The Gilded by Whitney D. grandison

Author:Whitney D. grandison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Whitney D. grandison

The Rosenblatts’ gala was held in a spacious venue in town on the north side of Hillcrest. It was customary to arrive by limo or town car to these types of events, and because appearances were everything, my father refused to let me drive separately.

So, grudgingly, together my father, Jocelyn, Eloise, Keaton, Huan, and I rode in a Cadillac limousine over to the venue. The King color scheme for the evening was black and blood red.

Keaton easily won best dressed for the night in her floor-length blood-red gown she wore as she sat on the back bench against Huan, giggling as he kissed her bare shoulder and whispered into her ear. Her strapless gown drenched her body and Huan wasn’t far behind in his matching black tux with the blood-red tie and pocket square.

To solidify my role as the black sheep, I wore an all-black tux, a debonair bowtie, and polished shoes.

And I was miserable.

In all my years of living, I had never felt so low.

Tugging on my arm drew my attention from my stare out the window down to where Eloise was sitting beside me, looking up at me.

Her little eyebrows were furrowed in concern. “Why are you so mad?”

I took in her tiny fist clutching my Dior jacket, and she knew to let go.

My eyes went back to the window, offering a measly shrug in response. “I’m not mad.”

“Yeah huh,” Eloise insisted. “You’re always frowning, Marlon.”

Once more, I drew my focus down on the observant girl beside me. To be six years old and naïve again—but then, even at six, I’d been like this. It was hard to think of a time in my life where everything was okay and happy. Where I wasn’t perpetually angry and wanted to cease to exist.

Okay, that wasn’t true. For a sliver of time, when I knew a girl with big coils and a penchant for Polaroid photos, life was so much more tolerable than it was now.

Taking in Eloise, I envied the stage of life she was in. Where everything was possible, and there was good in the world.

Innocence.

I couldn’t even begin to explain my plight, not without bursting her precious little bubble.

“When you grow up, your heart dies,” Allison Reynolds’s character had said in the ’80s film The Breakfast Club. A movie I had seen with Keaton a few times growing up.

Allison definitely hadn’t lied.

But I couldn’t tell Eloise that. Couldn’t tell anyone that. So, I patted her hand and forced a smile on my face. “I’m just thinking about stuff. I’m okay, I promise.”

To distract her, I reached over and tickled her until she released a carefree fit of giggles.

Across from us, my father was on his cell phone and Jocelyn was primping herself in a compact mirror, making sure there wasn’t a trace of imperfection to be found before we stepped out of the limo.

Keaton and Huan were so wrapped up in each other, they may as well have been in an entirely separate vehicle. It was nice, though, to see Huan smile and blush, because outside of Kea, he gave nothing.

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