HER

Chapter 2

Dana had been sitting in the restaurant for the past thirty minutes waiting for her dad to join her like they had planned, but he still wasn’t here and he wasn’t answering his phone. Carly had told her he was in a meeting and he wasn’t to be disturbed but she already knew it was work related. Her dad was a workaholic and she knew that, she wasn’t supposed to feel disappointed every time he didn’t show up when he was supposed to.

Dana took a sip of her Pinot Gris and sighed. Every time her dad disappointed her and she always went back only to be kicked aside again like she didn’t matter. She would call her mum to join her but she knew her mum was either shopping or with her friends – the elite women in the society – and she wasn’t to be disturbed. Her husband, well her husband was just a younger version of her dad. Kevin didn’t have time for her and when he did, all he wanted to do was to fulfill his duty in the bedroom and that was it. Just like her dad, he didn’t give her the time of the day and didn’t want her doing anything other than sitting still and looking pretty. She never wanted to be that kind of woman; she didn’t want to turn into her mother who was more concerned about how she looked in the public’s eye than what was going on in the family. She couldn’t sit still and do nothing. She wanted to go out into the world and see what she was made of, what she was capable of. She wanted to put her expensive education to use and not let it go to waste.

Her parents had sent her to one of the most expensive boarding schools and when she made it into Harvard business, they weren’t as proud as she thought they’d be. She had gotten her bachelors and masters from Harvard and then that was it. They locked her up in the house like a princess needing rescue from a knight in shining armor. Except, she wasn’t a princess and Kevin was far from being her knight in shining armor. Nicholas Young, Kevin and Sebastian’s father, her father’s friend had thought it would look good if she and Kevin got married. Only she had planned on going out to see what life had to offer her only then would she decide what she wanted to do with her life but her father had taken that away from her.

Her father had specifically told her that if she got married to Kevin, she could do all those things she dreamed about. But now, a year after her pointless marriage, she hadn’t been allowed to do anything she wanted not to talk of taking off on the next flight out of the city. Kevin was like her father in every way and since she had grown up following the rules given to her, she didn’t see any difference between then and now.

Dana Reed-Young was expected to show up for events alongside her husband looking happy like the other elite women in their man’s arm like a showpiece. She wasn’t that kind of woman and she didn’t want to be. She was getting tired of being dragged around like her opinions didn’t matter and what her husband says is final.

But what could she do?

The only thing she could think of was trying to talk to Kevin, really talk to him and make him understand that she needed to be her own person, her own woman, the woman she knew she could be. But then trying to get Kevin in his free time was like waiting for rain to come in a drought, almost impossible.

But personal problems aside, she had to check in with Lily. She hadn’t heard anything from her in almost a week and that meant something was up. But with Lily, something was always up; she was either too busy partying and getting drunk to call in or she was stoned.

Dana had met Lily in Harvard; they had been in the same class and Lily had graduated top of their class. Unlike Dana, Lily was on scholarship and she had gotten a sponsor for her Master’s degree when the most tragic thing happened. Lily lost her parents and her younger brother in a car accident the year they were both supposed to resume but Lily hadn’t shown. Dana had found out later that very day when she got back to their apartment. Lily had gone into complete shock and hadn’t cried a single tear. They had just seen her parents the day before when they came to check up on her and just like that, they were gone.

That day, the jovial Lily Dana knew was gone and the darkness set in and turned her away from the bright path in her life to one that Dana feared. Lily had gone from good girl to party girl overnight and Dana couldn’t blame her. Unlike Dana, Lily had been close with her family and Dana couldn’t imagine losing her parents in a single day. Lily had been through a lot and Dana was the only person that had stuck with her through it all. The so-called friends Lily was always hanging out with weren’t true friends. They were the ones that made her fall back into old habits of drinking and taking drugs. Lily had gone to rehab once because Dana had begged her but Lily had left a month later clean but it took barely forty-eight hours before she relapsed because of those ‘friends.’

Dana picked up her phone and dialed Lily for the umpteenth time that day. The one thing her parents hadn’t been able to take away from Dana was her friendship with Lily. They didn’t approve because according to her mum: Imagine if the press got wind of the kind of friend you have. Dana hadn’t even considered letting Lily walk the path she was alone. She could never leave knowing she was the last family Lily had.

Dana groaned when the call didn’t connect again. She asked for the bill as she gathered her things. She paid and left the restaurant. Got into her car and drove to Lily’s apartment.

She had to know if she was okay before she could relax. After all, what were friends for?