Thrive (28 page)

{ 45 }

1 year : 07 months

March

LILY CALLOWAY

I snoozed with the comic book open on my chest. I
startle myself awake, in a half-sleep. “I’m up,” I practically snort the words
and blink quickly. Oh shit, what was his page number? Forty-seven? Or
forty-nine? Somewhere in the forties, for sure, right?

I flip through the comic hurriedly. “I remembered your
page,” I fib.
I’ll find it.
“I didn’t
get that far when you left…” I trail off as I see his side of the bed. Bare.
The comforter rumpled where he had crawled out. I read the clock on the end
table.

5 a.m.

Maybe he fell asleep on the couch, I think first. But I
can’t recall a time where he’s done that before. My heart skips, and I slip off
the bed, in black cotton panties and a white tank top. The probability of
running into Connor is about fifty-fifty since he wakes up early for work, but
I don’t waste the time hopping into pajama pants.

I just briskly walk out the door, my bare feet padding
against the cold floorboards as I descend the stairs. The living room is
pitch-black, and I flip on the overhead light. My eyes dart across the
furniture, pillows fluffed, no butt indentions.

Okay. I pass through the archway into the kitchen, the
microwave light turned on. “Lo?” I whisper, walking further.

And then I freeze, my eyes growing big. “Lo?” His limp hand
sticks out from behind the island. I awaken with pure panic, my heart on a
freefall. “Lo!” I rush to the space between the sink and the island, and I find
Lo half supported by the cupboard, his head drooped to the side, his body
slumped.

I drop to my knees and touch his face, his eyes closed like
he’s sleeping. I feel his slow pulse, beating sluggishly.

Tears stream down my cheeks. “Lo, Lo…”
What’d you do? What’d you do?
I spot the whiskey bottle next to
him, almost all gone. “LO!” I scream. He’s passed out. But this is different.
He hasn’t had alcohol in so long. “Wake up!” I rattle his shoulders a little.
Hopefully he’ll open his eyes. He’s not dead. He’s not dead. I lift underneath
his arms.
We’re going to the hospital,
Loren Hale. Just you hold on.
“You wait for me, okay?” I cry, trying to
heave his body with mine.

I’m not strong enough.

I fall back down, the weight of his muscles outsizing my
thin arms.

“Lily!” Rose rushes in the kitchen, dressed in a black robe.
“What…” Her voice dies off.

I’m tangled with Loren Hale’s limbs while he’s completely,
dangerously unresponsive.

“Connor!” Rose shouts, fear breaching her voice.

It terrifies me ten times more. “I’m trying to get him to
the car,” I tell her, my body trembling. “I’m taking him to…to the hospital.”

“CONNOR!” Rose screams.

He runs into the kitchen, his hair wet, shirtless, navy
pajama pants like he jumped out of the shower. He moves into action faster than
Rose. “Go start the car, Rose,” he orders, his voice stoic. But there is something
behind Connor Cobalt’s eyes that I don’t like.

“We have to go,” I say through a cascade of tears. I try to
lift Lo again, but Connor squeezes into the small space.

“I have him, Lily. Can you go with Rose?” He glances back at
my sister, who is staring wide-eyed at Lo. “
Rose
.”

“Whose bottle of Glenfiddich is that?” she asks in one
breath.

Connor easily lifts Lo into his arms, his head hanging like
he’s…I hold his neck so it doesn’t look like that. Then Connor adjusts Lo’s
body, his head resting against Connor’s bare chest. Better. I lead the way,
grabbing Rose’s arm so she’ll follow.

I have seen Loren Hale passed out drunk, more times than I
can even count. Rose hasn’t seen him like this. And even though something
brutal terrorizes every nerve inside my body, I only think one thing:
he needs help.

I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and realize I didn’t do the
right thing for him. I don’t want to regret not moving faster. I don’t want to
open my eyes and see that he’s gone for good. So I suck down this pain and I
trudge forward. To the garage. To Rose’s Escalade.

“Connor,” Rose says under her breath while he carries Lo,
two paces behind us. I glance back, just to make sure Lo is still there.

“You need to drive,” he tells her, admitting that he can’t.

Rose nods quickly and takes a deep breath, her game face
returning. She unlocks the car and heads to the front seat.

I open the backdoor, and I slide in first. Connor gently
rests Lo next to me, his head on my lap. I concentrate on the way his chest rises
and falls, so discreetly that it’s hard to see.
Just keep breathing, Lo.
I comb his hair out of his face, and by
the time Connor shuts the passenger door, we’re speeding to the hospital.

Minutes must pass, in the quiet of the car, before someone
speaks.

“It was mine,” Connor says. I can’t see his expression from
the backseat, but he covers his eyes with his hand. Something he almost never
does. “It was my alcohol.”

Rose reaches out and holds Connor’s hand between their
seats.

I kiss Lo’s forehead.
You
wait for me, Loren Hale.
“Promise me,” I whisper, blinking back tears. I
can try to hold him as tightly as possible, but in the end, he can slip through
my grasp at any moment. He can drift away without me.

Please not today.

{ 46 }

1 year : 07 months

March

LILY CALLOWAY

I forgot that I was only wearing panties and a
see-through tank top. And I really don’t even care. Though the hospital staff
made me put on blue scrub pants. I’ve scooted a chair as close to Lo’s bed as I
could, and I hold his hand, tubes stuck in his skin and running to an IV bag
with fluids.

They pumped his stomach. Now he just needs to wake up.

“You shouldn’t have had alcohol anywhere in the
fucking
house!” Ryke yells.

“I brought it home after a company party. I didn’t think—”

“You’re living with an alcoholic, Connor! Do you not even
care about him?” Their shadows stand tall behind a gray curtain, inside the
nice hospital room with a couch and a bathroom. The door is shut so hopefully
no one can hear them in the hallway.

“I know you’re upset—”

“
You
should be
upset!” His voice shakes, and his shadow paces back and forth while Connor remains
fixed in one place. “Do you even know what you did?!” While Ryke stares
straight at Connor, there is the longest pause in history of pauses.

And then their forms collide, Ryke’s silhouette shoving
Connor roughly. Something clatters to the floor while Connor defends himself,
pushing Ryke back. My heart races, especially as an elbow or arm whacks into
the curtain. I can’t see a thing, really.

I’m mostly surprised that Connor doesn’t talk Ryke down.
He’s letting Lo’s brother attack him this once. The more aggressive shadow pins
the other into the wall, both breathing heavily.

“I trusted him,” Connor says in a low voice.

“You can’t trust a fucking alcoholic,” Ryke growls.

“I trusted my
friend
,”
Connor retorts. “I see him every day, Ryke. If I knew about the allegations, I
would’ve never kept him out of my sight.”

“You know what I fucking think?” Ryke asks, fuming. “I think
you get off being the superhero to my brother. I think you like the way he
looks at you—like you’re invulnerable. While he stands beneath you, weak,
looking for guidance and you take advantage of all of that—”

“
Stop
,” Connor
says forcefully, and I can see his chest rising.

“Tell me that I’m wrong,” Ryke says. “Tell me that you’re
not
destroying him.”

“I love him,” Connor says with so much conviction. “I would
never intentionally harm Lo.”

The door suddenly swings open, and the guys immediately
separate.

I hear the clap of heels. Rose stops midway into the room.
“If I interrupted something, then maybe you two should realize that you’re
fighting in front of my little sister. She has fucking ears, you know.” Rose
has dropped more f-bombs today than usual. I almost wonder if Ryke is rubbing
off on her. She flings the curtain aside, and everyone looks at me.

Dried tears, my hand clasped in Lo’s. I’m just waiting, is
all.

Rose has four coffees in a carton, and she marches over,
passing me one. “Dr. Banning wanted me to ask if you’ve been thinking about sex
at all.”

My therapist. I talked to her a little bit ago. My cheeks
redden, and my eyes flicker to both Connor and Ryke who stand unwaveringly at
the foot of the bed.

“No,” I whisper. I’ve been sad, and usually I cope with sex.
Not this time. I’ve suppressed most thoughts about orgasms, about that rush
that would take me away from here. “Lo has been there for me for so many
months.” Saying the words out loud makes them unbearably real. “I want to be
strong for him.” It’s my turn now. I’m ready for it.

“I’m proud of you, Lily,” Rose tells me, even giving me a
smile. When she turns back towards the guys, they both reach out to collect
their coffees. She tucks the carton tray to her chest. “No coffee for either of
you. Not until you stop fighting over something that is
no one’s
fault.”

“Rose is right,” I say softly. “Lo wouldn’t want you both to
argue about this.” He’d blame himself if he woke up and heard Connor and Ryke
going at it.

They all asked me if the allegations were true. We heard about
them around the same time the doctors began pumping his stomach. I said
no.
I can’t even, for a second, believe
they’re true. Lo would’ve told me.

Rose and Ryke seemed doubtful. And it hurt me to think that
our own friends, his brother, may never believe the truth. We’re both known
liars. It’s hard to accept anything we say as fact. So I understand, but it
doesn’t hurt any less.

Everyone stays in the room, taking the day off of work while
I skip all my college assignments. I don’t join them on the couch. I just hold
Lo’s hand while he sleeps.

An hour passes before he finally stirs. His eyelids slowly
open, and he blinks a few times to orient himself. Connor, Rose, and Ryke leave
the room before he even wakes fully, afraid their presences will overwhelm him.

It’s just Lo and me.

When he finally turns his head to see me, there is something
so vitally heartbreaking about those amber swirls. We’ve been in this place
before. Him on a hospital bed. Me on the chair. I do what I did when we were
teenagers. I pass him a glass of water.

He shakes his head slowly and says, “Lie next to me.”

I set the water on the small tray table and climb onto the
wide bed. His arms wrap around me before mine tuck around his chest, tangled up
in a few wires. Our legs intertwine, sufficiently embraced and connected
together.

It’s quiet, and we listen to each other’s breaths for a few
minutes.

“Lo,” I whisper, my fingers making circles on his black
shirt. “I just want you to know that if you leave this world, I won’t be in it
for much longer.” He’s a piece of me. You cut it off, and it’s like going
through life with no lungs.

That is how deep our love really goes.

“Lil…I didn’t…” He cups my face, our lips inches apart.
“That wasn’t my intention. I would never do that to you.”

I wipe his tears before they fall far down his cheek. “How
much did I drink?” His face contorts. He didn’t think he drank past his limit,
I realize. Initially, I didn’t either.

“Most of the bottle,” I say.

“I should’ve just passed out,” he says in confusion.

“You drank too fast, and you haven’t had alcohol in
years
, Lo. That matters.” The doctor
said that his tolerance is different. He can’t function drinking the same
extreme amount that he used to consume.

He shuts his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

I hold him tighter. “I would’ve been upset too,” I whisper,
“but it’s going to be easier than you think.”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

His eyes open but look faraway, lost to the rumors that have
been spreading like wildfire. “They’re not true, you know.”

“I know.” I kiss his lips, and he pulls me even closer and
kisses me back more forcefully, full of eager desperation that tears at my
soul. My legs clench around his waist. I break apart first. “Lo…”

He breathes heavily. “Maybe you shouldn’t…be near me for a
while.”

“No,” I say. “You can’t enable me.”

“Why is that?” he asks, tucking a strand of hair behind my
ear.

“Because I can withstand your charm, Loren Hale.”
Unless he layers it on, in which case, I
will have to turn away to collect myself.

He laughs into a weak, pained smile, and then he shakes his
head, his features just shattering. “I don’t want to be the weak one.”

It’s one of the most human things he’s ever said.

I kiss his forehead, and he kisses my nose just as quickly.
I smile a smile that is filled with tears and hopes and unspoken promises. “You
won’t be. Not for long.”

{ 47 }

1 year : 11 months

July

LOREN HALE

June 16
^th
passed. I remember Lily
picking out the date for our wedding like a dream. I’d think it wasn’t real if
Lily hadn’t marked the day on our calendar with stars. Before I drank, we
briefly talked about a location, somewhere on the coast, but after I broke my
sobriety, we just forgot about it.

Our energy has been focused other places. I wish I could say
that I haven’t tasted alcohol after that one night, but it’s so much easier to
break my sobriety again now that I’ve done it once.

I haven’t been right for a while, not since March. Some days
I can barely stomach the thought of starting a morning without something
to get me through it. I can’t force
myself to take Antabuse. The only thing keeping me here is Lily. I try to make
every day count for something. For her. When I fuck up, she doesn’t act like
it’s the end of the world. She tells me that the next day will be better.

But sometimes I think that my dad was right. I was never
going to be anything more than a bastard.