Thrive (36 page)

{ 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just withdrawn from me.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 fucking 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.

I take them in mine, lacing our fingers together. One at a
time. If she wants to leave, I’m coming with her.

“You have to tell me, Lil,” I whisper as more water pools in
her green eyes. “I can’t guess.” I try to hold back more emotions, but I
connect so succinctly with her that it’s almost impossible not to
feel
every single thing. Like the flick
of each nerve. Like fingertips to fire then snow. I am terrified of what she
might tell me, but I am more scared of losing her. “Please…don’t make me
guess.”

She nods a couple times, staying quiet. And then her lips
part in shock and realization. “Do you think…you think I cheated?” Her face
shatters at that possibility.
What?
I
almost start crying heavily. I suck it down, my nose flaring from holding it
back.

This pain. It’s like someone bulldozes me flat. On the
ground. “I don’t know, Lil,” I breathe. “You’ve been acting distant, and you
didn’t come with me to Paris, so you had that time alone…I just, I don’t…I
don’t know.”

“I
didn’t
cheat,”
she says, her chin trembling again. She looks like she could punch me in the
arm, like she usually does. But she has no energy to do so, no fight left for
that blow. “You have to believe me.”

“I do, Lil,” I say, taking a breath, not of full relief.
“But you have to fucking tell me what’s going on.”

“I was upset…overwhelmed.” She rubs her eyes with her palm
but the tears have yet to cease. “And I wanted to do things and I just
thought…this would help.” The shame builds as she glances between the
showerhead and her knees, crumpled into herself.

“Just spit it out,” I urge. “Whatever it is. Just get it off
your chest right now, love.” I just want her to feel okay again.

She focuses on our laced hands. “I didn’t know how to tell
you…I thought while you were in Paris, I’d figure out a good way to say it, but
I don’t…I don’t think there’s a good way. And I just kept putting it off,
thinking
tomorrow will be the day.
”
She keeps rubbing her eyes.

Then finally, she drops her hands.

And she says with a big inhale, “I’m eight weeks pregnant.”

I go cold, like a car impacts me on the right side. Glass
shattering. The car swerving. Spinning. The airbag popping into my chest,
knocking the wind right out of me. The shock and fear pummels me into a state
without thoughts.

“You can’t be…” Blood rushes to my head. My eyes fall to her
stomach, the black shirt that suctions to her belly. I roll the fabric to her
ribs. I mistook the faint bump as weight gain. Nothing detrimental to our lives.
Nothing that could overturn us.

I finally look to the other people who’ve been standing in
the bathroom. Ryke. Connor. Rose.
Rose.
“
You’re
pregnant,” I say to her.

“We both are,” Rose says in a quiet voice, scared of me.
Everyone is frightened of me.

Of how I’ll react.

I have never once wanted a child. Never even considered it
for a moment’s time. I’m selfish, damaged and spiteful. No matter how much I
love Lily, there are things about me that will never change. “That’s not
possible,” I say. Though it is. With the amount of sex we have—too much and too
careless—
this
could’ve always been an
end result.

“The probability is slim but it’s not impossible,” Connor
answers, his hands casually pocketed in his slacks. He’s known this for a
while. “Their cycles had synced up after living together. I don’t use
protection with Rose, and I’m sure you didn’t with Lily.”

“I forgot to take my birth control a few days,” Lily
whispers, not able to meet my eyes, staring only at her hands, the ones I’ve
abandoned. “I didn’t realize it…”

I pick up both of her hands again, and her tears fall
harder. I squeeze them. “You could’ve told me sooner.” My mind reverses back to
yesterday, and I frown. What I admitted out loud about kids—I had crushed her
and I didn’t even fucking realize it. I go further back. Paris. I still feel
that night like a deep scar beneath my skin. I was lost, and no part of me
would’ve functioned the right way with this news.

She had eight weeks, maybe less, to tell me the truth. And
all of them, I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. I can sit here soaked in
freezing water, clutching her in my arms, and admit that.

“I know you don’t want kids,” she sniffs, restraining the
tears as much as possible. “And I didn’t want to stress you out with this…I’m
sorry.”

The guilt slams into me. “Shhh.” I press her harder to my
chest, her legs clenching back around my waist. “It’s okay, Lil.” I never meant
for her to bear a burden
this heavy
alone. Not one we should’ve carried together.

“It’s not,” she says, wiping her cheeks and then staring up
into my eyes. Her big round green ones are glassy and reddened. “You don’t want
a baby.”

No. I have never wanted a baby. But met with this reality, I
only want to do right by Lily. I just want to fix every wrong that I have ever
made. I am ready, so fucking ready, to defeat this.

To never face these demons again.

I am done feeling sorry for myself.

My fingers tangle in her damp hair. “That doesn’t matter
anymore.” I put my hand to my chest. “We’re addicts. You and me.” I motion
between us. That fact won’t change, no matter how much we wish it into
oblivion. “Maybe we shouldn’t have kids, but we have the means to raise him or
her well.”
 

“And you have us,” Rose proclaims.

Lily and I look back at the three people who’ve been the
foundation of our healthy lives. Rose raises her chin with a determined
expression like
you both can do this.

And then Connor. He stands poised, with more confidence than
either of us has ever acquired. I can almost feel it radiate off his body and
flow through mine. His lips begin to rise, knowing the effect he has on me, and
most people.

My brother. Ryke has his arms crossed over his chest. I
think he knows, as well as I do, that I am nowhere near ready to have a kid.
But the negativity has been swept from his hard, dark features. He has that
same sturdy, unbending will in his eyes as the rest of them.

The perseverance to do anything, to be anything. To thrive.

Someday, that word will belong to us too. After years of
coming up short, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.

{ 64 }

2 years : 03 months

November

LILY CALLOWAY

The steaming shower fogs the glass
door. We’re in our bathroom upstairs, where privacy exists, and Loren Hale
towers above me, the water blanketing us in hot sheets. We thaw ourselves after
the icy bath, his intense gaze never shifting off mine.

Out of all the reactions I imagined he’d have, this was the
one I least expected. But the one that I love the most. It’s the one where he
is indisputably committed to us, as a team. I wouldn’t ask anything more from
him.

My hands crawl up his toned back, and his palm falls to my
bottom, the other cupping my face. His amber eyes fill me whole. He leans so
close, his mouth pausing an inch from my neck. A cry escapes before he even
presses his lips against me.

But when they close over the tender skin, I buck into him,
my leg rising around his hip. The thick fog makes it hard to breathe, my body
heating with the water and his touch, sensual and slow.

His lips meet mine, his tongue parting them, sliding in a
hypnotic movement. I dizzy in his hold, and he raises my other thigh over his
waist, lifting me off the tiles. My heat pulses like blood pumping in my veins.

He kicks open the shower door while we kiss deeply, my hands
snug around his neck. He carries me back into the room, not caring that water
drips off our wet bodies and onto the floor. All of a sudden, he sets me flat
on my back, our soft, warm comforter beneath me. We barely part long enough to
stop kissing. Every nerve melts, my heart oozing with this pace.

My legs are already split open around him, and he breathes
heavily the longer he draws out the inevitable. And his hand disappears between
our pelvises, my lips swelling against his. I can feel how wet I am before his
fingers do.

I moan, my head tilting back. He kisses my jaw, and then he
slowly, slowly slides his erection deep, deep inside of me. As his other hand
returns, I grip both of his forearms, his palms on either side of my head. He rocks
against mine in a melodic rhythm, and a groan breaches his lips. He rests his
forehead against mine, his hot breath entering my lungs.

“Lily,” he chokes as he thrusts forward. Again and again.

My eyes roll back the longer we continue, the higher we go.
It feels like eternity, like hours upon hours and years upon years. An embrace
that lasts lifetimes.

When we slow down, when I arch against him and our lips part
in a bright, overwhelming climax, we lie on the bed, our legs tangled together.
My head rests on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
 

“I love you,” he whispers, combing my damp hair off my
forehead.

I lift my chin to look at him, about to say
I love you too
but it sounds too
practiced, not encompassing even half of my sentiments.

He sees it in my eyes. “I know,” he says, lifting me higher
on his body so he doesn’t have to stare down. We’re eye-level, our heads on the
same pillow, turned towards each other. My ankle rubs against his leg, and his
hand strokes my arm.

“Lil…” he says softly, but it’s my turn to read the answers
behind his gaze.

“I’m scared too,” I admit. “We’ve never even been able to
keep a goldfish alive. Do you remember BJ?” I ask. He begins to smile at the
memory. I add, “He didn’t even last a week before he floated to the top of the
tank. I think I overfed him.”

“He probably died in realization that you named him Blow
Job,” he says, his eyes light. “Though you definitely overfed him.”

“We don’t have the best track record,” I conclude, “but this
time can be different.” We couldn’t keep a goldfish healthy because we were too
consumed with our addictions. We’ve done a one-eighty, so what’s to say that
this won’t fall into place?

He stares deeply into me and says, “I just don’t want our
kid to be damaged like us.”

My breath catches and it takes me a minute to collect the
right words. “We can’t live in fear of that. It’ll cripple us.”

He pulls me closer, and he kisses me so strongly that the
air is vacuumed from my lungs. A head rush of epic proportions.

When we break apart, his forehead on mine, he whispers, “You
and me.”

I smile against his lips. “Lily and Lo.”

“And someone else,” he says.

And someone else.

I have many more months before I meet that someone, but
we’re beginning to accept this new world, a new reality where we’re no longer
allowed to be selfish. It’s our greatest test yet.