Page 6 of Desperate Measures

“Thank you. Liam, isn’t it?” Mom asked, smiling.

She turned her head, noticing me, and I tugged on my dress, feeling an even bigger fool now that everyone else was looking too.

“Michaela! What’s going on, Pudge? Why are you dressed up?”

Oh. My. God.

“Excuse me, I must see your husband about something,” Liam murmured, excusing himself.

My cheeks were on fire.

Did my mom really just call me Pudge in front of him?

How freaking embarrassing!

Never in my life had I wished a hole would just open up and swallow me as much as I did right then.

“Forget it,” I muttered, turning to run straight to my room.

I ignored my mom as she shouted after me. She wouldn’t understand. My mom and dad could not possibly comprehend what it meant to be their kid. The pressure I was under.

Everyone assumed Adrik Volkov’s daughter was nothing more than a bauble. A little doll to dress up and take out for special occasions.

They assumed my father bought my grades.

That everything I did, he got for me.

All my hard work. The years I’d spent proving myself. None of it mattered!

Straight A’s.

Top scorer on the soccer team.

Never any cavities.

Always did what I was told.

Not a toe out of line.

I hated it when I felt this way. Like I was suffocating, trapped inside my own skin, fighting for air but only finding more pressure with every breath.

It was bad of me, I knew that. I shouldn’t feel this way. Maybe I was spoiled and ungrateful—just a child who wasn’t satisfied with everything she’d been given.

I felt selfish for not appreciating the life I had, for wanting more when so many people would give anything to have what I did.

I appreciate it.

Of course, I did. My family, my friends, the opportunities that had come my way—I was lucky, I knew that.

And I loved my family.

My parents were amazing. They’d worked hard to give me a life of comfort, to set me up in a world that many could only dream of.

Their hard work, their love, all of it had shaped me into who I was. But even as I recognized that, a hollow space inside me only seemed to grow wider.

Was it so wrong to want to earn something, to just be something for myself sometimes?

To feel like I wasn’t just living for the sake of living up to others’ expectations?