Page 109 of Until We Burn
If you ever want to leave this company, you won’t do it so easily. Not without struggle, not without pain.
Stella narrows her eyes. “Why do you want to take over the HMG?”
“It’s myduty,”I stress. “My father built this to give Asians a place in mainstream media and I have to uphold our place.”
“That’s the reason whyyour fatherwants you to take over the HMG,” Stella presses. “I’m asking aboutyou.Why doyouwant to take it over?”
“Well, I—” The words come up empty. I try to rack my head for any shred of reason that binds me to this goal I’ve been working towards my whole life. Then I realize there’s absolutely no reason. All the learning and planning have always been done with my eyes turned towards my father, hungering for his approval.
A weight lifts off me. But a chill takes its place and that’s when I feel how hollow I become when I separate bàba’s ambitions from my own.
“Oh my god.” I scramble onto my feet. My steps stumble. My body teeters side to side.
“Diana?” Stella trails after me in concern. “Are you okay?—”
“I don’t have any ambitions that are my own,”I gasp. My fingers tremble through my hair. “I-I know what I like doing. I like leading a-and reporting. But I don’t know if I actually like doing those things or if it’s because my father told me I should!”
“You’ll figure it out!” Stella encourages.
I shake my head. I can feel my breath growing tighter in my chest. “There’s so many options out there, but at the same time, there’s no options at all.”
Stella winces. “Well, actually?—”
“—What if I make the wrong choice?”
“Okay, Diana, slow down?—”
“—I’m in my fourth year and I’m graduating in June, and I have no idea what I actually want to do with my life!”
I pace back and forth, spiraling at the thought of leaving the pampered, protected walls of academia to get tossed into this giant world with no definite plan of my own, no defined rules on whatneeds to be done and when. I don’t know which pieces of myself belong to me, to bàba, or if there’s even pieces of myself to begin with, since I never truly had a chance to decide what I wanted those pieces to be.
“Diana, Diana.” Stella braces me still. Her hands on my arms are strong and steady, yet she’s nothing but gentle with me. “Let’s take a deep breath, okay? If you want, I have smelling salts for emotional breakdowns.”
I let out a small, broken laugh. Stella’s lips quirk up in a faint smile but drop back into a frown when I slump down on the couch nearby.
Stella curls up by my feet. Regret flashes on her face as she grips my hands. “I am so sorry, Diana. We were meant to take down your siblings, but I accidentally propelled you into a quarter-life crisis!”
“No, it’s alright.” I sniffle and lightly dab at my nose. “I was probably bound to have it sometime.”
Stella suddenly perks up. “What if you worked on taking over the HMG and changing the way it runs? No more lies or stupid competitions. Maybethat’syour purpose.”
I mull it over. A small glimmer of hope ignites in my chest. I’ve always thought about how I’d further the HMG’s business plans, but I’ve never really considered uprooting bàba’s ethics and practices altogether to build an entirely new way of conducting business.
Maybe Icanchange that.
I look over at the folder of evidence lying on the table. I approach it with a single motive fueled by the night before. “If I’m going to change the HMG, I need to start from the ground up. I want to leave my sister Sophia out of this.”
Stella’s brows furrow as she stands and cups her hips. “Didn’t she help you get into this mess?”
“I know she did.” I scowl at all the underground forces listed on the documents. “But she became this way partly because of my father and brothers. I know there’s still good in her. I want to give her a chance to be the person she wants to be, and it’s not going to happen if I cut her down with my brothers.”
“Well, I mean…” Stella shrugs as she glances down at the evidence. “She’s in the clear. She didn’t touch the screenshots at all. Her IP address isn’t on here.”
“No, but there’s likely conversations between her and my brothers on DXMessenger that show she was a part of their plan. Do you know any way you can erase the data?”
Stella hums in thought. She drums her fingers against the table. “Well, I can, especially if you’re under a family plan. It’ll take a few hours for the data to be wiped out on all sides, though, and I’d need her phone to do it.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I can’t just waltz back into her life after the argument we had. There has to be another way to get her phone.”
