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Sixteen

Luna

I want to claw the words back from the air, shove them deep down so they never have the chance to see the light of day.

So Aiden never hears them.

Just…move on. Move out .

Put the past behind me and forget whatever crazy notion I had that I could fix everything.

Because it will ruin everything else.

And Aiden is too good to have that happen to him, to deal with me, with my family, with all the business can destroy.

It was delusional to think I could save it, could do something better with it.

I’m just Luna. I don’t have any business experience. I don’t have connections with the board like my brother John has. I don’t have the support of the executive staff like my dad has. I don’t have both like Grams did.

I’m just a dumb girl who wants to fulfill the big dreams I used to sit in this bedroom and write about.

“I’m gonna need you to explain, Luns.”

“I barely understand it myself.”

He sighs, fingers flexing slightly, holding me in place with his touch, with his intense green eyes. “Then let’s start at the beginning and talk it out.”

“Grams read my diaries.”

His brow furrows, but he doesn’t comment except to say, “Go on.”

“I wrote in them a lot—silly stuff like what happened at school or my feelings for you”—my mouth hitches up, heart skipping a beat when I see those green eyes gentle, when he smiles back at me—“but as I got older, it was a way for me to decompress. I’d write about my experiences at college and the professors who drove me crazy or the classes I loved, and later, after I graduated and began to learn more about the business—the good, the bad, and worse, the ugly—I would write about what I wanted to do with Smythe,” I whisper. “What we could do so much better.”

“Like what?” he asks quietly.

I suck in a breath, release it slowly. “Did you know that we’re one of the few companies in the United States that produces insulin?”

He shakes his head. “No, sweetheart.”

“We do, but we don’t do it right.”

“What do you mean, Luns?”

Another breath. Then…I just let the words flow.

“Do you know that the original patent from Dr. Banting for the first formulary of insulin was sold for a dollar because he wanted everyone to have access the life-saving drug? And do you know that insulin today costs between two to four dollars per vial to produce but costs Americans an average of two hundred and fifty dollars? And do you know that same vial used to cost twenty-one dollars—twenty-one dollars!—in 1996?” I take a breath because my heart rate is speeding, frustration at the injustice—and my small part in it—bringing the words forward fast and furious.

“Americans pay ten times more for insulin than other countries, and they die because they ration their insulin because they can’t afford it, risk their lives for a disease they didn’t ask for, a disease that is a lifelong burden to manage. ”

My throat goes tight, and I slam my eyes closed, dangerously close to crying.

Again.

Because until I saw a video online, I had no idea what my family’s company was doing.

What I was part of.

And then I dove headfirst into researching, into discovering all that I could about the industry my family’s business was in…

until I had a solid plan for moving forward in a way that’s still profitable, but doesn’t trample innocent people.

Only, when I brought that plan to my brother, my father, the board…

Not one person cared—or they didn’t care more than what Smythe was already providing their bank accounts with their current structure.

A cut to profits, no matter how slight, was unacceptable.

I can’t pretend to be perfect and innocent in this—I benefited from Smythe’s power too. It paid for my skating, my schooling, my rent, my car, my clothes. Until I moved home and had my epiphany, anyway.

Then that door was shut to me, the spigot turned off.

And even then I still benefit from Grams leaving me this house, because I have no school loans or car payment. Me struggling paycheck to paycheck without those debts is nothing compared to what others go through.

It’s hard, but I can make it work.

Plus, I don’t want that money—not when it’s been built off the backs of innocent people.

I tell Aiden all of that, watching his face change, pride shining in his emerald eyes.

But I can’t let that sink in.

Because there’s more.

And I love Grams, but I cannot believe that she put what she put in her will, that she was playing with people’s lives…all because she wanted me to get fucking married within a calendar year.

Which is just another reason why my showing up on Aiden’s doorstep was incredibly fucking selfish.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly when the words have dried up, his hand still gentle on my cheek, eyes searching mine, as though he knows my thoughts shifted and he’s trying to ferret the new ones out. “You’ve been doing your best, but it’s not easy being alone. Don’t discount that.”

“Two and a half billion dollars,” I whisper, not able to sit in that pride, to think about my struggles, not when my family is responsible for so much pain.

“That’s how much we made on insulin last year.

And that was forty percent more than the one-point-six billion from the year before.

Off of a patent that was available for a dollar,” I say, feeling sick.

“Yes, we spend R&D money on new formularies, but that has paid for itself a thousand fold over just the last few years. So why are people rationing here when people in other countries get these meds for free? Why are they struggling when we’re raking it in hand over fist?

Why are we so fucking greedy when we can actually do some fucking good and still have plenty of money to pad our bank accounts?

” I clamp my lips together and breath slowly, steadily.

“So you clearly see why my dad and brother aren’t happy with me right now. ”

“Yeah, I bet.” He touches my cheek. “But you’re passionate about this, Luns. Something Grams clearly saw that if she read anything close to what you were speaking about in your diaries.”

My mouth hitches up. “I may have written a more than a few pages in my raging.”

“So, she did see it?”

I nod.

“Then what happened?”

I rub the throb in my temple. “I was finishing up my degree—I went back for my MBA because I wanted to contribute something to the company, but when I was”—I do finger quotes—“ radicalized , according to my brother and dad, they made it their jobs to cut me out of mine. I was shut out of meetings, left out of the loop on conference calls, slowly pushed out of the way. Then Grams got sick and I was too focused on her to fight for my place, especially when she got sick enough that she needed to move in with my dad and I followed suit, not wanting her to be alone.”

He frowns.

“What?”

“But why couldn’t you both stay here?”

“Termites,” I whisper. “A fucking tub fell through the living room ceiling and she needed some place safe to live…and we tented, did all the necessary repairs, but she never got well enough to move home.”

“Shit, Luns,” he mutters. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

I exhale. “I took my eye off the ball. They quietly hired someone else in my place and suddenly I was stuck without a paycheck. Then when I didn’t fall in line, I also lost my connection to the family coffers and thus, I lost what little power I had to force them to do anything.

I didn’t want the dirty money, but it was the only strength I had. ”

He frowns.

But I keep going. I have to.

“Grams left me some life insurance money,” I say.

“It was enough to pay the property and inheritance taxes, covered me for utilities and food for a while, and I found a job that I really enjoy at a nonprofit that means I’m doing okay money-wise.

” I sigh. “But I haven’t found any clear way forward with Smythe, any way to make all my anger at the injustices they commit to actually mean something. ”

He takes my hand. “It’s not easy to fight against a company as big as Smythe.”

“That’s just it.” I find my fingers tightening on his, my anger bubbling anew—but it’s not just at my dad, my brother, the board, the corporate greed.

It’s at Grams too.

Because she could have fixed this if only she hadn’t made that damned request.

“ What’s it, sweetheart?”

“She had the tools to fight them. And she offered to give them to me.”

He frowns. “And you didn’t want them or?—?”

“No.” I shift closer, needing him to understand. “I wanted them so freaking bad.”

“Then why?—?”

“Because in order to use them, she said I had to get married.”