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“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You should be. Judging me the way you are.”
“I wasn’t judging you,” I said.
“Well, it felt like you were. You wanna know what I think it is?” she asked.
“What?”
“I think my parents are tired of supporting me. I can’t work a job, but they’re tired of paying my bills. They don’t think it’s appropriate for a woman to be working, so they’re marrying me off so I’m someone else’s problem. Even though I’m a problem they willingly created. And against my will, at that!”
“Have you ever thought about college?” I asked.
“What?”
“It seems like you don’t have a plan for when you get to California. Have you thought about college?” I asked.
“Of course I have a plan for when I get to California. I’m going to start my own business helping women like myself get away from families like the one I grew up in.”
“Is that a sustainable business?”
Ava’s eyes shot up to mine as I leaned against her car.
“What?” she asked.
“Is that a sustainable business? Would you have enough clientele to keep yourself afloat?” I asked.
“What do you know about business?” she asked.
“More than you think. I know the first rule of thumb is to provide something to the public that they need.”
“Women like me need resources to escape the lives they were bred in,” she said.
“Then the next question you need to ask yourself is this: is there a big enough market for what you’re selling?”
The blank stare on her face told me she hadn’t thought any of this through. And I felt bad for her. I really did. She was a product of a family that had failed her, and the more she talked about them, the more I knew it was that same Lucas family. They were born out of Seattle but owned half of Kettle as well as other smaller areas of the Washington State area. Our families weren’t really rivals, but they were a family that had been putting bids in to buy the rest of the Kettle area. They got ruthless there for a while, trying to dig up dirt on my family and blast us in the media. They tried to rally the town around them in order to force us to sell.
But the strongarmed tactics didn’t work with my father and they finally backed down.
Her family had been one of the several we had battled against for this land over the years. And with the way it sounded like the Lucas family operated, Ava probably had no idea who I was. She probably had no idea that she was looking at the son of the man her father tried to bury with lies, deceit, and dirt. Her helpless stance on life was born from her family’s own helpless disposition and anger, and she was scrambling. I could tell Ava didn’t want the life her family had set out for her to have, but she hadn’t been raised with the tools to create a life of her own.
She packed up her shit, left, and hoped she could learn things along the way.
It took a great deal of confidence and courage to pull some shit like that. And part of me admired her for it.
“No,” she said. “I haven’t thought about college yet.”
I suppressed the grin trying to grow across my cheeks as she backtracked into the cabin. I felt sorry for her and the position she had found herself in because of her family, but she had a fire in her that drew me in. She came from a wealthy family, but wanted nothing to do with it. She knew what it was like to have money and she was willing to leave all of it to start a life of her own. A life she could be proud of and smile at whenever she got up in the morning.
In some ways, Ava Lucas was stronger than I had ever been.
Funny how tables easily turned like that.
Five
Ava
I walked back into the cabin and sat down on the couch. College? Was that something I could do with my life? I hadn’t had the option growing up. I graduated high school and immediately delved into the role my family expected me to have. Society-wide parties and formal functions. Winter and spring balls with gowns that sparkled and flowed. Sliding into the life my parents wanted for me was easier than trying to get them to understand that I had other plans for my life.
