“Then go get him some of your clothes.”
“Eh, Mom, he’s a skinny little thing. My clothes are way too big for him.”
“Then go get some from your dad,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Okay.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll make sure he gets you something during his lunch break if you don’t mind leaving me your keys. Now, will you be okay?”
“I think so,” Malakai said.
“Okay. Change while I go get some more ice.”
David came back as Nicole left the room. Malakai changed as best he could and was ready to sleep by the time he was done. Once he was in bed with his arm on the pillow and a blanket over himself, he closed his eyes and was asleep in moments.
Chapter Sixty-Four
LILY
Lily didn’t know which side was up and which side was down anymore. The only thing she had in her life that still made sense was Malakai. Despite his surgery, she had gone to see him the previous night so she could have a moment of peace in his arms.
But today, reality came crashing in again.
She had been thrown out of her own house, the house her father had left her. And she had to face school, but she just didn’t know how.
She slowly got out of bed and looked around the room. Gone was the pale green and cream. It was replaced by purple and white. Gone was the high bed with the fluffy pillows. It was replaced by a low bed with two pillows. Gone was the white furniture. It was replaced by dark brown. Everything about this room just screamed at her she had no home anymore.
She made her way down the stairs to the kitchen, which was to the left and not to the right, like at home. All these differences compounded her sense of hopelessness, and she felt like crap. She was sure she didn’t look any better.
“What are you doing up?” Charlie asked when she walked into the kitchen.
He was sitting at the counter, reading a newspaper.
“I’ve got school.”
“Well, I think it’s better if you don’t go today,” Charlie said, standing up and walking to her. “You have a lot of important decisions to make in the next few days, and I want to make sure you get as much information as you need to make them like the wise young woman that you are. To do that, you need to know exactly where you stand,” he continued, putting his hands on her shoulders. “But you’re not alone. I’ll be here and so will Nicole.”
Genuine concern flew from Charlie.
“What kind of decisions?” she asked in a small voice, looking up at her uncle.
“Well, for one, where do you want to live, at least until the court makes its decision?”
It hit Lily again that home was no longer home, and at the thought of it, tears came to her eyes. “Do I have to make all the decisions now?”
“No, but you need all the information as quickly as possible so you can make them when you’re ready. What’s important now is that we get you on the right path before your exams. I don’t want you to have questions and worries during those.”
“Okay,” Lily said, looking down.
“Hey, you’ll be all right, kiddo. I’ll make sure of it.”
The concern coming from Charlie almost choked her.
“Thank you, Uncle Charlie.”
“I’m right here, always,” he said, letting go of her. “Now what do you want to do?”
“I’m…Go back to bed for a little while.”
“Wise decision,” Charlie agreed with a warm smile. “When you wake up later, we’ll talk, okay?”
“Okay.”
Two hours later, Lily woke up again, but she didn’t feel any better. She was beginning to have a headache. Regardless, she got up, went to the bathroom, then made her way downstairs where she found Charlie in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.
“You the empath now?” she asked, glancing at the stove clock which showed ten o’clock.
“Nah,” Charlie said with a chuckle. “I heard you in the bathroom.”
Lily took a place at the counter and looked at Charlie, who was preparing a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, just like her father used to do when she was little. A few minutes later, he set a plate in front of her, poured her a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice, then took a seat next to her.
“Charlie, are you going to go to jail?” she asked after taking a slow bite of her breakfast.
“Not if I can help it.”
“But you took the fall for me.”
“I didn’t take the fall for you, Lily. I took the fall for your mother.”
Lily frowned. He was telling the truth, that she knew, and she herself believed Beatrice had planted the drugs.
“Lily, there’s a couple of things you don’t know about your father, your mother, and me. I’m pretty sure your father would have told you when you were older but…you know…”
Lily nodded, looking at her barely touched plate.
“I think you’re still too young to know, but now you need to.
“Your mother, Lily, she wasn’t always like that. I remember when Marcus and I met her. We were in our junior year. We were both in love with her. She was so pretty, so classy, and she was fighting like a lioness for some cause or another that I don’t remember now. I remember, however, both Marcus and I gave her our support just to be able to spend more time with her.”
Her mother was still quite the humanitarian, Lily had to admit. She spent more time caring about her charities than she ever did Lily.
“She loved the fact she had two of the football players supporting her cause. It helped bring interest in what she was fighting for. And, of course, one thing led to another and Marcus got lucky.
“Then, when we were seniors, Marcus, Beatrice, and I, we began to party pretty hard. And when I say hard, I mean hard, as in hard-hard, and not only with alcohol. We liked our coke too,” he added with a sigh. “We partied on and off for almost a year, from about when football finished and throughout the summer after we graduated. After that, Marcus and I, we got bored, and we moved on to other things.
“Beatrice, on the other hand, she liked it a lot, maybe even too much, and she kept on partying without us. At first, we let her, but eventually, Marcus got tired of it and told her she had to stop. But she didn’t stop. She just hid it. Eventually, we found out, and Marcus gave her an ultimatum: get clean or get out of his life. That was the first time she went to rehab. She was nineteen.”
“The first time? There were more?”
“Oh, yes, Lily, there were. At least two other times I know of. Once shortly before you were born and the other one right after you moved to Katy. Remember that time?”
Lily did remember. Beatrice had disappeared and not once had Lily asked her dad where she was. She had just been happy to finally be in a house where tensions were gone. Her father had been so happy at that time. He hadn’t said it, but she had known.
“Once she was clean, she wanted to head to Hollywood and try for an acting career. She begged Marcus to go with her, but Marcus would have none of it. We both knew if she went, she would fall into drugs again, and Marcus told her if she remained in Houston, he would take care of her, and she would never have to worry about anything.
“I think she liked the idea. I mean, Marcus and I came from money, and even at nineteen, Marcus could already support her. All she had to do was attend school and do charities. Even back then, charities were her life. I have to admit, Lily, she did a lot of good. She still does, really.
“A few months ago, just after you began band for the summer, I was at your house, and I saw something.”
“What?” Lily asked, her breakfast now completely forgotten.
“Bloodstains on the carpet of the living room,” he answered, glancing at his hands. “I then looked closely, and I saw a powder residue on the coffee table. But before I could investigate more, Beatrice came back from wherever she had disappeared. She was so bubbly, just like when we used to get high, and I had my doubts then. That’s when I hired a private investigat
or.”
“You…you had someone follow Beatrice?”
“Oh, yes, I did,” Charlie said, looking at her. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you, and I know how your mother can be.”
It all began to make sense to Lily. Beatrice had never loved her, but her level of irrationality had begun toward the middle of the summer and had increased ever since.
“That’s why you told her you knew something she wouldn’t like you to tell?”
“Yes. At that time, I had confronted her already. She denied it, but I told her I didn’t believe her. I never told her about the P.I., but I told her I had proof she was lying to me. I did tell her she had to stop, otherwise it wouldn’t end well.
“I think she figured if you were gone, I would go away too.
“But she did cross the line when she put that coke in your backpack. It was hers, Lily, and I have pictures to prove it. Beatrice will only have two choices now: prison or rehab, again.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, wow!”
Lily silently looked at her plate, her appetite completely gone.
An hour later, they were in Charlie’s office and were going over her financial situation. Lily became completely lost after fifteen minutes. After all she had found out about Beatrice and with her worries over Malakai, she couldn’t concentrate long enough to understand anything Charlie was saying. He meant well, but Lily was too overwhelmed for the long explanations.
“I think we should stop, Charlie,” Lily said, wearily rubbing her temples.
“Then let me sum it up for you. The bottom line is you can pay for college, and you can live for a while if you don’t go to excess. When you decide about the house, your situation may change.”
That last statement, Lily understood.
“Now you’ll need to make a few decisions when we hear from the court, but the fact Beatrice locked you out doesn’t look good for her. Hopefully, the court will now reach its decision quicker,” Charlie continued. “Once it does, you’ll have to decide what to do with the house. Personally, I think you should sell it and walk away.”
“What if I want to keep it?”
“You can do that, too. However, I want you to consider this: What are your plans for next year? College, right? For how long? Four years? Where do you want to go? Rice, right? And where is it? Inside the Loop? Will you want to commute from here to Rice every day? Also, if you keep the house, your finances become a lot more strained. With the taxes on it being so high, the question also becomes how long will your funds last? Of course, you could still rent it out, but do you really want to go through that? I’m not saying not to keep it. I’m saying to really take a hard look at it.”
But Lily wanted that house. It was hers. It had been left to her by her father. She didn’t understand why she wanted to keep it so much, but it was important somehow. She felt like if she sold it, she would be giving away the last piece of her father.
At a complete loss of what to do, she just nodded at Charlie.
Chapter Sixty-Five
LILY
It was Lily’s first day back at school, and she felt like she was being hit by a freight train every few steps she took toward the building. More than once, as she flinched when she crossed someone’s path, she wanted to turn around and go home.
But she had no home to go to.
November had been going relatively well. Each day had been easier to deal with, and each day, she had known she would finally make it in one piece, if not unscratched. But now she doubted her ability to survive another day in public.
When she arrived at her classroom, it was mercifully empty. Lily took her usual seat and took her notebook to begin reviewing in the hopes concentrating on school would make it easier on her.
She had been reading for a few minutes when she felt Malakai. She immediately knew something was wrong.
They had spoken on the phone the previous night, and he sounded like something was bothering him, but they hadn’t spoken about it, and Lily let him have his privacy. But now she felt the full force of his unease.
She was already looking toward the door when he walked in. He went to the desk behind her and took his seat, dropping his bag on the floor.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi.”
He unzipped his backpack and tried to get his books out, but they got stuck. He was shaking the bag trying to free them when Lily reached out to help him. The flare of anger the gesture provoked stopped her. Feeling like someone had just slapped her, she turned around, letting him deal with it on his own.
The anger pouring out of him was like hot lava in Lily’s mind, and she struggled to keep her composure. She didn’t understand what was going on, and all she needed was for him to be there for her.
But he wasn’t there. He was far, far away in this land of guilt and anger, and she just didn’t understand why.
“I…I’m sorry,” he said, once he was done struggling with his bag. “I…”
He didn’t continue. Waves and waves of shame rolled out of him, enough to almost drown Lily, who already had such a hard time keeping it together.
“’S okay,” she said without turning around, her voice choked by her repressed tears.
She didn’t want him to see how dejected she really was. Because it was not okay.
She wanted to talk to him about what she was going through, all the decisions she had to make, and she wanted him to give her his opinion about it all, to shed some perspective she certainly no longer had.
She wanted his advice. She needed his advice. But Malakai was emotionally confused and unavailable.
“I…” he began again but couldn’t finish.
Lily felt a pull on her hair; Malakai was holding on to a strand like he had done so many times before. She closed her eyes, trying, for the first time, to block him out of her mind. She didn’t want to feel like he wasn’t there for her.
“I want to be there for you,” he said as another wave of guilt slammed into her. “I really…Can we have lunch?” he finally asked. “I mean just you and me, somewhere where we can be alone, where we can talk?” he continued, hope pouring out of him.
“Yes.”
From him, relief.
“Malakai, what’s wrong?” she asked, finally turning to him.
“I…I abandoned you,” he said, looking everywhere but at her.
“Is that what you believe?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get out of here, now,” she said, grabbing her books and standing.
Malakai looked at her for a moment before standing also. He retrieved his bag from the floor, put it over his shoulder, then grabbed his books. They both made their way out of the classroom and were walking to the parking lot when the first bell rang. They made it to Malakai’s jeep since it was closer, and Lily grabbed his keys from his jacket pocket despite his annoyance. She unlocked the door.
A moment later, Malakai was driving them away from school, and to one of the nearby city parks. He parked the jeep, and they both remained there, silent, looking out the front windshield, guilt pouring from Malakai again.
“You didn’t abandon me,” she finally said quietly, looking at the ducks floating on the pond.
“I wasn’t there for you!” Malakai said, hitting the steering wheel with his good fist to punctuate every word. “I wasn’t there when you needed me.” He turned to her, breathing hard.
The anger, confusion, and guilt washing out of him were choking her, and she didn’t try to hide her tears this time.
“Then be there for me now!” she screamed at him.
“Oh Lily,” he said, pulling her to him.
Lily unbuckled her seat belt and climbed into his lap, squeezing herself between his chest and the steering wheel. The position was uncomfortable but she needed him, and his arms around her felt like heaven.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his cheek against her head.
Lily sobbed against his shoulder, feeling like her world was fa
lling apart all over again, and he was the only thing keeping her together.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t have a home anymore, and now I need you to be there for me. I need you to stop feeling angry and guilty, and just be there for me like you were before all this happened.”
Malakai just held her. His anger was replaced by concern and love, but underneath it, the guilt and insecurity still remained.
“Charlie’s telling me I should sell the house,” she continued. “Malakai, it’s my home.”
Malakai didn’t have to say he didn’t agree with her; she knew already.
“I’m going to be there whatever you decide,” he said instead.
“But you think I should sell it, too.”
“If I tell you what I think, will you get angry at me?”
“No. I want to know what you think. I want to know what you see because I don’t see anything anymore.”
“I think your house, even if you own it on paper, hasn’t been your home for a long, long time,” he said gently, caressing her hair. “I think you’re more at home at Sandra’s, and you’re happier when you’re anywhere but at your house.”
Lily remained silent. What he said did hurt, and she felt a flash of anger toward him, but she had told him she wanted the truth. Malakai wasn’t telling her this out of spite or cruelty. He said it because she asked, and he cared for her.
“I don’t understand why you want to keep it so badly. Will you try and explain it to me?”
“I…It’s the last place I saw my father. It’s the place we were happy.”
“But what about your memories? Aren’t they as equally important if not more?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But I feel like I shouldn’t let go of it…I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you want to keep on living there with your mother?”
No, she didn’t. The mere idea of it made her choke. She didn’t want anything to do with Beatrice anymore. She wanted to stay as far away from her venom as she could. The woman was toxic, and Lily was afraid if she remained with her, even for a few more days, she would eventually lose her mind.
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