Adore You | ✔

Chapter 81

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Chapter 81

Maria I

My test was over. I came home right after I finished it since it was still really early. My professor wanted to get a headstart on his vacation, so my makeup began promptly at six in the morning. It was only made up of 15 questions, so I finished in 40 minutes and came home.

I had a lot of coffee to ensure that I would not fall asleep during the exam, so there was no way I was going back to sleep. I decided to organize my drawers. They always managed to get so messy and never really knew how it would happen.

One day Darla and I spent an evening making everything neat. By the end of the week, they were a disaster again.

I grabbed my college letters. Five rejections and three acceptance letters. Not terrible, not great. I was rejected from all the ivy leagues I applied to. My grades were not strong enough. Too much partying freshman year brought my average down. That was the year when my father died. I also partied a lot sophomore year. I had no excuse for it that year. I think that was the year I found out that I could sneak alcohol into clubs and that if I pushed my boobs together and batted my lashes, I could get any guy to do whatever I wanted.

Whatever, the schools I got into were adequate, so I couldn't complain.

My family, on the other hand, had a lot to say. Pretty typical of me.

It is hard growing up in the shadow of a younger sibling. Everyone expects it to be the other way around, but when Robert Bennet is your little brother, that is precisely what happens.

I used to feel so jealous of him; everything comes so easy for him. Accolades from my grandparents were given generously to him. I can count on one hand the times my grandparents noticed me. I use to hate him for this when we were kids.

I wished my whole life that I would get that attention, that my family would be proud of me. That is until recently. With everything that was happening these last few weeks, I was glad I was not my brother for once in my life. I was actually glad I was the disappointment. Ignored and pushed aside rather than put on a pedestal.

I knew I did not want to be a part of my family the day after my father passed away. Robbie doesn't know how everything happened. He was in the hospital for weeks. Everyone was acting like my dad's death was an inconvenience. They ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to get everything back in order. It was disgusting.

My father was apparently like me. Messy. He had tax returns in places you wouldn't expect. His insurance papers and passwords were in scattered key-logs and journals. The day after my father passed away, I remember I woke up hoping it was all a dream.

I walked down the hall to Robbie's room and opened the door to see his room just as he had left it the night before. Pristine.

I crawled into his bed and lay there until I heard a group of people talking downstairs. I tiptoed downstairs through the servant's staircase and went around the other side of the house. I knew all the nooks and cranny of this house. I took the time to learn the manor one summer when Robbie was in soccer camp. My dad had found the original floor plans and gave me copies; I was fascinated. I never lost a game of 'hide and seek' ever again.

I followed the voices to my father's study. There is an entrance on the second floor of his study no one except me, Darla, and my father knew about. I silently slipped through the false wall and hid behind a bookcase. I saw men in suits everywhere, looking for papers and documents. His mother and my mom's father stood in the middle overseeing the ransacking of his office. My father's body hadn't even left the morgue yet. They weren't even pretending to mourn his death. I realized then that the business always came first, and our lives were a service to it. I cried for the first time since they came into my class to break the news that my brother and father were in an accident, and I don't think I stopped crying for several days.