Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Will
As we emerge from the cellar, with each step we get closer and closer to the world I’d love to escape. But maybe, just maybe, there’s nothing to run from now. Maybe I was nervous for nothing… Our lungs are filled with each other, but walking back into the main room, slightly more flushed than we left, everyone is already holding a glass. My father and brothers are at the front of the room, and the immediate tightness I have in my chest as I fear whatever is about to come next. This was never just about coming home for summer.
This was a fucking trap.
The waiter hands us each a glass of champagne, some local kid just trying to make a summer-buck. The air in the room is different.
"Here he is, always one for an entrance…" dad says as he uses his whiskey glass to gesture across the room to where we stand. And we’re suddenly under the illusion of a spotlight.
"The newest addition to the Sterling Group, my son, William Sterling."
I tighten my grip on her hand, but her fingers loosen from mine. I squeeze twice. Same. Team . Hoping she understands, but her grip goes slack and I can see her confusion.
I know what I’m meant to do, but I just weave my fingers through hers. I’m not moving. I acknowledge the room of sycophants and corporate crows, and rather than falling in line wrap my arm around her back.
How quickly our team lost shape. Maybe because she had no fucking idea what we were getting ourselves into. I did. I tried to warn her. I know she saw all the color drain from my face when we pulled up to the house. My skin rippled with a sense of obligatory stiffness, the stoicism I can use as a shield, one I tried to hide her behind, but it didn’t work.
As soon as the announcement was made her hand was pulled from mine as my mother whisked her away to hob-knob with someone who doesn’t even realize they’ve been made to run interference. All so I can be locked in this room, that ironically enough, Arden would love, but right now is the place that my dad and Alfie have decided is the best time and place to do this. I thought they’d save it for breakfast at least.
"You’re not going to defend yourself" Alfie asks, or rather accuses.
"I have nothing to defend, you wanted me here, I’m here. But I never agreed to any of this." Between him and our dad, they’ve been working this angle for a while. The deal being that my time in Boston is up. I had my time to ‘ figure my life out’ and that the doomsday clock ticked even closer to midnight. But they want more than me just at a family dinner. Which is not what this is. They want the press release that the prodigal son has returned. Returned to a role in a company that I have no business doing for any reason other than namesake. And tonight, he thinks he forced my hand.
"You show up here, with a stranger, and don’t expect me to say anything after everything you’ve fucking pulled?!" Alfie snaps like the bulldog dad likes him to be.
"She’s not a stranger, dad invited her." I retort with a laugh. I don’t sound like myself. I don’t feel like myself, but it’s the only way to handle them and I know it. It’s almost as if the calmer I am the more agitated they become.
"Sarcasm doesn’t suit you." Dad jumps in and I know he’s eager to get this business sorted. "You should be getting serious about your life, not whatever it is you're doing. There’s a standard to be upheld, and you’ve spit on that idea for long enough.”
I turn to face my father, straightening my spine and I think of Arden standing in my office doorway ready to face off against him regardless of who he was.
"I’ll sign whatever you want signed, but I’m not leaving my job, I’m not leaving my life."
"You mean you won’t leave her ?" he cracks.
"That’s exactly what I mean." I’m not embarrassed about it, but they look at me like I’ve said something naive.
I watch their faces, the familiar mix of disappointment and frustration, and realize they'll never understand. Not because they can't, but because they don't want to. They think their hand is being forced, to push me, to pressure me, to make this public spectacle. I'd been hoping, foolishly maybe, that this weekend could be different.
I'd pictured this weekend like some sort of waspy psychological warfare. Passive-aggressive jabs traded over vintages, pointed silences between courses, and the occasional swim to wash off the tension. Arden and I would dissect every loaded glance and backhanded compliment on the drive home, turning family drama into something almost entertaining. Leave it to the Sterlings to skip the subtlety and go straight for the jugular, champagne in hand, of course.
I’d hoped we could find common ground, or at least a mutual understanding. But looking at them now, I see the futility in that hope. This board seat, this role they're trying to force me into, it would mean leaving Boston, leaving everything I've built. They present it like an opportunity, but it's a cage constructed of family obligation and corporate ambition. They act like being a docent is something temporary, a rebellion to get out of my system. That’s been said. Like it’s a bad haircut I am growing out of. As if I'm just some tour guide wandering the halls with no purpose beyond killing time until I ‘come to my senses.’ But I know it wouldn't matter if I were a doctor saving lives or a chef with Michelin stars, anything outside their narrow vision of success might as well not exist.
The only growth they recognize is measured in profit margins and market share. What they've never bothered to see, what they actively choose to ignore, is how much I've already grown, just not in the direction they planned. I sit on three different museum committees now, helping shape the future of art education in Boston. I've developed exhibition programs that bring in schools from underfunded districts, last month, I helped secure a traveling exhibition that will transform our west wing into an interactive space for contemporary artists. But they've never asked about any of it.
Arden gets it. She's sat through countless practice runs of my lectures, offering insights that have helped me refine my approach. Arguing with me as she does. The contrast is stark between her genuine interest and my family's dismissal, between her understanding of what drives me and their refusal to see beyond their own expectations. She sees possibility where they see waste, potential where they see rebellion.
And maybe that's what scares them most, that I've found a different kind of success, one they can't control or quantify. I look back at my father, at the papers scattered across the table that are meant to chart my future without my input. They think they're forcing my hand, but they don't realize I've already chosen my path. They see an ultimatum where I see clarity. Every dismissive comment about my ‘silly job,’ every condescending reference to ‘real work,’ has only reinforced that I'm exactly where I need to be.
"Enough of the dramatics, you’ve had your fun. You’ve proved your point. You wanted to spend all day focused on the past rather than the future, you’ve done it. You wanted to flirt and fuck half of Boston? Fine. But your time’s up. Now, I’ve stood by and watched as you’ve thrown away opportunity after opportunity, but enough’s enough. That’s over now. I’ve held a seat for you at this table long enough, delaying deals due to your childish spite. But you’re not delaying any longer. Whether you like it or not, you don’t just walk away from this family."
It’s amazing that just outside there are more than a hundred people in cocktail attire. All here for some version of a formal barbeque. Laughable. Meanwhile, Shakespear would have something to say about what’s happening in this room. Probably about 30,000 words resulting in regicide.
"I’m happy, I’m not giving that up for this ."
"That’s right, the sanctimonious William fucking Sterling. How nice it must be to be you." Alfie spits out with resentment so palpable I can taste it from where I stand. And it takes me aback. Maybe it’s jealousy. The advantage to being the youngest. But whatever it is doesn’t change the intention behind it. Misery will always love company.
" This is the reason you're happy. You think you’d like that silly job of yours even a fraction as much if your name wasn’t on the wall? You wouldn’t."
"I’m leaving. I shouldn't have come. I thought we could be cordial, I thought maybe somewhere you’d understand that this life you have, you all have, it’s not the one I want."
My father slams his glass on the table, spilling whiskey across the papers meant to finalize the merger and with it, the board seat I would take to solidify it.
"This is it?" he asks "This is the hill you’re willing to die on?" The accusation in his voice is laced with betrayal.
" This isn't, but she is."
I open the double library doors, and there she is. Face fallen with a champagne flute in one hand and my brother Cal to her side. I can’t begin to imagine what’s going on in her mind. What she’s heard. I don't know what I would think if I were on the other side of it. But she was brought here to witness some version of the ugliness that just played out and I’m sick to my stomach.
Maybe this was always their plan, take the pieces of my life that matter most. He would have seen it the second he opened the door and saw Arden. I think the only one who hasn’t admitted it yet, is her.
Cal walks off to join them in the library, and leaves us in a moment of pseudo-privacy.
"Let’s run away" I say, pleading, as we stand so close our bodies are pressed against each other without any need besides their own self-interest.
"Where can we go?" she asks as she places her hand over my heart.
"New York?" I ask. I could get us there and checked into a hotel in less than three hours.
She shakes her head.
"Paris?" I ask, the agreement from earlier. Hell, we could get to Paris. Get out of here, head straight to the airport, and then straight on till morning.
"Nah, I don’t think Paris was far enough after all… It’s gonna have to be Mars."
"Mars it is." I agree. With no concept of impossibility purely because it’s with her.
"Perfect, I just have to do something first."
She chugs the rest of her champagne and hands me the glass as she stomps forward. She crosses the distance in the hallway and marches right into the library. I can see her momentary pause, and even in just her shape from behind I know she’s in awe of the room itself, the books that line every inch. One she’d enjoy under different circumstances. But she doesn’t let it slow her, I think she’s actually gaining momentum as she marches right up to my father.
"This is all a little cliché don’t you think?" she asks.
"I think," he says in a tone that has me striding back into the room, "that my son has potential he’s yet to live up to, and I’m tired of waiting around for him to recognize it. If that means I need to force it, so be it."
"That’s the thing, Mr. Sterling, you’re the only one who hasn’t recognized it, because everyone sees it. See’s how kind he is, how smart, how generous. How he goes to work everyday and makes peoples lives better, how he celebrates life, how he lives it. You don’t see any of that because you’ve never tried."
“You’re being…” he begins, with his chest full of hot air, and I’m by her side now.
“I promise, there isn’t an end to that you won’t regret.” It comes out as I mean it to. A near snarl meant to show them I’m deadly serious. I don’t think I deserve an ounce of what she’s said. But I know there’s no amount of casual labeling that can diminish what this is.
"I will not be spoken to this way, not in my own house." I take another step towards him, but Arden places her hand on my arm, to stop me. She just reaches to the table for the glass of whiskey, tipping the small amount back to her lips, emptying it entirely. I don't think anyone else can see the slight twinge, I’ve never seen her so much as taste a whiskey. But she drinks it down and returns the glass.
"So long as this is your opinion, you won’t be spoken to by me, ever again." Her chin high as she turns on her heel. Smiling at me before mouthing two words, same team, and walking out.
The absence of her hand is replaced by my father’s as he reaches for me.
"You’re throwing away your future, your family."
" She is my future, and one day, she’ll be my family."