Last True Hero Read Free Page A

Conners, 0.

2
Berkeley
    T he last two weeks of my college career fly by in a whirlwind of final exams, tearful exchanges with friends, and extra-special pressure from my parents to “get serious” with Grisham.
    That would be Grisham Abbot, the man, according to my parents, I’m going to marry.
    Grisham, quite honestly, is a great guy. He’s the son of a navy admiral, a man who serves just under my father at the base he commands. Grisham’s father and mine go way back to their days at the Naval Academy, where they both emerged as officers. Both men met their wives shortly thereafter, and the four of them have been an unstoppable team ever since. It’s only natural, at least in their minds, that Grisham and I live happily ever after as a product of their lifelong friendship.
    But Grisham’s just not my guy. He just graduated from the Naval Academy, exactly like our fathers. I don’t want to marry a younger version of my dad. I don’t want to become the new and improved carbon copy of my mom. That’s so not the life I’ve planned for myself.
    What kind of life do I have planned for myself?
    Ain’t that the question of the century?
    I have no clue. Trained chimps have a better grasp on their future than I do. I graduated with a major in interior design. My mother thinks that’s perfect, because I’m going to be planning and designing navy events for the rest of my life. Sigh.
    My welcome home begins with a bang.
    My parents have thrown me a graduation extravaganza. Because my mother can’t just call it a party. That would be ludicrous.
    It’s also, in a sense, my “coming out” party with Grisham. My reflection in the full-length mirror in my bedroom at my parents’ house mocks me. The girl staring back at me looks as though she was made for this life. She was made to belong to affluent parents, her father one of the most powerful men in the United States military. Her mother is a flawless version of herself, always on top of her game, always the picture of class and authority. The girl staring back at me looks like she belongs on the arm of a handsome, clean-cut man of privilege who will work his way quickly through the ranks of the navy.
    But inside that girl, another is fighting to claw her way to the surface. The real me, just waiting for a chance to spread her wings. The me who loves to run around in funny T-shirts and cutoffs. The me who spends hours in her room drawing beautiful spaces and painting canvases to hang on the walls inside of them. The me who is most at home in a seafood restaurant with old wooden floors and down-to-earth people who love me for me. Not for the future me who will make them proud, just the me I already am.
    I leave the room, shutting the door a little too loudly behind me, and crash directly into my mother.
    “Honey,” she coos. “You look beautiful. Here, let me fix your hair. This piece is falling down again. I wish you’d grow out these layers. And flatiron it. It really would become you so much better.”
    I puff my lips out and blow, allowing the strand of hair in question to flutter flippantly around my face. “Better?”
    She frowns, an expression her face doesn’t handle very well due to the monthly Botox injections.
    “Don’t be smart. Get downstairs. Grisham’s been waiting on you for thirty minutes, at least.”
    “Grish knows me well enough to know he could be waiting all night.”
    My mother’s eyes roll skyward and I can almost hear her counting to ten.
    I hold up my hands in surrender. “All right, Momma. I’m going.”
    The pins holding my hair up are already giving me a headache as I reach the bottom of our grand dual staircase, but I plaster a giant, fake smile on my face and begin to greet guests as they hover near me. Just dying to offer me their sincere congratulations on my completion of four years in college.
    The University of North Carolina at Wilmington wasn’t at all where my parents envisioned me earning my four-year degree. Since I