“All I know is, if they pull some shit tonight, make sure my casket’s amethyst and diamond-encrusted.” Cali tops off her drink yet again. “We all know my mom will murder my ass if so much as a scarf is missing.” She tears away from the counter and heads into the den, leaving us to laugh at her expense.

The conversation shifts to the events of the last gathering, and we move along the groups. When everyone’s distracted enough, I break away once more, lowering myself onto the empty sofa near the open doors, and my bored-ass mind begins playing on an infinite loop, circling the party in search of some excitement that doesn’t involve a half-naked couple or a shattered bottle that’s slipped from a tipsy blonde’s fingers.

This place is exactly how I remember it. A tight-knit community who look down their noses at any and all who don’t fit the mold.

Obsessive fathers and aggressive mothers pushing responsibilities and expectations onto their children one second, pretending we don’t exist the next.

It’s not something only myself and my sister deal with, but a standard across the board in communities like ours.

The extent of it depends on your parents’ position, and what they demand of you.

The Gentry boys, for example, they’re to be carbon copies of their father. The oldest is already an intern while Scott is expected to follow, go to an ivy league, and he will, as his father and grandfather did—his parents’ hefty donation will see to it. He’ll be frat house president, without a care, paying people off for assignments, and then take his place in his parents’ company when he’s done.

Cali will sit like a waiting duck and take her pick of the litter and slip right into the socialite role her mother laid breadcrumbs for.

Jules, I don’t even know. Her mom wants her to go to college, but she hates school, hates everything her mom wants her to do, period, it seems. Maybe she just hates her mom?

Either way, our lives are a series of Hallmark cards, written—and sold, if I want to look at my situation for what it is—by someone else, yet a perfect play-by-play of our reality, and that’s pathetic.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Boring, boring, boring.

Again, another reason why I’m eager for this year to come and go, because why not get right into what follows? At least some of the scenery will be different.

A heavy sigh leaves me, and I continue my people watching, and with each cycle of the room, I pause a little longer on the three who stand out above the others.