I remember—one time, maybe on our very first date as a real couple—Lo professed a similar acknowledgement of his teenage rebellion. But this is different.
Lo’s face reddens in anger. “Get this through your head.” Every word is emblazoned with power. “I will never subject a child to this f**king torture. I’d rather be burned alive than live knowing I put someone through this kind of hell.” It’s like a fist has torn out my heart, snapping each artery terrifyingly slow. And he just continues on. “So destroy all of those goddamn dreams of grandchildren.” He rises to his feet. “Your Hale empire begins over there, with him.” Lo points at Ryke down the table. “Not me.”
He throws the cloth napkin on his seat and walks away, fuming.
I can’t follow him. My haunted, petrified gaze is fixed on my half-eaten plate of food. Tears are submerged beneath the weight of his opinion. He’d rather die than embrace the thought of bringing life into the world.
“Lily,” Rose whispers.
I’m okay.
I internally shake my head. I’m not.
I don’t see how I can ever break this news in a good way. I don’t see how this can ever be okay like I hoped.
63
2 years : 03 months
November
LOREN HALE
“We’re offering a solution,” Connor tells me, sitting in the living room. For Christ sake’s, every time we attempt to watch a movie, a serious conversation is somehow brought up. “It’s nothing to be upset about.”
I touch my chest. “I’m not going to live with you. You’ve been a great roommate for these past two years, but you’re having a baby, man.”
Everything has changed with Rose’s pregnancy, and the topic is honestly straining my relationship with Lily. She’s been distant from me since the luncheon. And I know it hurts her that we’re never going to have kids, but it’ll hurt even more if she’s reminded of it every day with Rose and Connor’s baby hanging around us.
I add, “You don’t need to be dealing with our shit on top of that.”
“You’re not ready,” Rose chimes in. “You relapsed only a few months ago—”
“I’m never going to be ready, Rose!” I yell, my pulse thrumming. “If you’re waiting for me to be cured, then you might as well give up now. This is going to last forever. Not a month. Not a few years. I’m an addict. I could very well stay sober for ten years and relapse again. You gotta accept that.”
Her face marbleizes. “And what about Lily?”
“I can take care of her like I always have,” I say adamantly, but a pressure weighs on me. I’ve been doing a good job until…I don’t know. Maybe when we returned back to Philly. After the road trip. She’s just withdrawn from me. It’s the worst goddamn feeling in the world.
“Oh,” Rose says, “you mean when you spent years letting her have sex with different men every night.” It’s like a right hook in the jaw.
I can’t even stomach that part of my past anymore. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I brought Lily into my arms sooner, that I supplied her with everything she was searching for, stopping her before she sought it with other men. That I quit drinking for her, from the start.
I channel the hurt that courses through me into something darker, but I notice the small bump through Rose’s black dress. And I stifle a vindictive retort.
“That’s your pregnancy pass for the f**king night. Whoever is growing in your belly is a demon. Straight up making you evil.”
Rose holds her hand out like shut up. “I don’t care about the baby. I want Lily to live with us, and if she wants to, then you shouldn’t be fighting me on it.”
“She doesn’t,” I shoot back.
“Have you asked her?”
“Yes!” I shout. No. I grimace internally, my hands shaking. I just haven’t hand the chance, really.
“How long has she been gone?” Ryke suddenly asks.
And the bottom of my stomach drops. I check the cushion next to me, already knowing Lily isn’t on it. “Shit,” I curse. I shoot to my feet. Fear rattles my bones, vibrating every ounce of me until I’m filled with dread and panic. And the rawest form of adrenaline.
Just forced to act by instinct. I barely hear Connor announce how long she’s been gone. I don’t wait for them to follow. I run to the one place she retreats to whenever she battles her addiction.
* * *
“LILY!” I scream, jostling the doorknob to the bathroom. I pound on the wood. “LILY!” Fear has already begun to cannibalize my soul. Yesterday, she rejected me when I attempted to kiss her after the luncheon. I thought space was what she needed—I didn’t think that it was this bad.
I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems that I couldn’t see what was happening. I cannot lose her. Not for a moment. Not for second.
She is the only reason why I’m still living this life.
I frantically try to enter the door, the water gurgling through the walls. The shower is on.
“Move,” Ryke tells me.
I shift so he can slam his shoulder into the door. After two tries, it blows open. He barrels in before me, the shower curtain rings clinking against the rod as he yanks it back.
As soon as I see Lily, clothed, sitting in the plugged tub with the shower beating down on her thin body, I jump right in, the water freezing. I fit her between my legs while she trembles, while she clutches her knees to her chest. Water pours on us, soaking our hair, our clothes. And I hold her delicate face between my hands as she cries.
My chest collapses, every part of me screaming inside. I feel like I’ve broken the only girl I’ve ever loved. And all I want to do is rearrange the pieces and put her back together. I search her eyes that brim with tears, and even when Ryke shuts off the faucet, we both shake from more than just the cold.
“Lil, shhh,” I say, her pain just tearing right through me. “You’re okay.” She clings to me like I may slip through her arms, pull back and leave. I wouldn’t. I can’t. Our love is rare. It’s one I can’t abandon, even if I tried. When she screams, an identical one rips through me. When she cries, my world rains with grief. When she loves, I truly, truly fly.
I have never wanted anyone else but Lily.
“I’m…sorry…” she sobs, her black, long-sleeve shirt sticking to her thin body. She buries her head into the crook of my shoulder, and I hug her close, rubbing her back. Warming her with the friction. This is catastrophic. Another Wednesday, where we both lie exhausted and fractured on the carpet. Clung to the fact that we can’t live without each other, but beaten down by the roadblocks that say we should.
“Sorry for what, Lil?” I whisper.
“I meant to tell you…” Lily murmurs, coming out of her hiding place on my shoulder. Her wet hair is darker and molds her pale cheeks, sadness pouring out of her eyes. I stroke her head. It’s okay, Lil. “Yesterday, I was going to…I got scared…”
“Lily…” I say softly. “…you can tell me anything.”
“Not this.” She shakes her head, crying profusely. I brush my thumb over her cold skin. “Not this.”
Hot tears roll down my cheeks. She could have cheated on me. The thought chokes me for a second. I can’t think of anything else that would cause her this much agony and guilt. My lips are close to her forehead as she stares at her hands, like they’re a gateway out of this world.