Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 1

Two hours ago I had left my life. 

It was all I could think about as I took the bus to the airport, checked into my flight and boarded the plane. And as I sat down without anything to distract me, everything just got worse: the thoughts I was trying to ignore ended up completely taking over my brain. 

I couldn't believe I'd actually went through with it. 

I'd had it planned for months. It all started when our sixth form began applying for different universities to go to after college, and I'd told everyone I wasn't going to. No one was surprised. My friends all knew about my father's successful accounting business and how he wanted his eldest son to eventually take over. Dad didn't trust my two younger brothers, he'd always joked with us. Guess he made the wrong call. 

At first I'd been on board with the plan. I was always known as responsible and mature and working at the top of a business just seemed like something I was made for. It involved making the right decisions and, up until now, I'd been pretty good at that. My life seemed like it was all planned out for me. 

But then I did a week of work experience there and I had never felt so bored. The business world just seemed so lifeless, so draining, and immediately I began to resent the fact that my path had been decided by someone else. Everything was made worse by the fact my friends were partying loads during that week whilst I was forced to stay in, reminding me what I would be doing when they were all at uni. 

It didn't take long for me to decide that this wasn't where I wanted to be. 

But there was a problem. My father was desperate for the company to survive and carry on through the generations, and he saw me as the only way for that to happen. To opt out would be seen as an ultimate betrayal. 

I did try to reason with him at first, making the point that maybe it would be good for me to get a degree before I entered the business world. But he didn't have any of it. He was set in training up his heir straight away, and because of that I was doomed to be trapped in an office for the rest of my life. 

I wanted to be the good son, I really did. The last thing I wanted to do was let him down. I'd always tried to make him happy, make him proud, make him trust me. I didn't want to throw all of that away.

But I was so sick of being responsible. I hated it. I wanted to be selfish, to think about myself for once, to enjoy the one life I had been given. I wanted to be free. 

And that was why I did it. Unbeknown to anyone I applied to study in America, far away from the English hills I called home and, ironically, because of my responsibility which made me revise hard, I got accepted to study for a year with a scholarship. When I found out I worked my ass off at my part time job in a restaurant, and saved up enough on top of what I already had to fund it all. 

I didn't have to tell my family anything so I kept it quiet. The first thing they would hear about it would be when they read the letter I'd left for them, which was really more of an apology note. I didn't want to try and explain myself. I knew they wouldn't understand. 

I'd also changed my sim so they couldn't contact me. I knew what I'd done had been completely selfish so I didn't fancy getting any calls demanding I come back. I would contact them when I felt there had been enough time apart to let it sink in, at least, that I wasn't coming back any time soon. Not when I didn't have any kind of freedom to return to.

As soon as I heard their voices I knew I'd feel even more guilty than I already was. I didn't need that. If I was going to find a new life I didn't want a reminder of my old one calling up every week. 

It was the same with my friends. I felt even worse lying to them about it, particularly my best mate Johnny who I knew would be so angry with me, but I needed to do this alone. They would try to make me stay too, and they would do a better job at convincing me. 

And I didn't even want to think about my girlfriend Anna, although after she found out what I'd done I definitely would be considered an ex. 

But that was the choice I had made. There was no use complaining about it now. I'd made my bed and now it was time to sleep in it. I didn't really miss anyone anyway, not yet, it was just the guilt that was killing me.

I sighed and took out my phone, opening up my music app and putting on a sad song playlist that I'm pretty sure everyone had a version of. If there was ever any time to sit and soak in the blues it would be now. Hopefully by the time I reached sunny California and began my new, carefree life, I'd be ready to enjoy the decisions I had made. 

But something told me I was going to regret being selfish, and as the plane cruised on-wards towards the West Coast, I almost wished I could turn everything around.