The Paradise Problem

by Christina Lauren

Truthfully, I love that she thinks about this. I love that she’s horrified by that price. I’m horrified, too. It’s a good thing Anna isn’t my real wife; I would constantly worry that my proximity to this world would destroy her.

“Well, mostly because he’s an asshole. But also, kids growing up in a normal family get to be themselves, whoever that may be. But in families like ours, one where everything basically revolves around keeping a single person happy—my dad—everybody has a role. My therapist used to refer to Alex as a flying monkey.”

“But back to Alex…” Anna says, her voice somehow soothing even when she’s pressing at all of my bruises. “Maybe you two are so competitive because it serves your father for you to be at odds with each other.”

And it’s not his fault, of course, but it’s not lost on me that the very thing West has tried to distance himself from—his family—is the one thing that I always wanted. Just… not all of them.

something she said, near the end, always stuck with me: “Liam!” she’d yelled in exasperation. “Why don’t you ever know how you feel?”

They love you, but they’re broken. They will choose money every time.

“I hope that includes finding a way to disconnect love from money,” I tell him. “Your grandfather tied the two together with good intentions, and your father with terrible intentions, but in the end it doesn’t matter what the intentions were: It has made everyone in your family devalue love. It has made loyalty and servitude the bargaining chips that keep the money flowing.”