Page 20 of Burn Bright
“Then Mom?”
I shake my head. “Not really.” She’s already told me she would’ve skewered that guy with her high heel.Sheisa proponent of revenge. But it didn’t make me feel much better.
My brothers wanted me to come to New York almost immediately after I lost control. After they heard I did all of this alone. I don’t think anyone expected it.
“Something’s going on with you,” Jane had said. “Pippy? Just talk to us. We’re all here.”
She’s number one.
Jane Eleanor—the best of us. And for once, no one would disagree.
I try to breathe.
I relax more when they concede to the couch idea. Beckett says they’ll get a pull-out. I offer to pay. I’ll put it on my credit card.
They get weird when I bring up the cost. It’s August, and less than three months ago our trust funds were replenished with a jaw-dropping amount. We should all be beyond flush.
All trust funds are different, depending on who sets them up. Ours isn’t free money raining down from cobalt-blue skies.
I don’t have access to the billions my family is worth either. My inherited and gifted stock from my family’s companies is unattainable until a specific date.Yearsfrom now.
I don’t make dividends. I can’t sell stock for cash. It’s all inherited wealth locked behind pearly gates that only means something when someone Googles my net worth. I’m only nineteen. I’m not hurting enough that I’d need to cash out pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.
My trust fund, though—that is more accessible.
Our parents planned all our trust funds the same in an effort for us to learn fiscal responsibility. A hard lesson for kids born of billions. On May 15thof every year—starting at whatever age (within reason)—we could draw a lump sum from our trust. A portion had to be used for education, but the rest, we could do whatever we wanted with it.
Spend, splurge, invest. Doesn’t matter.
It’s up to us, and if we fuck it all away, then we suffer the consequences of those actions. They won’t bail us out or offer us more money.
We have to wait for the next May 15th.
The sum we receive every year—it’s far,farbeyond the median annual income. Enough to start a new business, enough to secure our futures, and there are no rules. My parents have given us the opportunity to sink or swim, and currently, I’m an anchor at the bottom of the Atlantic.
My savings account is a whoppingzero.
My checking account iszero.
I’ll have to wait almost a whole year for that number to grow. All I really have are some credit cards, and I’m not too eager to use them when I can’t afford to pay them off anytime soon.
I tune in as Eliot says to me, “You can use our bathroom.” He’s referring to his bathroom with Tom, even though I had no intention of using Beckett’s. I’m not really messy, but Beckett has a particular way in which he keeps his things. Product labels facing outward, bath towels symmetrical and aligned on the rod, Q-tips lying flat in a container. And those are just the ones I know about.
“Or I can just use the powder bath,” I suggest.
“There’s no shower,” Tom says, which derails us into banter about sponge-bathing and maybe I’m the one with a stink. I don’t fucking stink. Eliot sniffs under my armpits. Confirms I smell like cedar and pine.
Then they talk about demoing the powder bath. Making it bigger.
“HOA won’t allow it,” Charlie says. “I’ve already tried.”
“Weownthe apartment,” Tom complains. “They can’t just tell usno.”
“They can actually.”
“We could buy the apartment complex,” Eliot considers. “What do you say, let’s each chip in?”
“What do you think it’d go for?” Beckett asks Charlie, as if this is a plausible option.
