Thrive (29 page)

{ 48 }

2 years : 01 month

September

LOREN HALE

I run after my brother, down the suburban street
in Princeton, New Jersey. He never even tries to slow. Not when my tendons scream
to stop. To take a single break. My chest blazes like an animal wants to crawl
out of me. And he just glances back, as though to say,
move your ass.

I can’t run as fast as him. I can’t keep up, not even when
my calves burn. Not even when I force my foot in front of the other, each one
heavy like lead.

He reaches the oak tree at the end of the street first—of
course. I slow to a halt and rest my hands on my head, my jaw locking as I
glare at him, pissed. At me, mostly. For not being able to run right by his
side. I want to.

God, I want to.

“You can’t go easy on me just once?” I ask, pushing damp
strands of hair off my forehead.

“If I slowed down, we would have been
walking
,” Ryke retorts, not even winded. He stretches his arm over
his shoulder. If I told him to do a hundred push-ups right now, I doubt he’d
even break a sweat.

I roll my eyes and scowl. I want to let go of everything, to
just move on from the allegations—the stupid shit online, the way people
look
at me when I walk down a street—but
I can’t. I don’t know how to release this tension in my body. It
never
goes away. Not with anything but
alcohol.

I squat to try to breathe right. And then I rub my eyes.

“What do you need?” he asks me.

“A fucking glass of whiskey. One ice cube. Think you can do
that for me, big
bro?
”

He glowers back. “You want a glass of whiskey? Why don’t I
just push you in the front of a fucking freight train? It’s about the same.”

I stand up and let out a short laugh. “Do you even know what
this feels like?” I extend my arms, my eyes
on
fire
like I’m halfway between crying and rage. “I feel like I’m going out
of my goddamn mind, Ryke. Tell me what I should do? Huh? Nothing takes this
pain away, not running, not fucking the girl I love, not
anything
.”

I wish to God that I could find an easy out. An easy fix.
Anything except alcohol. I’d take it in a heartbeat. But there’s
nothing
that I can do except deal with
this shit. Try and move on, to let go. It’s just taking a lot longer than I
ever thought it would.

“You relapsed a few times,” he says. “But you can get back
to where you were.”

I shake my head, a knee-jerk reaction.

“So what? You’re going to drink a beer? You’re going to chug
a bottle of whiskey? Then what?” he continues, eyes flashing hot. “You’ll ruin
your relationship with Lily. You’ll feel like
shit
in the morning. You’ll wish you were fucking dead—”

“What do you think I’m wishing now?!” I scream, pointing a
finger at the fucking ground. “I
hate
myself
for breaking my sobriety. I
hate
that
I’m at this place in my life again.” I wish I could take back the day I broke
my sobriety a million times over. I wish I never answered that phone call. I
wish I walked back upstairs and crawled in bed. I wish I held Lily and just
disappeared from the world with her.

I wish.

I wish.

I wish.
And
nothing ever comes true.

His face falls and he raises his hand like
calm down.
“You were under a lot of
scrutiny.”

“You’re under the same scrutiny,” I retort. The media asks
him for a statement about the allegations almost every day. “And I didn’t see
you breaking your sobriety.” My brother—unbreakable, unbendable like the rocks
he climbs. Nothing can topple him.

The jealousy and resentment tastes horrible.

“It’s different,” Ryke says, his voice less hostile and
aggressive. “The media was saying some pretty awful shit, Lo. You coped the
first way you knew how. No one blames you. We just want to fucking help you.”

Sweat collects on the back of my neck. It’s not from running
down the street. “You don’t believe them, do you?” I ask. I can see the answer
in his eyes, almost every time we talk about the molestation rumors.

“Who?” he asks.

“The news, all those reporters…you don’t think that
our
dad actually did those things to
me?”
Say no. Just say no.
I need him
to believe me.

He looks physically pained, his answer so clear.

“It’s not fucking true!” I shout. Why can’t my own brother
believe me? I’ve known him for three years now.
Three
years. That should count for something.

“Okay, okay.” He raises his hands again. “You just have to
move fucking forward. Don’t worry about what people think.”

I internally laugh, one full of agitation.
Don’t worry about what people think.
I
inhale deeply and stare at the sky with the darkest glare I have. “You say
shit, Ryke, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Do you know how annoying
that is?” I turn my head, meeting his eyes.

“I’ll keep saying it then, just to irritate the fuck out of
you.”

I let out another deep breath. Okay.

He rubs the back of my head and nods towards my house down
the street. I follow him for a few paces, and I see the way his muscles cut in
defined lines—reminding me that he’s an athlete. A different kind. He might not
have a nine-to-five job, but he has goals.

Goals that he’s put on hold to be there for me. I don’t want
anyone to pause their life because I had to slam on the brakes for mine.

I stop in the middle of the quiet road, morning. No cameras.
It’s the best time to run. I lick my lips. “About your trip to California…I
know I haven’t asked about it in months. I’ve been too self-absorbed—”

“Don’t worry about it.” He gestures with his head to the
house. “Let’s go make some breakfast for the girls.”

“Wait. I have to say this.” I swallow hard. “I need you to
go.” He tries to cut me off, but I barrel ahead. “I can already hear your
stupid fucking rebuttal. And I’m telling you to
go.
Climb your mountains. Do whatever you need to do. You’ve had
this planned for a long time, and I’m not going to ruin it for you.”

I can’t hurt anyone else.

“I can always reschedule. Those mountains aren’t fucking
moving, Lo.”

I put my hands on my head again. He’s wanted to free-solo
climb these rock formations in California for months, maybe even longer than
that. “I will feel like
shit
if you
don’t go,” I say. “And I’ll drink. I can promise you that.”

He just glares.

Why doesn’t he get it?
Leave
me.
“I don’t need you,” I sneer. It’s a complete and utter lie. But I can’t
hold onto him like a life vest. I have to let my brother have a fucking life
without me in it. “I don’t fucking need
you
to hold my hand. I need you to be goddamn selfish like me for once in your life
so I don’t feel like utter shit compared to you, alright?”

He stares at me for a long moment, with this rock hard
expression that turns darker by the minute.
Please.
Give up on me. Just this once.
And then he says, “Okay, I’ll go.”

I exhale, a pressure actually lifting off me. I didn’t
realize I’d been carrying around that guilt for so long.

Ryke wraps his arm around my shoulder and says, “Maybe one
day you’ll be able to outrun me.”

Yeah. Maybe one day.

{ 49 }

2 years : 01 month

September

LILY CALLOWAY

“What’d I do?” I ask, my shoulders curving
forward. Rose dragged me into the downstairs bathroom like she was plowing
through bulky Spartan warriors. Whereas I’d most likely turn beet-red and
surrender to their swords, Rose just knocked them all down, a woman on a
mission. No man can stop her. Not even three-hundred of them.

“This isn’t about you,” Rose says, fixing her hair into a
sleek pony.

I frown.
“Are you preparing to unplug a toilet?”

She gives
me a look.

“What?
You’re fixing your hair. That’s all I have to go on.” She’s not providing me
with any information.

Right when
she opens her mouth, someone knocks on the door. “What are you two doing in
there together?” Lo asks, suspicion in his voice. This
is
very suspicious, I’ll admit. Joint bathroom sessions only happen
when there are multiple stalls. Unless, you know,
sex
. But that can’t be one of his thoughts. Because, incest.

Uh. I
redden instantly. I need some bleach for my mind.

I picture
Lo leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and I almost invite him inside. But
Rose smashes her palm against my lips and gives me humongous crazy eyes.

It both
scares me and propels me to my sister’s side of things. Her yellow-green eyes
are very convincing. Plus, even though she has a flair for the dramatics, this
seems serious.

Rose drops
her hand, trusting me to stay quiet, and then she cracks the door and sticks
her head out. “Two words, Loren:
Female
menstruation
.” She slams the door right in his face.

“Great,”
he calls back with irritation. “I’d say talk to me again when you’re done
PMSing, but you’re always a bitch.” I wince at that comeback. He’s been a lot
meaner since he relapsed, but that also comes with an even bigger portion of
guilt. I imagine his face twisting with it, and it hurts my stomach even more.

His
footsteps sound on the floorboards, drifting off.

“Female
menstruation?” I ask with the rise of my brows. “What’s this about, Rose?”

She passes
me with fire in her eyes and crouches to the cabinets beneath the sink. Her
silence makes me nervous.

I almost
bite my fingernails, but I drop my hand quickly. “Should I go get Daisy?” I
ask. “If this is like a sister thing, we should include her, right?” I feel
badly leaving her alone with the guys, especially since we’re all together to
celebrate her trip to Paris. In a few days she’ll be off to Fashion Week, her
first time attending without our mom. It’s a big deal for her, and Rose likes
any reason to throw a party, even if only close friends attend.

Rose rises
to her feet, brandishing a box of tampons.

I squint.
“So this
is
about your period?” I
feel like there’s a mystery here. One that I am not programmed to solve.

“No,” she
says like I’m an idiot. I don’t see how
I
could be the stupid one. She pops open the flaps and takes out a familiar
looking stick.

My rushed thought
spills out of my mouth. “Who mixed up a pregnancy test with tampons?”

Rose
purses her lips. “
I
put the test in
here,” she says flatly.

Oh.

Ohhhhhh.
My eyes widen in alarm, never
believing or registering that
this
could
actually happen: Rose pinching a pregnancy test between two fingers. “You’re
not…”

“I’m
late.”

Oh my God.
This is really happening.

I just
don’t understand why she’s keeping it so secret. Sure, I’ve had to sneak around
pregnancy tests more than I’d like to admit aloud or even to myself. Rash-like
welts start springing up if I go back that far to my past. But this is coming
from Rose—my sister who used to buy tampons for me because I blushed too hard
at the checkout counter.

“Why the
incognito pregnancy test?” I ask with the tilt of my head.

She points
a manicured nail at the toilet. “Sit.”

What? “Um,
Rose,” I say hesitantly. “
You’re
supposed to sit on the toilet, not the sister of the person who may be
pregnant. That’s how pregnancy tests work…”

She glares
like she’s trying to shrivel me. Like I’m
Loren
Hale
—her one true nemesis.

“Team
Rose.” I point to my chest. In the mirror, I catch my bony arms and flushed
skin, looking very much sunburnt by now.
 

 
“I need you to take the test first,” she says,
pushing the stick into my hands.

Now I go
pale, blood rushing out of me. “Why?”

“I need a
baseline,” she says. “To know that they work before I try.”

That
sounds…ridiculous, but Rose has begun to pace, worrying me a little. Her eyes
dart around the room like she’s thinking
way
too hard about the future. It’s not a secret that Rose dislikes children,
babies even more.

“I thought
you and Connor talked about children,” I say softly, tiptoeing very carefully
on the topic.

“
Thirty-five
,” she says. “We agreed to
have kids at thirty-five. This isn’t part of the plan.”

She’s only
twenty-five.

“You
know,” I say, “lots of women have babies at your age.” I try my best at being
supportive, but she shoots me another withering glare.

“
Piss
on the stick.” Each word sounds
like a threat.

I take a
deep breath. She’s done far more for me. I can definitely do this for her. “But
you can’t tell Lo that I took a pregnancy test—even one in camaraderie. He’ll
freak out.”

“It won’t
ever come up,” she promises.

I approach
the toilet, roll down my leggings and sit on the cold seat. I concentrate on
the task, really careful not to pee on my fingers (that’s the trickiest part).
When I finish, I pull up my leggings, set the stick on the counter and wash my
hands, waiting for my results.

“You
next,” I say with a smile, like
see it’s
not so scary, Rose.

She
inhales sharply. “I’ll wait until we read yours.”

“It’ll be
better if you just get it over with.” She’s going to wear down her five-inch
heels to three-inches if she doesn’t stop pacing. I delicately hand her the
tampon box, showing her that it’s not so bad after all. “It’s probably negative
anyway. You’re on birth control, right?”

“I haven’t
missed a single day, so you know what this means?”

“That
there is no way you could be pregnant.” I exhale for her and smile. She’s being
dramatic for nothing.

“That I’m
unlucky.
Very,
very
unlucky, Lily. Birth control is 99% effective, so Connor’s
superhuman sperm somehow penetrated my body’s defenses. He
won.
His sperm reached my egg and now I’m going to have this
thing
growing inside of me for nine
whole months while he gets to parade around the fact that he impregnated an
impregnable woman.” She exhales after that rant.

My eyes
are saucers and I pat her iron-like shoulder for support. I try not to think
about Connor’s sperm or his sperm wearing a superhero cape.
 
“If you have a baby, just think of all the
cute clothes you can dress her or him up in.” It’s the only
pro
that I can think of.

“A baby
isn’t a doll,” she refutes in a chilly tone. She struts forward, forcing my
hand to fall. I doubt it was that comforting anyway. She reluctantly pulls out
the pregnancy test from the tampon box.

“Okay,” I
say, regrouping. “Then give me a reason why you don’t like children that has
nothing to do with tantrums and dirty diapers.”

She pulls
her black panties down from her dress and stares at the stick before taking the
test. “Besides the fact that they’ll freakishly look like a hybrid of Connor
and me,” she says, “children are reflections of their parents. Anything they
say or do is going to be seen as a product of my parenting choices.” She shakes
her head and this foreign fear darkens her face. “It’s not like fucking up a
math test, Lily.”

She rolls
her eyes, her guards rising again. And then she pees on the stick. “What does
yours say?” she asks.

“Negative,”
I declare before I even pick it up. She flushes the toilet, and I grab my
stick. “Two lines that’s…” I snatch the directions, my heart catapulting to my
throat.
No…

After
scrubbing her hands with soap and rinsing, Rose steps forward and leers over my
shoulder to read the test. “
Lily
.”
Her brows rise in accusation.

“It’s
broken!” I point at the stick like it has betrayed me. I toss it into the sink.
There’s absolutely
no
way I’m
pregnant. Right. Right?

Rose grips
my shoulders, spinning me towards her. “Stay
calm
,” she says in her unsympathetic voice.

I breathe
out a long breath. Like I’m in a maternity class. Oh my God. I’m already doing
pregnant things. I touch my cheeks that roast. “Am I burning up? I think I have
seven-degree burns.”

“No such
thing,” she says.

“What does
yours say?” I ask, about to look over at the counter.

She
clutches my shoulders harder. “Concentrate. One issue at a time.”

Okay. But
I can’t help but notice her change in demeanor. My morose, panicked sister has
put on her problem-solving attitude with a little too much excitement. She’s
avoiding her issues by focusing on mine.

“Has Lo
been using protection?”

“No,” I
say. “Has Connor?”

Her glare
ices over. “I’m on birth control. We’ve discussed this already.”

Oh yeah.
Okay.

“Breathe,”
she tells me.

I blow out
a breath. I may be pregnant. “Oh my God.”

“How late
are you?” she asks, still quizzing me. My brain is trying to cross five
different pathways at the same time.

“Um…” I
blink repeatedly. “Oh um.” I shake my head to collect my thoughts. “I skip my
period with birth control.” I don’t know how late I am. I’m not Rose. I bet she
has alerts in her cellphone for her next cycle.

“And you
took all of your birth control? Every day? You didn’t miss once?”

“I’m good
about it,” I say. “I always have…” I cringe. Shit. My head hurts as I wrack my
brain for answers. When Lo relapsed and when the molestation rumors ignited
instead of fizzling out, everything became really confusing and stressful. I
must have been distracted and forgot.

The
realization knocks me back a couple steps, but Rose holds onto my shoulders
still, so I just sway a little like I’ve had too many morning mimosas. This
can’t be right. “It’s wrong.” I can’t believe in this outcome.

If I’m
pregnant…Lo will be devastated. He has expressed that he doesn’t want children,
not when alcoholism is hereditary. And we’re not in a good place to have a
baby. I don’t know if we ever will be.

“It has to
be wrong,” I say again, this time meeting my fierce sister’s narrowed gaze.

I wait for
her to say:
it probably is.
Or:
there’s no way you’re pregnant.
But
maybe it seems unrealistic. I’m a sex addict. I should’ve had an accident a
long time ago, right? “We have anal sex,” I blurt out, even raising my hand
like it solves everything.

“So?”

“So we
have lots and lots of anal sex, and the sperm can’t go to the right place in
that position.” I am shrinking into myself, dodging the word “vagina” and
“eggs” in one swoop.

“All
it takes is one time
vaginally
,” she
says. “And what are you doing having
lots
and lots
of anal sex? You shouldn’t be having lots and lots of
any
sex. I thought you two were being
more careful.”

We
weren’t.

We
haven’t been careful since we ditched my therapist’s blacklist. Nooners. Public
sex. It has become our new routine. One that has filled us both with a sense of
joy and normalcy.

“There’s
something that I have to tell you. Please do not scream.” I tuck a piece of my
hair behind my ear. “A little before my twenty-first birthday, Lo and I weren’t
doing so well. We had a major fight about sex…” I swallow a pebble in my
throat. “I felt guilty for keeping him from it, and he was always restraining
himself around me.” I pause to gauge her reaction.

Anger
has already shaded her face into something kind of demonic, her cheeks concaved
and her arms crossed.

Shit.
I just keep going. “You see, I didn’t want the guy I’m with to be scared of me.
And that’s what it was starting to feel like. So…”

“You’ve
been having
lots and lots
of sex,”
she finishes for me, her words crystalizing.

“Yeah,
and we ditched my therapist’s
suggested
rules.”

Her
mouth falls. “You did not.”

“They
were
suggestions
,” I emphasize this
part.

“Did
you tell Dr. Banning? Did you let her in on what you’ve been doing or have you
and Loren kept this from
everyone?
”
Well Daisy knows
…but I don’t throw my
youngest sister under the bus. Her loyalty must be rewarded.

“It’s
our sex life,” I say softly. “We thought we had it under control.”

“Now
you’re pregnant,” she snaps. “How is that
under
control?
”

Tears
start to brim, and I wipe them quickly. “The test could be wrong…”

When
she sees my tears, she rolls her eyes but stops attacking with every weapon in
her arsenal. “How much is a lot?” she asks, planting her hands on her hips.

“I
don’t know…” I blink, trying to recall the amount. “Maybe two times, three,
sometimes four.”

“Every
day?
” The word is laced with acid.

My
answer won’t bring kind sentiments and good cheer, so my lips stay closed. I
just nod.