Take My Wings: A Mail Order Bride Novel with a Deeper Meaning

Chapter 2: Michael

I looked at the text message I last got from my father, Brian Clintock, about coming into the office. He had something to say and I didn't know what it was about, but I knew not to argue. I had been raised to not argue with the old man. To listen and do as I was told like a b***h.

I adjusted my black suit coat and steel watch as I waited in the elevator.

My father's office was on the very top floor of the building, and I had been at a meeting. I hadn't had a moment to even eat lunch yet, let alone breakfast. My life was too hectic to do what normal people took for granted. I hated it and would love to just have a moment to have fun, let alone breathe.

The doors opened and I sighed, as I stepped out and greeted Lauren with a smile. My father had hired her to run the front desk of his office when we had graduated from high school.

"Your father has been looking for you." Lauren called after me and I waved her off with a hand in my pocket.

"I know... Thanks, Lauren!" I called behind myself, as I walked down the long hallway to my father's office.

I rubbed my eye with my fist, as I reached up to knock on the glass door. My heart raced and I sighed. I lowered my fist to adjust my grey tie and cleared my throat. My anxiety was always bad, but it was particularly worse today. My stomach felt sick, and my hands trembled. I tried to do my breathing exercises, ones I was taught by a therapist ages ago, but they were only doing so much at the moment. I licked my lips and entered once I heard my father call me.

I always had to wait for my father to approve it. Always had to do what my father said. I wanted to be approved of, to be loved for being myself. But my father was so focused on the media. He was so focused on the thought of me being this perfect person and that caused the world to see me as such. The weight of not just my father's but the media's too, fell on my shoulders and they were getting too heavy for me to handle.

So, when I entered my father's office to see a shy half-Chinese woman beside him, my anger boiled over.