“I have something to say to you,” she announces from the middle of the room. She’s dressed in her favorite hot pink jeans and her trademark leather jacket. Other than that, she couldn’t look more different. Her face is very pale, and I’m sure she’s lost weight. She looks exhausted, and I wonder if she’s slept all week.
She’s glaring at me, apparently waiting for a response. I blink, still not quite sure how she came to be in our living room, and nod. “Okay.”
“I have had one of the worst weeks of my life.”
“Paige—”
“Let me finish. I’ve been scared to death about Lennon. And about Daisy, who is taking this so hard.” Her voice trembles a little bit. “It’s not good for the baby. And if that isn’t bad enough, Reed…” Her face crumples up, and I want to throw my arms around her, but she straightens her shoulders and continues. “Reed won’t talk to anyone. He’s blaming himself for all of this. It’s been awful, Karen.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not done,” she snaps, and I shut my mouth. “Lennon is going into treatment today, and I cannot deal with this by myself,” she goes on. “I need my best friend. So we need to get over whatever the hell this is between us, okay? Because I cannot be mad at you right now.”
She’s crying now, and I jump off the couch, tossing my carton of moo shu pork on the coffee table. I throw my arms around her and feel faint with relief when she hugs me back.
“I’m so sorry!”
“Karen, you can’t ever lie to me like that again. I can’t stand it!”
“I won’t. Paige, I promise I won’t.”
She pulls back, wiping at her eyes. “I still don’t understand why you would do it. We’ve been through everything together. We’re a team.”
With a sharp pain, I think of Levi proclaiming us teammates, but I push it away. This isn’t about him. “I was selfish,” I tell her, wiping my eyes. “I saw you slipping away, and I couldn’t deal.”
“I was never going anywhere!” she cries. “Having a boyfriend doesn’t mean I was slipping away!”
“I know.” My heart twists in my chest, fresh tears falling. “But he isn’t like any other boyfriend. He’s Reed Ransome. He’s taking you off to see the world—and I’m so happy for you. But I was scared.” I stifle a sob. “Because you’re all I have.”
She wraps her arms around me again, tighter this time, and her voice is fierce in my ears. “Then tell me that so I can help you deal with it.”
“I should have.”
“There can’t be any more keeping secrets.”
“I promise. Scout’s honor.”
She finally smiles—it’s weak and there are still tears in her eyes, but I’ll take it. “I think we covered this. You were kicked out of Girl Scouts in disgrace.”
“And you came with me,” I say, kissing her cheek. “Because you always have my back. I never should have forgotten that.”
She hugs me again, and I squeeze her tight, so thankful that she’s here, I can hardly stand it.
“Something smells good,” she says, pulling back and looking over my shoulder. “Chinese?”
“There’s plenty,” I tell her eagerly, and she plops down onto the couch, slipping off her jacket.
“I feel like I haven’t had a decent meal in ages.” She shudders a little. “It’s been so grim there, K. I can’t even describe it.”
“Here.” I hand her the carton, knowing she never sticks to her vegetarian diet when she’s stressed, and head into the kitchen. “What do you want to drink?”
“Water would be fine.”
I join her on the couch, and it feels so good to see her sitting there, leaning against the ridiculous kissy-print pillows she insisted on, that I could cry all over again.
“Okay, so speaking of having your back,” she says once she has a few bites of food in her. “What in the hell is going on with Dan?”
“Nothing.” I say quickly. “Dan was a huge mistake. What you saw at the hospital was all him. It took me forever to realize it, but I am over him.” She looks skeptical. “One hundred percent.”
“I hope so… Cheryl was at the hospital yesterday. They’re still together, K.”
So another lie. I’m not even surprised. I shrug. “I really don’t care. I mean it.”
She watches my face for a minute before returning to her food, apparently satisfied. “And what about Levi?”
“It was never real for Levi.”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t comment. “And for you?”
I promised her I would be honest. “I’m pretty sure I fell for him a long time ago. When I saw him in Colorado we, um, hooked up. I wasn’t lying about the sex.”
“The really good sex,” she clarifies.
“Yeah. But it was more than that.” I sigh. “You were right, about me needing a nice guy. Levi was really good to me, fake relationship or not. He got me. Or I thought he did.” I rub my forehead. I can feel a headache coming on. “There was a spark between us, and it just kept getting stronger. Until last week.”
“And you really don’t think he felt it?”
I shrug. “I did, at the time. Now, not so much.”
“Well, then I’m surprised he came with me.”
“What?”
“He’s downstairs right now, waiting in the car.”
“Paige!”
“What?” she asks, innocent except for the twinkling in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to see how you felt about it first.” She frowns a little. “Actually, I’m not entirely sure I’m okay with him being here, if he really did blow you off like that.”
I have no idea what to do. I want to run to my room and put on a decent outfit, wash my face, maybe put on some makeup. But the desire to know why he would come is so overwhelming. In the end, I just sit on the couch, frozen.
“Why is here?” I whisper.
“Well, technically everyone is here. In Tennessee I mean. We’re all going to stay at Daisy and Daltrey’s while Lennon is at the hospital. It’s the one Daisy went to and it’s right by here. Everyone just wants to be close.”
I nod absently. It’s hard to concentrate on the rest of the Ransomes when Levi is outside my freaking house.
“I wanted to stop here first so we could chat. And Levi asked to come with me. Said he wanted to see you.” Her eyes sparkle at me over the carton. “Still think it was all pretend for him?”
“You’re kind of evil, Paige.”
She laughs. “Well are you going to see him or not? He’s being waiting this whole time.”
I look down at my yoga pants and tank top. “Do I look awful? I do, don’t I?”
“You’ve looked better,” she agrees, laughing at my outraged glare. “But I doubt he’ll care. Go on.”
I grab her in one more hug, not even caring when she spills moo shu pork on the couch, then run to the door. “Thanks, Paige.”
“Go get ’em, sister!”
I see Levi the minute I get outside. He’s leaning against what I assume is a rental car, dressed in cargo shorts and a faded Rolling Stones shirt. I wonder if he realizes he was wearing that shirt the night I ran into him at the lodge. When he sees me, his entire face brightens. I didn’t realize you could miss an expression so much. But this, I realize, is the way that Levi always looks at me.
He takes a step toward me before pausing, as if waiting to see what my reaction will be. I pause, too, my heart pounding. I’ve spent my entire dating life building walls between myself and the guys I’m with. For protection, self-preservation. To keep from getting hurt. It’s been my goal to never let them see how I really feel.
So it takes a lot of courage, what I do next. But I think about Paige upstairs, about her absolute faith in love—that’s something to admire. And I think about Levi, how he’s always been there for me, holding my hand, making it okay. My ally.
I take a deep breath and cross the remaining steps between us, throwing my
arms around his neck. I see a brief flash of surprise in his eyes before he’s hugging me back, lifting me up off the ground.
“Your plan worked,” I whisper in his ear, squeezing my eyes shut.
“What plan?”
“To help me figure out what I want. I know now.” I pull back and look into those crinkly brown eyes that I love so much. “Well, one of the things that I want, anyhow.”
“What is it?” he asks, bringing his forehead down to touch mine. “What do you want, Karen?”
“You.”
It’s all I have to say for him to kiss me. He presses his lips to mine, his arms pulling me tight against his body, kissing me until I’m short of breath.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers against my lips. “What I said in Vegas—you were so right. That was just me being bitter.” He pulls away enough to look down at me, and I miss the feel of his lips immediately. His eyes are serious as he gazes at me. “I don’t want to live like that anymore.”
“And I don’t want to accept less than I deserve.”
His serious expression turns to a grin. “I hope to help you out with that.”
“And I hope to help you banish the bitterness.”
He’s kissing me again, my lips and my cheeks and the space below my chin. “Silly Karen,” he murmurs, his voice a rasp against my skin. “What on earth do I have to feel bitter about with you in my life?”
There are plenty of things, of course. This is the real world. And if this week has shown us anything, it’s that the real world can be cruel and scary. Lennon has a hard road to travel, and Levi will travel it with him. I have a feeling there might be more than a few causes for bitterness and anger in the coming weeks.
But I also know that I’ll be there with him. To hold his hand and make it better as best as I can. Just as he always does for me.
“I’m really glad you asked me to be your ally,” I tell him as his lips move down to my neck. “This is a really beneficial partnership for me.”
His chuckle vibrates across my skin, sending shivers coursing up and down my arms. “We make a damn good team. And I have no intention of ever letting you forget it.”
“Enough talking now,” I whisper, grabbing the sides of his face and pulling his lips up toward mine. “We have ages to talk.”
“Forever,” he agrees just before our lips meet again.
Epilogue
Levi
“How you doing?” Karen asks, squeezing my hand.
I look over at her in the passenger seat. “It’s just hard to think about him in there,” I explain, nodding toward the windshield at the brick building before us.
“He’s still Lennon even if his surroundings have changed.”
I nod as she squeezes my hand again. “I’m ready.”
The lobby at Horizons Recovery Hospital is bright and inviting. There’s a comfortable-looking sitting area and fresh-cut flowers on the desk. I had been picturing Lennon in a depressing, institutional-grey kind of place, and I feel a rush of relief to be proven wrong.
There are several levels of security checks before we can get past the lobby. Karen is asked to leave her purse in a locker behind the desk, and we both must empty out our pockets and pass through a metal detector. The security has me feeling nervous again—what are they worried about him getting his hands on?—but Karen holds my arm tightly as a staff member leads us down the hall, her touch calming me.
I hear Lennon before I see him. He’s laughing as we round the corner into a large and open sitting room. The sound makes me feel weak with relief. I saw him only a few times before he left the hospital in Vegas, and he hadn’t laughed once.
He’s sitting at a gleaming wooden table by the windows. I can see why he picked the spot—there’s a view from here across a rolling green lawn, a lake visible in the distance, mountains far beyond. All in all, it doesn’t look like a bad place to get back on your feet.
“Levi!” Daisy calls, waving us over. “Karen!”
Daltrey and Lennon pause their game of Monopoly to turn and look at us. “Hey,” Daltrey says, standing up to slap my shoulder and hug Karen. “Good to see you,” I hear him murmur to her.
My eyes are glued to Lennon. He looks better than the last time I saw him, four days ago now. His cuts are healing, though the bruising on his face is turning to a garish green color. None of that matters much to me—the important thing is that his eyes have lost that blank nothingness that I saw back in Vegas. I breathe a sigh of relief before he even smiles at us.
“Nice of you to visit,” he says, standing. I try not to wince at the way he supports his casted leg with a cane as I come around the table to greet him. He allows me to pull him into a brief one-armed hug, keeping the eye rolling to a bare minimum. “Karen,” he says, smiling. “Thanks for coming.”
Everyone sits. “You want in on this game?” Daltrey asks. “I’m trouncing everyone.”
“Nah,” I say, pointing at Daisy’s silver game piece. “She already took the car. I only play Monopoly if I get to be the car.”
“Baby,” Karen chides.
“Actually,” Daisy says, looking over Karen’s shoulder to the clock on the wall. “We should get going if we want to stop in and see Dr. Jacobs.”
Daltrey nods, helping her clear the game board.
“Who’s Dr. Jacobs?” I ask.
“My favorite therapist,” Daisy says, and I feel like an idiot. Of course she would want to visit the doctor that helped her when she was here. But Daisy doesn’t seem embarrassed. She slides the silver pieces into the box and turns to Lennon. “You do everything she tells you and things will work out just fine.”
They stand, and Daltrey claps Lennon’s shoulder. “We’ll stop back in before we go.”
“Sounds good.”
After they leave, an awkward silence falls over the table. I have no idea what I should say to Lennon. I want to ask him if he’s okay, if I should be worried. If he’s furious with me for telling his brothers. But I have a feeling peppering him with questions right off the bat goes against the advice of Rehabilitation Visiting 101.
“So,” he finally says, the sudden noise making me jump. “Did you guys have this planned?”
“Have what planned?”
“The visitation sequence.” He shakes his head and I can’t read his expression. “Sam and Cash were here first, then Daltrey and Daisy stopped by. Let me guess—Reed is next?”
Is he annoyed? I look away, sheepish. “We didn’t want you to feel overwhelmed. It’s the first day you’re allowed visitors—we thought it might be easier to spread it out.”
“Instead of trying to cram four emotionally stunted Ransome brothers into a room designed for quiet and healing?” I look up at his face and see that he’s barely hiding a grin. “Yeah, I guess that was for the best.”
“How are you?” I ask before I can stop myself. “How do you feel?”
He doesn’t make eye contact, focusing on a spot to the left of me. “I’m not sure. Better than I was.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“With help.” I wince. After the OD, he tried to avoid even sleeping pills. “It’s fine,” he adds. “They’re careful about the doses.”
He’s still not meeting my eyes. Are you mad at me? Are you going to get through this?
Karen surprises me by reaching over and patting his shoulder. “One day at a time.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Hey.” She moves over to a chair right next to him and squares her shoulders. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“When I was a teenager, I used to cut myself.” My head snaps in her direction. She hadn’t told me that she was going to share that with him. Lennon is watching her, a slight frown on his face. “There were a lot of things that I was upset about,” she continues. “Things that were hard to think about. Hard to deal with. Cutting was how I dealt. It made me feel in control.”
Karen leans forward a little so she can peer into his face. �
��I’m sure that you know by now that you’re not alone in this, Lennon. You know what Daisy dealt with. Now you know what I dealt with. This shit is hard. I’m not going to pretend that I know what it’s like in your head.” Lennon’s eyes are wide, glued to her face, and she smiles a little. “But I do know what it’s like to want to turn those voices off. I know how hard it is to find a healthy way of doing that. You can come through it, Lennon. And it’s definitely worth it.”
Before either of us can say anything, she stands. “I’m going to take a walk. Let you guys talk.” She leans down and kisses my cheek briefly before she walks away.
“Wow,” Lennon mutters, watching her go.
“Yeah,” I mutter, watching her leave. “She’s pretty incredible, huh?”
“And she went for you,” he says. “I guess crazier things have happened.”
“I guess so.”
I study his face. He seems okay. But then again, he’d seemed okay that day in Vegas, talking to me about my relationship problems. Flicking beer caps with his brothers in the club.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he mumbles, staring down at the table. “I’m sorry I scared you so much.”
I exhale. “I’m sorry I got so upset and your brothers found out that way. I’m not sorry they found out, but I am sorry for how it all went down.”
“You don’t need to apologize. Everything that happened that night is my fault. My actions are what brought us to that hospital room.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say. “Hey, Len, look at me.” He does, and I can see guilt and regret in his expression. “It really wasn’t, man. Needing help isn’t a mistake.”
He nods, looking away again.
“I’m just glad you’re here,” I add.
His shoulders hunch a little bit. “I don’t know if glad is the word I would use. I mostly just want to go home.” He takes a deep breath. “But I think you’re right about needing help. I hope they can do that for me.”
“If Daisy says they can, they can.”
He straightens up, smiling at me. “I hope so.” His eyes flicker to where Karen left. “So. Karen. Not so much pretend, eh?”
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