He opens his mouth like he may let it out, but anger just warps his hard, coarse features. And then he says, “We’re going to burn, you and me.”
I search his eyes, and all I see is blackness. Mine begin to cloud. “What could be worse than what I’ve already been through?”
“You have no idea.”
I stifle a scream that tries to reach my throat. “I deserve answers.”
“You deserve nothing,” he says. “I’ve given you everything, Loren, including your life. You realize that, don’t you?”
A pain crashes into my chest. I lick my dry lips. “Yeah,” I say. “I realize that you’re the only one who wanted me. I get it. I’m just a bastard. Thanks.” I wait for him to let me go. I just need to walk away. I need something to drink—Christ.
I rub my lips.
I have to get out of here. He’s not going to tell me anything. He never does. I feel like I smashed my head against a wall.
I breathe heavily. “Lily…” I try to turn, to find her, but my dad grips the back of my head, harder.
I’ve given you everything, Loren.
I forgot what it feels like to stand against him when he’s this wasted and I’m not. It’s easier when I’m numb. It’s easier when we’re sinking in the same fucked up black hole. But he’s dragging me down, and every brutal cut tears into me. The weight of every word pummeling me.
I am sinking beneath it all.
Like quicksand I should’ve seen in front of me.
“Grow up,” he sneers. “You shouldn’t have to call your goddamn girlfriend when you’re feeling weak.” He removes his hand off my head, and taps my cheek, twice with force. My head jerks back on the second contact. And disgust lingers in my dad’s eyes. For not being strong enough to withstand a fucking slap to the face.
“Hey!” Ryke yells at him.
I feel Lily’s hand in mine almost immediately. And I spin around, done with this shit. Just over everything.
“Lo…” she says, hurrying next to me, but I readjust our hands, lacing my fingers with hers.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper. I’m afraid of myself, I realize. I don’t want to drink.
Yes I do.
I do so fucking badly.
“Lo,” Ryke says forcefully, about to take a few steps towards our father. I put my free hand on my brother’s chest.
“Don’t start a fight with him,” I say.
“He fucking hit you!”
The pool is dead quiet.
Our dad retreats inside with a new glass of scotch while Sam lifts Maria in his arms and brings her into the courtyard. The rain has stopped.
“Lo!” He grabs my shoulder, practically pushing me to face him.
“You don’t understand!” I shout back, squeezing Lily’s hand. “You don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get?” he growls. “How can you put up with that shit and then defend him?”
“Because he’s just like me,” I retort.
“He’s nothing like you.”
“He’s in pain!” I shout. I’ve given you your life, Loren. “And he’s hurting me before I can hurt him.” You can sell me down the river, son. I have no idea what’s wrong with him, what he heard to make him bitter and malicious. Why he thinks I’m going to fuck him over. I hate that he can’t just tell me. I hate that everyone censors parts of my life from me.
“You’re an idiot if you think that.”
“Then I’m a fucking idiot,” I retort, my blood pumping so fast.
His face twists and he rests his hands on his head. “I didn’t fucking mean it like that.”
“I think we should go,” Lily says, wrapping her arm around my waist. I look down and realize her fingers are purpled from my grip. I loosen my hold.
“Do you want to drink?” Ryke asks.
He’s killing me. “Please, stop,” I sneer, my voice scratching my ears. “I just need…air.” I breathe heavily, trying not to imagine what’s going to happen in a few weeks—my father’s fucked up version of a warning.
I go outside with Lily, to the courtyard gazebo, away from Maria and Sam. I stopped taking Antabuse about four months ago. This time I sat everyone down and told them before I did it. I wanted to test myself without the pills. A challenge that I was sure I could defeat. They agreed that I’d been sober long enough to toss the pills. To try.
I have no voice in my head that says: you’ll puke if you take a sip of whiskey. You’ll be sick. It’s not worth it.
This is the hardest day I’ve had in years.
And according to my father, it’s only going to get worse.
{ 44 }
1 year : 07 months
March
LOREN HALE
It’s 2 a.m. and my phone won’t stop ringing.
Lily is hogging our comic book in bed, flipping through it too quickly. “Are you going to answer that?” she asks, licking her finger, about to turn the next page.
“I thought we talked about licking the pages.” She puts fingerprints all over the panels when she does that.
“I’m not licking the pages,” she refutes. “I’m licking my finger. Smart people do it.”
“Like who?”
“Connor Cobalt,” she notes.
“Yeah? Well he’s a weird smart person, so he doesn’t count.” My phone rings again. I internally groan and shut it off, not recognizing the number.
“I’m going to tell him you said that.”
“He’ll probably take it as a compliment,” I say, scooting closer to her. And then my phone goes off again. “Jesus Christ. Who gave my number to a telemarketer?”
“Not me,” she says quickly. “Maybe someone posted it online. That happened to Ryke, you know.”
“I’m also not sleeping with random girls who’ve decided to share my number with the world,” I say crossly, more because of my cell than anything. Ryke should also be more careful with shit like that. He doesn’t care though. He barely cares about what anyone thinks of him.
I can’t be like that. Not completely.
When the next ring comes, I groan out loud. About to silence my cell. Instead I answer the call. My eyes narrow at the comforter, the cold speaker to my ear. “Who is this?” I snap.
“This is Mark Johnson from GBA News. How are you today, Loren?”
A chill sweeps the back of my neck. It’s been about three weeks since Daisy’s pool party—since my dad lashed out at me with seemingly no goddamn reason. This is why. I deduce in two seconds flat that a series of reporters have been trying to reach me.
I can’t do this here, in front of Lily. I lick my lips. “Hold on a minute,” I tell him. My chest constricts, and no matter how hard I tell myself to relax, my muscles just keep tightening.
Lily frowns at me. “Who is it?”
“Can you save my spot in the comic?” I ask. “Don’t dog-ear it; just remember the page.”
“Yeah,” she says softly while I swing my legs over the bed and exit our room, shutting the door behind me. I practically skip steps downstairs and make my way to the kitchen, out of earshot from Lil. If this has to do with her—I need the answers first. So I can break it to her gently.
I try to inhale, to breathe a full breath, but the pressure on my ribcage only pains me.
“Okay,” I say to Mark, standing between the kitchen island and the sink. “What’s this about?”
People holler in the background—on his end, not mine. “Sorry,” he apologizes with a heavy breath, like he’s walking somewhere else. The interfering noise suddenly dies out. I hear a door close. “The newsroom was going crazy when you answered the call. We know that other networks have been trying to get in touch with you too.” And he’s the first one I clicked into.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I say coldly. “It was random that I picked up your call.”
“And I appreciate it one-hundred percent,” Mark says quickly, as though to keep me on the line. “I know this has to be a tough time for you and your family, Loren, b
ut we’d love to hear your side of the story. Do you have a statement or anything you’d like to say? If you don’t have time, we’d be more than happy with just a short quote.”
What could be this newsworthy that he’d grovel for a fucking statement? When Lily’s sex addiction became public, reporters didn’t even hound me like this. “How about you start by telling me what’s going on.”
His shock amplifies this heavy silence, and it builds an unbearable amount of tension. I try to exhale, like razors cutting through me.
“It’s been breaking news since 1 a.m.” He pauses. “I thought you’d heard by now.”
I grip the sink counter, leaning over. I could hang up on him, read a news article online. See the headlines. Turn on the television. But I have the answer in the palm of my hand. Right now. And nothing motivates me to drop the cell. If I let go, I may lose my shit. “Just tell me.” My voice is achingly deep.
He clears his throat. “Your father is being accused of molesting you.” He keeps speaking, but the words don’t register in my brain. I stare blankly at the white sink. Your father is being accused of molesting you.
There is a pain buried so deep inside of me. I’ve never tapped into it, never felt it until today. “It’s not true,” I say, shaking with emotions that I can’t sort through. “It’s not true. There’s your quote.” I hang up and immediately dial my dad’s number. My hand quakes as I rub my lips. The line clicks. “Dad?” And everything begins to pour out of me. “It’s not fucking true. What sick fuck would say this?” I almost scream. It rises to my throat, and it turns into a silent one, the sound completely lost. Hot liquid creases my eyes, and I sink to the floor, leaning against the island cupboards.
“Loren Hale” has always been synonymous with: failure, fuck up, bastard, alcoholic, Lily Calloway’s boyfriend. Those are the titles the world has given me. I never, in my life, believed that this could be attached to my name, to my father’s.
“It was a family friend,” is the first thing my father says. “He made these allegations to tarnish my reputation, my company’s name.” He lets out a weak, irritated laugh. “Hale Co. produces baby products, and whoever believes in this lie will likely boycott us.” He doesn’t say: because who wants a stroller made by a pedophile? He can’t utter the words.
I rest my head on the wood, realizing that he couldn’t tell me at the pool because he couldn’t stomach it. He tried, but it wouldn’t come out.
“No one will believe it,” I say under my breath. “I already made a statement. I said it didn’t happen.” It’ll all just pass like every other rumor.
“There’s an investigation, Loren,” he says.
“What?” My nose flares, hot pools welling in my eyes.
“They’ll talk to your teachers from Dalton Academy, maybe some of your professors from Penn before you were expelled. Any friends.”
I bury my face in my hands, a wave thrashing against me. The riptide swallows me whole.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat anything,” he says with a rough voice. “You’re old enough to hear the goddamn truth.” He inhales loudly. Exhales coarsely. “I’ve already filed a defamation suit, but after what our family has been through…with the reality show.” I hear ice clink against his glass. “We became celebrities with almost no privacy, and to ever win a defamation case, we’re going to have to jump through fifteen-hundred hoops.”
“So what do we do?” I ask, anger rising. “We just wait around? We just hope that these allegations go away? I told the reporter that it never happened, and it’s about me. Case closed.”
“No, son,” he says. “No.”
A scream almost breaches my throat this time. I force it down, the pain swelling my stomach. “Why not?”
“You’re twenty-three. You went to rehab. Your word means nothing to anyone because I could’ve manipulated you.” He pauses, more ice hitting glass. “This surpasses the both of us, Loren. It’s about the people around us, who can vouch for our relationship as father and son.”
It’s over, he’s saying. No one understands us. He’s not the greatest father, but he’s never touched me like that. He’s never abused me—not in that way. And I hate…I fucking hate that this is going to be a part of me, for the rest of my life.
And every day, I’m going to have to repeat the same words over and over: my father did not molest me.
I rub my eyes that sear and water with emotions that I’ve never felt. I wish I was like Ryke. I wish I didn’t give a fuck about how other people see me. How does someone even get that kind of strength?
I grasp at a sliver of hope. “The people close to us will vouch—”
“No,” he snaps, shutting me down. “Stop being delusional. They’re looking for answers from two people. They matter most. Not you, not me, not Greg Calloway or your girlfriend.”
I swallow hard. “Who then?”
“My bitch of an ex-wife and my other son.”
Sara Hale.
And Ryke Meadows.
They both hate Jonathan. Can’t stand to look at him. Why would they ever testify in favor of him? It’s over. There is nothing we can do but live with this news.
“I get it,” I finally say. I just want to drown. To numb the parts of me that can’t withstand this reality. I just want to go away for good.
Maybe when I wake up my life will be different. Everyone will be happy. There will be no more pain. A scalding tear rolls down my cheek. My phone slips from my hand, thudding to the floor. I reach into the cupboard behind me and find a bottle of Glenfiddich. Three-fourths full.
I pop off the crystal stopper and put the rim to my lips.
I hesitate for only one second before the sharp liquid slides down my throat.
{ 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 wei
ght 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.
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