High Life | ✔️

32

I TOOK IN a deep breath.

"Hey dad," I tried my best to keep my voice level, to give my dad this contained calmness, to hide the excitement in my voice. It was late, but I always made time for phone calls with my dad.

For several heart raging moments, I only heard his breathing. Then his voice broke the silence.

"I don't even know where to begin, Andrea."

It was soft, it didn't contain the usual friendliness - it was my dad's voice, but not really. I liked to think my dad was my best friend while growing up, before his work took precedence and I ultimately lost the paternal figure I respected. I gulped the lump forming in my throat.

"W - What's wrong?" I asked my dad.

"You need to come home, immediately."

I stilled. But I had a Physics test tomorrow. "Why?"

Then my dad exploded. "Why?" He echoed incredulously. "Why don't you think hard, young lady. Try to recall the nonsense you've gotten up to."

Which nonsense? "I don't understand."

"Don't play dumb!" He near yelled. "I have so much work to do, yet I must put time aside to manage a misbehaving child. I don't know when you will mature, Andrea, but I pray it will be soon."

I felt the sting of tears before my throat seemed to constrict. I felt betrayed - all those hours slaving away behind textbooks, all the effort put into being polite, all attempts to water down a wilder side, I wasn't sure how someone could invalidate so much hard work, but my dad did so with such simple words.

"What'd I do?" I managed to ask in a shaky voice.

"The bullying, the defamation, the five million dollar loan, Andrea!" My father burst out. "What in God's name were you doing with five million dollars?"

My gut fucking dropped. He knew. He knew everything.

"Um... it was for charity."

"Bullshit."

I clenched my jaws as I swiped the tears away. Gotta stay strong, if I don't stay strong for myself no one else would. I dived beneath the duvet on my bed, as though it could ever protect me from the ramifications of my own folly.

My father let out a truly deep sigh. "Come home. We'll talk, face to face."

"When?"

"Now."

Then he hung up.

✖️✖️✖️

Cessna was the name of my dad's private jet. She was a luxurious aircraft with a 50 pax capacity. Time flew by in the idlest possible manner... for five hours. I'd encountered many things in my encumbered, brief life.

But waiting for time to pass topped the list of worst experiences.

The staff knew. And I could feel the way they casted narrow eyed glances my way.

Dad had an outburst - it resulted in the retrenchment of over two thousand staff. USA Today called it a 'rationalization' of one of the world's leading financial services corporation following the recent decline in US economy. But I knew Dad, he had a temper. And for him it had always been go big or go home.

The flight crew soon declared, ominously, that we would soon be landing at Philadelphia International Airport. I peeled at a hangnail. Every second that passed was one second less towards an inevitable death. Fear was me.