AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But despite these devastating revelations, another truth also surfaced: that I am like neither of my parents. Unlike my father, I feel love coursing through my veins and overflowing my body, it just has nowhere to go right now. Who could I direct it to? My potted plants? My stuffed animals? Jess? There’s so much love inside that I often wonder whether one person will be enough. If I do ever find a boyfriend, will I overwhelm him? Will he drown and suffocate because I’m too loving? Is that even possible?
Unlike my mother, I’m not willing to stand by and be a prop forever. I can’t take Marisa’s silence anymore. Not just on my own behalf, but on hers. She’s been bullied her entire married life, and her silent pain has been deepening with the years.
As a result, my time here is growing short. Something momentous is going to happen, and the clock’s ticking. Soon, I’m going to break free and meet someone. I’m going to sing to the world because in this penthouse, I’m locked like a caged bird. I’m just something to look at as my dad toys me with me from the outside. But it’s gone on long enough. I, Annie Jones, am filled with love and my escape is coming – bringing it with a new future that hopefully, will unlock something new and wonderful in my heart.
2
Annie
I sit by my bay window listening to the sounds of the apartment dying down. I like to feel the night around me, and to feel the emptiness of the air on my skin. My parents have gone to sleep, thank god, and the darkness is filled with potential.
Sometimes, I pretend that this penthouse is a castle that I live in alone, high up on a hill overlooking a vast country. From my window, I can look out over the land so far that I’ll be able to see anyone who approaches it. Like a prince, who has come to take me away from the dragons within these walls.
I know how cheesy my fantasizing is, but I can’t help it. The thought excites me more than anything else. In fact, the fantasies of my hot prince turn me on. It’s definitely because of the steamy romances I like to read on my Kindle; I have entire series of books, and I devour them at night after everyone’s gone to bed. It’s my dirty little secret that I didn’t share with Jessica, until she discovered it on her own. One day, she picked up my e-reader and saw my latest romance on the screen: Angelina Carey’s Wet and Wild Unshackled (Volume 7).
“Really?” she’d asked with humor in her eyes.
“Oh that’s nothing,” I said in reply, grabbing the device from her and stuffing it under my pillow. Jess had snorted.
“I don’t think that was nothing. There was a picture of a woman in a bikini on the cover, and she had handcuffs on. I saw,” she said drolly.
“No, I swear it was nothing,” were my protests, even as my tongue tripped over the words. But Jess wouldn’t be deterred.
“Volume seven? So have you read volumes one through six as well?” she asked, as tears of laughter practically fell from her eyes.
At that, my friend dissolved into full-on hysterics and I’d practically burned up from shame. Okay, so yeah, I’d devoured volumes one through six because they were hot. The books were all about huge, gorgeous alpha males who ravished beautiful women who gave them everything along the way.
“Um, I’d say you’re into erotica, and not romance,” Jess chortled again.
“No, I swear I read romance too,” was my protest. “See?” I asked, whipping out the latest Cassidy Stevens. This one, thankfully, had a diamond on its cover and not a woman with her bodice being ripped by a handsome man.
Jess had laughed again and nodded, but then her expression grew somber and she told me to be careful. When I asked what she meant, she said that steamy romances would give me false expectations of men.
“What?” I asked, totally confused.
“You know,” she said. “Real men aren’t like that. Real billionaires are short, bald, and old. They don’t exactly look like the models on romance novels,” she said wryly.
I protested.
“Well, at least we have Iron Man then. You know, Robert Downey Junior has a full head of hair and a great sense of humor. Iron Man is a billionaire.”
Jess stuck out her tongue.
“Iron Man is fiction, sweetheart, you know that,” she said while rolling her eyes. “But you get my drift. Real guys aren’t like the guys in books at all. They don’t have billions of dollars, and they’re not exactly … um, gentlemen all the time.”
Well, that may be the case, but I’m not exactly looking for a gentleman. I’m looking for someone gorgeous and hot, who rips off my clothes as I shiver with need. I’m looking for someone who will make me crave him with my heart and soul. So what if Jessica thinks I’m foolish? I think I’m a romantic. Plus, when it comes to men, what’s wrong with hoping for the best the world has to offer? In my own father, I already know the worst it has to offer, so it’s natural to crave the opposite.
