Run

“The city, no matter how small, is corrupt and unrepentant, while the sun shines brighter in the country, making people more wholesome.”

~Lori Lansen

George Strait—the king of country—blared from my phone, and I hummed merrily along, enjoying both the music and the knowledge that if my dad heard it, it’d grate on his every last nerve. He hated country—one of the numerous, endless differences between us.

I firmly believed that the only thing we shared in common was our last name: Davenport. The similarities stopped there. He stood in society as a prominent, powerful politician with a Master’s in Political Science. And I— Riley Davenport, twenty-two, fresh out of college with a Bachelor’s in Business—was expected to become a politician like my father, and if not a politician, then a trophy wife to a politician. I was supposed to do charity work to gain empathy from potential voters, meet and greet current supporters to ensure they continued their support, and find information to weaken my father’s competitors in elections. I didn’t mind doing charity work, meeting people, or researching information. What I did mind was doing it for the sole purpose of guaranteeing my dad had a perfect campaign while making his adversaries appear untrustworthy and deplorable. This was his campaign. Not mine, not my mother’s, and not my sister’s. His. I understood we needed to behave to give him the best image possible, but the truth was, I was tired of it all. Besides, I realized he did more character assassination in his campaigns than voicing what he would do to help our state. Then again, that seemed to work on his constituents.

I began coping in some less-than-appropriate ways. It started in college with underage drinking; I always did it discreetly and managed to avoid being caught for two years until the paparazzi grew tired of following my perfect sister around. That, and the kids at my college started taking pictures of me drinking and selling them to magazines for extra money. I appeared in almost every issue of every magazine with a small blurb about my “alcoholism” and what a disgrace I was- am- to my family. The entertainment channels, particularly, pounced on the story, with the show hosts analyzing every minuscule thing I did. They criticized me for over-drinking despite the fact that I never got genuinely drunk, always remembered everything I did, never threw up, or got so smashed I couldn’t walk a straight line. I had a thing about always staying in control of myself, which may have been another trait I got from my dad (but I’ll never admit that aloud). The alcohol simply took the edge off of the anxiety that the impossible standards both my dad and I had set for myself caused.

The drinking habits were only half of it. The media scrutinized and criticized me for wearing jeans and a hoodie to my classes in the winter and compared me to my sister, who wore cute little skirts and tops, which were fashionable yet tasteful for a politician’s daughter. The media ridiculed me for not having as good of grades as my sister despite having all As and high Bs. Having the constant stress of trying to be the perfect daughter for my parents, trying to be like my perfect older sister, and holding myself to the perfect standards I’d grown up with, I became mentally and physically exhausted. I was done with it.

So, I decided to be the opposite. I behaved at any event I was forced to go to, but stuck to the shadows and snuck out whenever possible. Sometimes, I went home and curled up with a good book. That was my preference, actually. Other times, I went out drinking. No one noticed my absence except my parents and sister. If anyone else did, it would’ve been all over the news.

I’d stay up into the wee hours of the morning, either reading or partying, and the next day, I’d endure my parents’ disdainful stares and my sister’s pitiful glances and repeat the process.

Tonight would be no different, and I chose to go out rather than stay in. I rummaged through my closet, searching for a decent dress, when someone knocked on my door. I called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s Casey,” my sister replied, poking her head in.

“What’s up?”

“I wanted to see if I could convince you to skip the club tonight and hang out with Mark and me,” she said, fully entering my room and shutting the door. From the mirror in my closet, I watched her sit cross-legged on my bed, staring hopefully at me.

Casey Davenport. The perfect daughter. Average height, blonde hair, blue eyes, a pale but beautiful complexion, and kind, sweet, and caring. She had a fantastic job working for our dad, the most incredible fiancé, and a life on track. Somehow, in a way I could never hope to understand, she handled having our every move analyzed, watched, and monitored with grace and dignity.

I wanted to hate her for being the way she was, for being so perfect in the eyes of practically everyone we came across, but I couldn’t. She was my sister, and out of everyone in my family, Casey tried to understand what I was going through. She never fully did, but she tried, which was more than either of my parents ever did.

“Case, thank you for the invitation, but when I weigh the options of going out and being the awkward third wheel, I will go for the party any day.”

“You wouldn’t be the awkward third wheel! Mark’s friend is coming!”

“Is he a politician’s son?”

Casey hesitated, giving me the answer before she ever spoke it. “Yes…”

“Not interested. You know I don’t want anything to do with politics. It’s all corruption and bribery and all the same damn families competing against one another. Don’t even get me started on the Clushes or the Bintons.”

"We’re not corrupted,” Casey argued.

At that absurd declaration, I stuck my head out from the closet and stared pointedly at her. “Yes, we are. Dad is a micromanager who won’t let any of us have our own financial freedom; we’re all reliant on him, so he can use it as leverage against us when he needs us to do something for him or as a way to punish us if he thinks we did something wrong. Mom does whatever Dad tells her to do. You’re the only normal one because although I may not be morally corrupted, I certainly have my own issues, especially with Dad and Mom.”

“You can change that, you know.”

“And you know I’ve tried in the past. Multiple times.” I returned to the closet and flicked through my dresses, none of them calling out to me. “Hell, Dad even hired a stylist for me at one point, and rather than it helping, it got worse. Dad ended up firing her, remember?”

“Yeah, I always wondered why he did that because you looked incredible,” Casey mused in all her innocence and naivety. I wanted to tell her it’s because I would never be allowed to upstage his favorite daughter in anything, let alone in style, but outside of my own beliefs, I had nothing to support the accusation, so I kept quiet.

“And what about when I attended that stupid political science camp in Georgia for the whole summer before my senior year of high school, aced the course, came out on top in all the debates, and all Dad could focus on was that I was sunburned and had developed a slight southern accent? Or the time I saved the little girl from drowning in the pool in California, and when we were in the privacy of our hotel room, Dad accused me of staging the whole thing for attention? When I was sixteen?”

“I know they’ve been harsh on you-”

“You’ve got that part right. Listen, all I’m saying is that it feels like no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I can’t make them happy. They get mad if I stay out, they get mad if I stay in-”

“I think they’re more upset you’re sneaking out of the events.”

“They’re the only ones that notice when I do. And I don’t do it all the time. It’s only the events that we hold at the house. Besides, even when I do stay, if I speak to people, Dad is all over me and joins our conversations and then tells me how inadequate I am afterward and how I could’ve held the conversation better when I had the person perfectly engaged without his help. If I don’t speak at all, Dad tells me I need to be more like you, and I’m just… I’m tired, Case. I’m tired of trying when all it gets me is more criticism and judgment. I’d rather they not speak to me at all.”

“Riles-”

“My answer for tonight is no. I love you and Mark, but I’d rather be on my own. Thank you for the invitation, though.”

“Please don’t go out tonight. This will be the fifth time this week.”

“Third, actually. I stayed home the other two nights because it was raining, but I didn’t want any of you to know I was still home.”

Casey huffed in annoyance. “Fine, fine. Be that way. Just be careful.”

“Always am.”

She left my room, and I loosed a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I loved Casey, but she’d never been subjected to our father’s ire. When she was running through the house with a friend and broke a priceless vase in Dad’s study gifted to him by a European diplomat, he’d told her accidents happen and that it was nothing to worry about. When I’d accidentally tripped over my own two feet and knocked over an imitation clay bust that Mom had bought for cheap at a flea market, I’d been grounded for a month with no television, phone, or computer unless I needed it for school. It’s not like I exactly cared, but I didn’t let them know that. I was more than happy to curl up in bed with a good book and ignore everyone and everything.

After another five minutes of perusing the same dresses over and over again, I finally grabbed a random one and got ready. Within an hour, I headed downstairs to request a driver to take me to the club, only to be greeted by Casey, Mark, and an unfamiliar man. I assumed it was Mark’s friend by the way they gaily chatted with each other. My parents were down there as well, talking amiably with everyone.

“- a charity fundraiser this weekend. You should come with your parents,” my dad told the stranger. He was about to say more when he saw me. “Ah, Riley, glad you’re finally down here. I’d like to introduce you to Neil Hardy. He’s the son of-”

“Patrick Hardy,” I finished, mustering a fake, polite smile. “You must be Mark’s friend.”

“I am,” Neil answered, his blue eyes glittering with a sliminess I saw in most politicians. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too.”

“You’ll hang out with Neil, Casey, and Mark tonight,” my father stated, giving me a stern glare that said any other outing would not be permissible. I, however, did not back down. For years, I’d tried doing what my parents wanted, and it got me nowhere, so I would do things my own way now. Or as much as I could with the tight financial leash my dad had on me.

Scanning the group before me, I casually said, “Oh! I thought they were going to dinner, not the club, but hey, the more the merrier!”

The last part was a lie, of course, but its sarcasm was true. My dad glowered at me, and had I not been so used to it, I would’ve cowered from the intensity of his icy stare. Casey spoke before he could, saying, “We are going to dinner, and you’re dressed perfectly for it!”

“I don’t want to-”

“You’re going tonight, or else you don’t go out at all,” my father warned.

“Fine. Lead the way, you three,” I sighed, motioning towards the door. Little did my dad know I absolutely planned on sneaking away from the dinner at some point because there was no way in hell I could endure sitting through their boring conversations, which centered around politics and nothing else. There were so many other things to discuss: hobbies, goals, dreams, adventures, memories. But no, they stuck with the same old boring politics. It made me want to rip my hair out, so while we strode out to the SUV, I began formulating my escape plan.