Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

“The hardest choices were never choices to begin with,” he finally says.
“That’s life.”
Still sucks, though. Why can’t he just admit that it sucks? He has to want
to be somewhere else. He has to know what wanting to leave feels like. He’s
not happy. Why does he pretend that he can’t relate to me and to wanting
something more?
“You’re not paying forty thousand a year to learn how to playact.” He
pushes off the stove and I hear him empty his mug into the sink. “When you
graduate in four years, you can do whatever the hell you want. Just get a
degree you can use first.”
And then a newspaper drops on the table in front of me, open to page
fourteen and folded in half. “It’s time for you to step up and help this family,”
he commands.
I lean over the kid in my arms, and read the headline.
Blue Rock Resort Breaking Ground
Blue Rock is Seminole land farther south. They’re building a resort?
I scan the article, only reading a few paragraphs before I know enough
not to have to finish the rest. Words like “eminent domain” and “job
creation” jump out, confirming what everyone feared three years ago when
the protests and lobbying started. As with everything, though, those with the
most money win the long game, and those without lose the war.
We have nothing to do with Blue Rock, but if they can get Blue Rock,
they can get Sanoa Bay. We’re not a reservation, just a community of
ancestral landowners who are lucky enough to be sitting off one of the few
and most gorgeous reefs on the Florida coast.
They’ll be coming for us next, and it’ll be a piece of cake compared to
Blue Rock.
I stare at the paper. “They can’t do this.”
“If the government determines that the land we’re on is worth more
revenue to the state in their hands instead…” Macon tells me what I already
know. “If it means creating jobs that get the important people re-elected, then
yes, they can. They will.”
• • •