“You open it,” Lily whispers to me, rerouting my attention. She pushes the envelope in my hands.
My stomach tightens, but somehow, I force my joints to work. I tear the seal and unfold the white paper. My pulse races like I’m about to jump off a building and make a speech in front of a packed stadium. I can barely read the typed letters at first. They blur together, and it takes a few extended seconds to piece them apart.
She studies my expression for a long moment and says, “It’s a boy.”
I am flooded with temperatures below zero, and I pass the paper to her, so she can verify what she already knows is real.
Her eyes travel eagerly over the words and then she delicately folds the paper.
“You can smile, Lil.” Please smile.
A tear rolls down her cheek.
No. I lean forward and cup her face in my hands. “Lily. I’m happy.” Somewhere. In all the good places that belong to her. There, I know I am.
Her lips are chapped as she licks them, and she glances back at the paper to reaffirm that we’re really having a boy.
I wipe her tears that fall. “Say something,” I breathe. Smile, Lil.
“I’m…really, really happy.” Her voice trembles. And then she laughs into a smile, one that’s half-pained. For me. On the precipice of two polar opposite emotions.
“It’s better this way, with a boy,” I whisper, her glassy eyes flitting between me and the paper. “You have to believe that I believe it.” All I want is to sense her joy and rid the tar that’s seeped from me to her. I ruin most things I touch, and she’s the best thing I have left.
She nods repeatedly, trying to accept this as truth, and then I kiss her, desperation drowning my veins, my bones, my very fractured soul. A noise ripples through her throat. She clutches to me the way that I do to her—our bodies promising things that our words can’t.
I inhale sharply into a deeper embrace, my tongue tangling with hers. Her chest merges with mine, my hands disappearing in her short hair beneath her hat.
There are moments with Lily where I feel like we’re one person. Where we share every sensation that bites our skin.
No one is in the kitchen but us.
And yet, they are. I become aware of this fact the moment Rose shouts something loud in French.
Lily and I abruptly part.
Rose is pointing at us while she yells, and Connor is quick to shout back, the seriousness of the conversation illuminated the moment Connor grips her wrists, clutching her so she stops flailing around.
Lily and I rise quickly to our feet. “What’s going on?” Lily asks the only person who would know besides the couple fighting.
Ryke has a hand on Daisy’s thigh while he watches Rose, his brows hardened. “She’s saying that she can’t do it,” he translates. Daisy clicks off her phone and sets her camera aside.
“Do what?” I frown. She can’t be that scared to have a boy.
“See the gender,” Ryke clarifies. “Connor is telling her that she needs to stop acting like it’s not happening.”
Lily’s mouth falls and her head whips between her sister and Ryke. “And?” she prods. Having a translator is nice, which begs the question…
“Why haven’t you done this before?” I snap.
His hand rises on Daisy’s thigh, who swings her legs that dangle off the counter. “Because it hasn’t been f**king important before now. You don’t want to hear the things they say to each other on a daily basis. Fucking trust me.”
Yeah, I do.
Lily rocks forward on her feet. “What did Rose say?”
Ryke listens for a second. “That it doesn’t matter if they find out the gender now or when the baby is born.”
Connor breathes heavily, more emotions coursing through his features: anger, concern, determination—things that he usually conceals. He speaks again. In French. They’re in their own world. Kind of like the one Lily and I were just in. Blocking out our surroundings for one serious moment.
Ryke continues to translate, “He says, don’t you want to prepare in any way that you can?”
Rose jerks in his grasp and snaps back.
“She says, I can’t prepare for a baby, no matter how much I read and study. I’ll never be ready.” A weight drops in the room with that truth. It’s a fear I think we all share, but Rose has never liked kids, so it’s different for her, maybe. I don’t know. I shake my head. It goes beyond having a boy, having a girl—it’s just having a child at all.
Ryke sighs like this translating thing is frustrating him. “I can’t hear Connor.” Because he’s whispering in Rose’s ear.
And then Rose tries to untangle out of her husband’s strong grasp again. “Let me go, Richard,” she says, finally switching to English.
“Rose,” he forces her name, his voice so cold that the hairs on my arms rise.
“Connor,” she says just as icily. “Stop.” Her yellow-green eyes assault him.
He releases her arms, and I notice the white envelope clenched in her fist.
“We’re having a girl,” she states like it’s a fact. It’s definitely not one. And then she starts opening and closing kitchen drawers, searching for something.
“Rose,” Connor says again, his tone more even and temperate. “It’s okay. Just stop and breathe for a second.” She’s tuning him out. “Rose.”
I shake my head as I watch Rose slam the fourth drawer shut. “She’s lost it.”
“Shut up, Loren!” Rose shouts.
I flinch. I honestly didn’t think she was listening to me either. And then in the fifth drawer, she finds a packet of matches.
“Rose!” Daisy and Lily scream in unison, but Connor is beside his wife before her sisters can swarm her. She’s already lit a match and holds it to the paper.
The flame eats the document quickly, and Connor steals it out of her hand and tosses it in the sink. He holds her from behind, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, and as he murmurs in her ear, her rigid body starts to uncoil, like he’s expelling every volatile, toxic emotion and leaving her bare.
My face is stuck in a permanent cringe again. Her breakdowns happen more often since her pregnancy.
Connor spins her around and then presses her head into his shoulder. His eyes flit up to mine and I read them well enough. He needs privacy.
Daisy hops off the counter, and she leaves to the living room with Ryke. Lily and I follow close behind, my hand in hers. There’s no way anyone is finding out the sex of Rose’s baby. We’re not going to know until the day he or she is born.
When we’re out of earshot from the kitchen, Daisy walks backwards and she says, “Maximoff Hale. He’s going to have the coolest parents alive.” She holds her fist out to Lily, who actually smiles brightly now. It falters only a little when she glances at me—to make sure it’s okay.
I hate that she worries about upsetting me. For smiling. I nod to her and try to relax.
Lily fist-bumps her sister.
Then Daisy raises her fist to me with a sunny expression that makes my life seem better than it is. I look up at my brother who meets my eyes. I get it. Why he loves her.
She’s a light in a dark place. Even when she’s going through deep shit too. Daisy and Ryke are the definition of selfless. In comparison, I’m the monster, the ass**le, the villain. But in Lily Calloway’s eyes I’m the hero.