Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 73940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“On top of that, I don’t think what we’re doing to the environment is right. We’re fucking so much shit up, just for the money. I think that’s wrong. I think we need to pivot, be more green. It’s the right thing to do.”
My dad blinked a few times before he gave another laugh. This one wasn’t dry. It was venomous. He shook his head, disappointment flashing across his face.
Fuck.
“I have managed to build a multimillion-dollar company from the ground up. Me, an immigrant, a first-generation college student, from the poorest county in my city to a beautiful, beachside zip code. And you want to throw it all away?”
“I’m not throwing anything away, Dad. I’m making my own path. It’s what I want.”
“What you want is stupid.”
He might as well have reached across his desk and socked me in the jaw. “I… That’s… I.”
Speechless. My father had effectively knocked all the wind out of my sails with that one simple—and exceptionally cruel—statement.
“Do you think I care about a couple ruined plots of land? Do you think I care that a few random bugs or frogs lose their habitats? No. I don’t. And neither do you or your mother when we’re taking our family trips to Greece, when you’re driving around in a brand-new Range Rover, when you have every single thing you could want at the tips of your fingers.”
“It’s not a few plots of land or a couple of bugs. It’s a chain effect. You’re playing with the building blocks of nature, and this tower you’ve built on top of those blocks is going to come tumbling down. And you’ll bring everyone else down with you.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. His cheeks were flushed red, his forehead wrinkled with the frustration and anger he must have been feeling.
“It’s not, and you know it.”
“So what do you propose I do, then? Hm?”
“Pull out of the Beacon’s Bay drilling project. That’s a start. Then stop it altogether.”
Please. Do it for me.
There was a long, long moment of contemplative silence. I felt like I was slowly melting into the chair. The stiff back kept me sitting up straight. For a flash of a second, I thought that maybe I’d done it. Maybe I’d gotten my dad to start thinking about making a huge pivot. I started to feel a flurry of excitement at the thought of breaking the news to Jay.
He’d be so proud.
“Get out.”
My turn to drop my jaw in shock.
“Go,” he repeated. I half expected him to start counting to five like he had when I was a spoiled kid being sent to my bedroom. “You’ve disappointed me today. I never thought we’d have this conversation. I need to think about this.”
“But—”
“No. Just leave my office. I have calls to make before the public finds out Redpine is jumping in.”
My dad sliced the conversation in half by picking up his phone and starting to dial a number. I wasn’t even out of his office when he greeted his assistant, asking to be connected to his next call. His voice carried as he asked for the person on the other line. I recognized the name as a CEO behind another company known for its destructive footprint. No doubt, he had made sure I could hear her name as I shut the door. And even with the door closed, my father’s words drifted out from under the threshold.
“Yes, yes, absolutely, the Beacon’s Bay project is green-lit.”
My heart dropped as I walked away. I’d gone from feeling on top of the world yesterday to feeling crushed by it today.
Fuuuck. And now I had to tell Jay about my dad’s involvement with the drilling project.
This wasn’t going to be good. Not at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Jay
Bamboo Park was one of my favorite places to hang out at FU.
It was a chill spot near the greenhouse that had naturally formed walls of bamboo, creating a park with peaceful little nooks and crannies you could escape into. Maddy and I sat on a blanket in one of these bamboo-surrounded nooks, an almost empty bottle of wine split between us and a completely empty box of pizza next to it.
“Okay,” Maddy said, looking down at her iPad. “What if we do a flash mob?”
“Girl, aren’t those extinct by now?”
“Yes, but, imagine if you’re the one to bring them back! The attention you’d draw would be insane.”
“For all the wrong reasons, I’m sure.”
I took a swig of the white wine and looked up at the clear blue sky. We had gotten together to discuss the protest for the Beacon Bay drilling project. There was still time to shut it down, but every day that passed meant our job became infinitely harder.
The idea of a unified flash mob doing a corny dance on the beach didn’t feel inspiring, but…