CHAPTER 1
Emily
"Emily...hurry up, or we're going to be late."
I groan as I hear my mother call up the stairs to me. I am just putting my jewelry on and glance at my Patek Philippe watch. I still have ten more minutes before we have to leave and I grit my teeth that my mother is so controlling.
Taking a deep breath, I repeat to myself, Just one more week, and then I'm out of here.
"I'll be down in just a moment, Mother." I try to keep my voice lilting so she won't sense the frustration I'm feeling toward her.
This summer has been absolutely brutal coming back to Boston. I had wanted to stay in New York after finishing my second year at Columbia but my mother insisted I come home so I could attend an array of political and social functions with them. My father, Congressman Alex Burnham, will hopefully be making a bid for the White House in two years and my life has been overtaken by my mother's need to present the perfect Presidential family to the press.
So, all summer I have been polished, shined and instructed on the best way to behave in front of the camera. I've had my clothes chosen for me and I've been assigned young, affluent bachelors to escort me to parties. My mother will not let me leave the house unless she approves of what I’m wearing and with whom I’m going to be.
And I am suffocating.
Just one more week, and then I'm out of here.
It's a bit surreal to think about how much I've changed in the past few years. I used to adore my life as a socialite with all of the fancy clothes, the snobby friends and the endless stream of parties. Now, I would give anything to just be a normal, college girl who could fade into obscurity anytime I wanted to.
I owe a lot of my change to my older brother, Ryan. Three years ago, he met and fell deeply in love with his one and only, Danny. I admit...I didn't like her at first and I'm equally as embarrassed to say that I decided not to like her without knowing a damn thing about her. My mother told me to hate her and so I did.
And it wasn't hard to follow my mother's orders. I mean, she told me that Danny worked in a diner, had dyed purple hair and piercings in her face. Skank-a-rific! Right?
Wrong!
Oh, how wrong I was.
I had never been that close to Ryan as we grew up. We were almost four years apart in age and he never was one to completely conform to my parents' dictates.
Unlike me. The rat that followed the Pied Piper.
At any rate, Ryan fell utterly and completely in love with Danny and I just didn't understand it. But it intrigued me and I decided I had to find out why.
It took two very important moments in my life to completely re-evaluate the type of person I wanted to be.
First, Ryan had an honest conversation with me explaining all of the reasons why he loved Danny. They were fairytale reasons...reasons I didn't believe were possible. In my world, people married because they were suitably matched on paper and if they were lucky, they grew to love each other. But not Ry...he wanted love first and to hell with everything else.
So Ryan told me that he loved Danny because she was kind, generous, witty and caring. Yeah, yeah. Easy for a guy to say if he's getting some, right?
Wrong, again!
The second thing that happened to change my life was that I decided to check Danny out for myself. My mother had successfully broken Danny and Ryan up, but I guess true love always prevails and that didn't last long. After Danny and Ryan got back together, I called Danny and asked her out to lunch.
Behind my mother's back, of course.
I can still remember that day, sitting across the table from Danny. She was remarkably beautiful, but I knew that. I had seen her once before and I was such a bitch to her then. I didn't apologize to her right away, because I still wanted to know if what Ryan saw in her was legitimate.
So during lunch, while being sidetracked a few times by looking at her nose ring and purple hair, I actually was able to listen to Danny. I mean really listen.
And it became abundantly clear to me why Ryan was in love with her. Hell, by the end of lunch, I was in love with her.
She was everything I was not. The kindest and most non-judgmental soul I had ever met. She had suffered tragedy time and again, yet she still looked at the world as if it was her personal oyster bed. I know a few times during our conversation, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open over some of the things she was telling me about her life. Horrible, horrible things that she had suffered...and yet, she still wore a genuine smile on her face.
By the end of that lunch, two things happened. I apologized profusely to Danny for my behavior and my thoughts. Danny—being Danny—didn't even bother to accept the apology. Instead, she insisted that there was nothing to apologize for. She understood that I had been influenced, and that my loyalties should have been to family. And then she told me that she would very much like to start over with me and become my friend.
See why I fell in love with her?
The other thing that happened after that lunch was an immediate, embarrassing and crushing realization that I was a complete bitch. Danny's open acceptance of all people, most notably myself, made me vow that I needed to change. I needed to knock down those walls of invincibility and entitlement that I had put around myself, and I needed to open up to people. All kinds of people.
And the next two years I was at Columbia were the happiest of my life. I made it my goal to open myself up to experience. I wanted to try everything that I had always been denied.
And the freedom was intoxicating.
I was away from my parents and I had made new and very, very interesting friends that my mother would surely hate if I ever brought them home. That filled me with joy beyond measure for if my mother was sure to disapprove, that meant it was probably perfect for the new Emily.