eyes in black liner. She didn’t want me to go, and I kept reminding her this wasn’t my problem. It was between her and my dad.
It is now Saturday at 12:01am. I am officially seventeen, and nothing is as I had hoped it would be. I send a quick text to Nash, letting him know that, once again, we are done. And, I mean it this time. My time is too precious to be wasted on a boy who cares more about appearances than the actual truth of a person. With our hands locked together, Oaklynn and I find the elevator and cruise to the bottom. I crumple into the waiting vehicle she had ordered for us. The small back space is crowded with the handful of balloons she grabbed on the way out.
“I’m so sorry, Saylor,” she says again. I can hear the emotion in her voice, and it takes all my strength not to cave into the storm inside me.
“I’m so mad at him, Oak,” I whisper through my clenched teeth. Seriously, I would be lost without my best friend. Despite her cold looking exterior, Oaklynn is the warmest and most loyal person I know. We’ve been friends since first grade, before she moved to Manhattan. When my dad came home and surprised us with his promotion and plans to move us to Manhattan as well, Oaklynn’s parents helped mine get settled. We were so happy to be back together.
“Your dad’s a prick,” she huffs next to me. “You’re amazing, Say. What he did has nothing to do with you and the person you are. This whole thing is ridiculous.”
“Thanks for being here,” I tell her. “Tell your mom I’m sorry we wasted the reservation and the space.”
“She won’t care.” Oaklynn smiles. “She just wanted you to have a good birthday, no matter what.”
“Your mom is awesome,” I tell her, before shifting my gaze out the window.
“Kelly is, too, Babe. She will bounce back, once she figures out how to move forward. Don’t discount her yet,” she answers. A small sliver of guilt creeps in, and I know she’s right. My mom is a victim just like me. I just wish she’d snap out of her funk and figure out what needs to be done. Mila and I are losing our spots at school, and now I know my dad is behind on our house payments as well.