Adore [H.S.]

3

Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap

ISABELLA

When you are a kid, the number one question that you are asked is: what will you be when you grow up? Everyone expects you to give you a well thought out answer, not caring that you are only seven years old and have absolutely no idea what you are going to do. Many kids end up aspiring to be teachers, doctors, firemen, or police officers. Many even claim that they want to be just like mommy and daddy. 

I, on the other hand, was never given the chance to think of my own answer. It was always drilled into my head, ever since I was a little girl, that I would grow up and work at my father's company. Since I wasn't a boy, and they were only blessed with the gift of daughters, I would have to take on the role of keeping the Maxwell name alive. 

That kind of pressure on a seven year old girl is not okay. Ever. 

All I wanted to do was to plan parties or read. My escape was always my books. The world of Elizabeth Bennet seemed much more appealing than the world I had been succumbed to. Yet here I was. A twenty-one year old university graduate with a degree in business. But instead of putting on my best skirt and blazer and running off to the office to deal with angry men, mergers, and other business related shit that I could care less about, I was throwing my "non-business appropriate" clothes into a bag and running off to London. 

If someone were to tell seven year old me that I would be defying my parents and moving across the globe, I would have cried and and then laughed. Cried because the thought of displeasing my parents made my skin crawl, and laughed because that seemed utterly insane. 

But here I was. Defying my parents and moving across the globe. Perhaps I had gone insane. 

"Since when did you own a leather jacket?" 

Nat and I had been sitting in my room for the past two hours sorting out all of my "inappropriate" clothes. Inappropriate in the sense that they weren't exactly Upper East Side couture. I looked at the pile of ripped skinny jeans, sneakers, 90's influenced blouses, and my trusty leather jacket; these outfits that I had managed to hide in the back of my closet for the course of four years. The outfits that my mother, bless her soul, would fall down in a panic induced coma over. 

"For, like, four years?" She gave me a smirk before she tore off her tweed Chanel jacket, and replaced it with my vintage leather jacket. "Damn. This is pretty badass Iz." 

I rolled my eyes and released a small chuckle. "It's comfortable." 

"Seriously though, where did all of these clothes come from?" 

"I bought it when I was living away." I shrugged my shoulders and continued to pack all of my belongings into two oversized suitcases. 

"I can't believe you hid this from all of us. Who would have thought you were a female James Dean. Do you smoke too?" 

"No, Nat. I don't smoke. I just," I paused for a moment, scrambling my words back together. All I knew what I wanted to say: I don't want to succumb to our parents lifestyle and would much rather find my own personality and not live up to theirs. "I never liked the preppy lifestyle," I decided to say instead.

"Fair enough." Nat gives me a knowing smile before she slips my jacket off and replaces it with her tweed one. How anyone ever thought tweed was stylish, especially for sixteen year olds, was beyond my own understanding. 

"Have you talked to mom or dad?" She looked over at me while she continued to fold my clothes. I didn't bother to look over at her. Instead, I continued to organize my socks.