I blow out a deep breath from my lips. “I really need some air.”
“Run with me for half an hour,” he says. “You’ll feel better.”
“How so?”
He draws me closer, my feet touching the sides of his. “You’ll be able to f**king breathe.” He studies my face quickly. “Or you could just cry and let it out for once.”
My whole body hurts, and those words somehow pain me more. “What?”
“Let it out.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Why the f**k not? Stop trying to suppress your emotions, Dais. It’s okay to be upset right now. What your mom just did was shit.”
I shake my head again. Who am I to complain? I don’t want to be that immature, selfish girl. I don’t want to be what people probably think of me, the heiress of a billion-dollar fortune. Bitching over not going to Paris for fun anymore. How does that look?
“You have gone through hell since Lily’s sex addiction went public, and you’ve told f**king no one about it but me. Stop trying to be strong. Just f**king cry, Daisy. Scream. Yell. Be f**king angry.”
Everything crashes into me. Stresses that I don’t like to confront. I’m not even ready to bear all of it right now. “Can we run?” I ask. “I’ll race you down the street.”
His features turn grave, but he nods. “Yeah. Get your shoes on—”
My phone rings, cutting him off. I look at the Caller ID. “It’s Mikey. I guess…” I have to go. I meet Ryke’s gaze, and he just shakes his head.
“I don’t want to f**king leave you like this,” he says.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Are you going to be able to last the whole flight, sitting in your f**king seat, not able to get up and move around that much?”
It sounds more confining now than it did a couple hours ago, only because my mom suffocated me with this news. “I don’t have much of a choice.”
“We all have choices,” he says. “Some are just harder to make than others.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “I want you to go to California and climb those mountains.” I pause. “And be safe.” He can die out there. With no rope, no backup safety, he’s relying only on his training, his hands and body. One wrong move and he can slip and fall. He doesn’t talk about the risk that much, and I don’t want to dissuade him from pursuing the three-mountain, free-solo climb in Yosemite. It’s been his lifelong goal, and I won’t keep him from that.
“You too,” he says, his voice low and strained.
This is the part where we should hug again, but so many unresolved issues linger, things that my mom dumped and deserted.
We don’t touch.
We don’t say another word.
We just leave each other with a maybe—a sort of acceptance to move on. I can already see myself on that plane, visualizing him with another girl. Everything about this trip to Paris sucks, but I won’t screw over a handful of designers just to come back to Philly.
I can’t.
10
RYKE MEADOWS
Daisy is gone. With the time difference, I haven’t even had the chance to talk to her. She’s too busy to f**king call at a decent hour, and so I have no idea if she’s sleeping or if she’s been awake for two days straight. I can’t stop thinking about the last look on her face—the one of pure devastation. Like someone physically ripped out an organ from her body. I’ve seen that expression before, and it only comes when she feels trapped.
I just have to trust that she’s fine.
And I try to ignore the fact that I gave her permission to f**k other guys. I hated that, and even knowing that she may be hooking up with someone right now—it boils my blood. But I can’t stomach screwing girls here while she waits for me either. Because she’ll be waiting forever, and it’s not f**king fair to her.
My brother lies on a weight bench, and I spot him. The gym is almost empty this early in the morning, the weight room desolate besides my brother, Connor and me. We always meet at 6 a.m. to avoid the paparazzi.
“How’s Lily?” I ask, my eyes flickering over to Connor as he does leg presses while watching Bloomberg on the flat screen television overhead.
“Fine,” Lo says, lifting the heavy bar off his chest with a grunt. I grab it from him and set it in the holder. He sits up, wiping his forehead with a towel. “How’s not babysitting?”
“I wasn’t babysitting Daisy.” Since her going away party, I’ve been on the same rocky f**king road with my brother whenever her name is mentioned. It’s not different. It’s the f**king same shit over and over again. I’m used to it by now.
Lo stares at the towel in his hands. “I still don’t understand how you’re friends with her. Like…what do you talk about?”
He’s fishing. “We’re not f**king each other.”
Lo glares. “I didn’t say you were, but now I’m thinking it.”
I roll my eyes. Maybe I’m overanalyzing everything. I don’t f**king know anymore. “We talk about normal things. Motorcycles, sports…” sleep, medication, siblings, parents. “…food.”
“She looked really thin at her going away party,” Connor says, off his machine and heading towards us. He grabs his water out of his gym bag. “Rose fought with Samantha about it over the phone for an hour.”
I pop one of my knuckles. “Her mom is putting too much f**king pressure on her to maintain that weight.”
“Maybe she’ll gain some while she’s in Paris,” Lo says, more optimistic than he usually is. I think he’s just happy she’s not around me.
I nod to Connor. “Hey princess, you want to compete at chin-ups?” Lo f**king hates doing them, so he can watch and count.
“I don’t know,” Connor says with a casual tone. “Will you cry when I beat you? If so, then yes.”
“Just get your ass to the pull-up bar.”
Lo stretches his arms. “Hey, don’t talk about his ass like that.”
“You’re making my first love jealous,” Connor banters, heading to the bar with me.
I’ve become used to their flirty f**king banter. They’re best friends. They’ve lived together for almost two years. They have a much better relationship with each other than I do with either of them individually. Am I f**king jealous? Maybe a little.
“You two are so f**king cute,” I say, grasping the bar underhand. I cross my ankles, and Connor does the same on the bar next to me.
“Ready?” Lo says, standing back to judge. “Go.”
I pull myself up, my collarbones in line with the bar, and then I lower my body back to the starting position. One. I breathe out. Two. My muscles burn, but I’m nowhere near fatigued or strained. Three.
I keep counting in my head, Connor easily staying at the same pace as me. He’s in really good f**king shape. I didn’t even realize it when I first met him since he’s always in preppy clothes or suits and button-downs. But he’s kept his body healthy and at a physical peak like me.
Lo’s mind must be wandering because he says, “I’m thinking about going to rehab again.”
Ten. I falter a little, my muscles constricting in tight bands. I frown as I pull my body back up. “You don’t have to decide this now,” I say in a single breath.