“Yeah,” Ryke says. “Everyone wanted to believe that Daisy was one, would become one, whatever would f**king create a good story.” Veins ripple in his forearms, his muscles tense. “And then during the reality show, a camera guy, not part of production, broke into the townhouse one night, and he went into her room and started taking pictures.”
I pale. “Where was I?”
“Asleep,” Ryke says.
I glower. “Why did no one tell me about any of this? It’s been over a year.”
Connor interjects, “It all started because of Lily’s addiction.” Guilt. They were afraid of saddling Lily with more and more guilt.
I recall all the articles that speculated how Daisy would turn into a little Lily, a future sex addict, but I never saw how it affected her. She hid it too well from us. “She seemed happy.” I cringe. Not happy exactly. Daisy has always been sad, in a way. Depressed. I’ve known it like everyone else.
“She was miserable,” Ryke confirms. “She had trouble sleeping almost every night after the f**king guy broke into her room.”
“What about after the show?” I ask, staring off, dazed by the reality of how much our addictions have truly affected those around us. It’s a double-edged sword. We need their support, but in being closer to them, we’ve only made their lives harder.
They probably thought we’d rationalize Daisy’s issues as a reason to step away from them, to distance ourselves from the people that have lifted us every time we’ve fallen. Maybe we would have.
“Daisy had to move back home after the show, remember?” Ryke says, shaking his head at the thought. “I hated it because I saw how bad she was during Princesses of Philly, and I couldn’t go into that house when her mom was home. So she was largely dealing with the ridicule by herself.” He pauses. “And then something worse happened before she graduated.”
Connor sets down his cup, and the confusion on his face takes me aback. “You don’t know either?” I wonder.
“No,” Connor says, his eyes like pinpoints on Ryke. “You never told me.”
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” Ryke retorts. He’s been waiting for Daisy to rehash everything to her sisters. He looks physically ill. “I hate even thinking about it.”
Connor pours more coffee into his cup, listening intently with me. I have no clue what more could’ve happened to her. It already feels like too much.
“She had a couple prep school friends named Harper and Cleo,” Ryke says. I try to prepare for the worst. “On their way back from shopping with Daisy, the girls stopped the elevator.” He hesitates for a second. “Some guys had told Harper and Cleo that they wondered how many inches could fit inside Daisy.”
I flinch back. “What?” I snap angrily.
Connor keeps his expression blank on purpose, which just irritates me more.
“They had bought a couple dildos,” Ryke continues.
“No.” I shake my head repeatedly, imagining just how this ends. I have met kids as bored, as cruel and as f**king stupid as ones like that. I have been the subject of harassment all throughout my adolescence, some justified, others without reason. I can taste the fear and the hatred that swallows my youth.
I would never wish that on someone like Daisy.
“She fought them off,” Ryke says, anger swarming his eyes like he wishes he had been there to stop it all himself. “But only after they gave her an ultimatum. She could either put it in or they’d torment her until graduation. She chose the latter.”
No.
I shake my head. No. “She lived in fear for how many f**king months?” Scared to walk the hallways, afraid that something equally terrible would occur at any single moment.
“She had six months left,” he says.
I crash forward this time, my elbows on the counter. I bury my face in my hands. Six months. Post-traumatic stress. “I’m sorry,” I immediately say. That’s why he wanted Daisy to live in the same apartment complex as him. That’s why he spent so many days and hours with her.
That’s how they began to fall in love.
“I’m really sorry,” I say again. “I should’ve known that you were only trying to help her.”
“I could’ve given you something though,” he says. “I was an ass about it, and I could’ve given you one thing to make it seem like my intentions were good. But I didn’t think it mattered.” He meets my eyes. “It’s not all on you, Lo.”
He rises to his feet at this. The truth carries a lighter silence, unburdened. I watch him pace in the kitchen, focusing on the girls through the archway. The pen busts as I draw another circle, staining my palm black.
That’s about the same time Lily passes through the archway, the tracks of her tears visible along her cheeks.
I stand up, and she fits in my arms while I lean my back against the kitchen counter. Her faraway gaze haunts me, the guilt and remorse flooding through. Her addiction is the source of Daisy’s pain. There is no other way around that, and it’s a fault that Lily will bear the rest of her life.
“You okay, love?” I whisper.
Very softly, she says, “I wish that had been me.”
I know. I kiss her temple and draw her even closer, her heart pounding against my chest. I notice each box in the kitchen, the bare counters and the emptiness of each room. We’ve lived here for a long time, and it’s strange shutting another chapter of our lives together. It’s even stranger thinking that chapter may not include each other.
And it just hits me, right here, the decision to our future. I look to Connor about ten feet from me. “Does your offer still stand?”
“Which offer?”
“The one where we move in with you guys,” I say. “I was thinking…” And this just pours through me right now. I let the moment guide me. “…that we could buy a house with a lot of security. More than this place. And Daisy could live with all of us. I think she might feel safer than living alone with Ryke. And when the babies are born, we’ll just…we’ll figure it out then.”
No one affirms aloud—but the look in their eyes say yes, a million times over.
66
2 years : 04 months
December
LOREN HALE
I sit up on the weight bench and Ryke grabs the bar out of my hands, setting it back. He tosses me my towel, and he takes a seat on the end of the bench. We’ve been at the gym for thirty minutes already, no one here this early in the morning but us. Connor would’ve joined, but Rose had a doctor’s appointment.
I watch Ryke stare at the towel in his hands. He’s barely spoken since we started lifting weights.
“What is it?” I ask sharply, picking up my water bottle off the floor.
He opens his mouth, but he shuts it when the words don’t come to him.
“Is it Daisy?” I wonder, my back straightening. I comb the damp strands of hair out of my face.
“No,” he says quickly. “She’s been better since we moved.”
“How much sleep does she get a night?” I ask.
“Five hours most nights, less on bad ones.” He balls his towel, distant. It takes him a long moment before he blurts it out. “I’m doing it.”
I frown. “Doing what?” I rest my elbows back on the metal bar, my legs on either side of the bench.