Thrive

by Krista Ritchie

  I open the backdoor, and I slide in first. Connor gently rests Lo next to me, his head on my lap. I concentrate on the way his chest rises and falls, so discreetly that it’s hard to see. Just keep breathing, Lo. I comb his hair out of his face, and by the time Connor shuts the passenger door, we’re speeding to the hospital.

  Minutes must pass, in the quiet of the car, before someone speaks.

  “It was mine,” Connor says. I can’t see his expression from the backseat, but he covers his eyes with his hand. Something he almost never does. “It was my alcohol.”

  Rose reaches out and holds Connor’s hand between their seats.

  I kiss Lo’s forehead. You wait for me, Loren Hale. “Promise me,” I whisper, blinking back tears. I can try to hold him as tightly as possible, but in the end, he can slip through my grasp at any moment. He can drift away without me.

  Please not today.

  { 46 }

  1 year : 07 months

  March

  LILY CALLOWAY

  I forgot that I was only wearing panties and a see-through tank top. And I really don’t even care. Though the hospital staff made me put on blue scrub pants. I’ve scooted a chair as close to Lo’s bed as I could, and I hold his hand, tubes stuck in his skin and running to an IV bag with fluids.

  They pumped his stomach. Now he just needs to wake up.

  “You shouldn’t have had alcohol anywhere in the fucking house!” Ryke yells.

  “I brought it home after a company party. I didn’t think—”

  “You’re living with an alcoholic, Connor! Do you not even care about him?” Their shadows stand tall behind a gray curtain, inside the nice hospital room with a couch and a bathroom. The door is shut so hopefully no one can hear them in the hallway.

  “I know you’re upset—”

  “You should be upset!” His voice shakes, and his shadow paces back and forth while Connor remains fixed in one place. “Do you even know what you did?!” While Ryke stares straight at Connor, there is the longest pause in history of pauses.

  And then their forms collide, Ryke’s silhouette shoving Connor roughly. Something clatters to the floor while Connor defends himself, pushing Ryke back. My heart races, especially as an elbow or arm whacks into the curtain. I can’t see a thing, really.

  I’m mostly surprised that Connor doesn’t talk Ryke down. He’s letting Lo’s brother attack him this once. The more aggressive shadow pins the other into the wall, both breathing heavily.

  “I trusted him,” Connor says in a low voice.

  “You can’t trust a fucking alcoholic,” Ryke growls.

  “I trusted my friend,” Connor retorts. “I see him every day, Ryke. If I knew about the allegations, I would’ve never kept him out of my sight.”

  “You know what I fucking think?” Ryke asks, fuming. “I think you get off being the superhero to my brother. I think you like the way he looks at you—like you’re invulnerable. While he stands beneath you, weak, looking for guidance and you take advantage of all of that—”

  “Stop,” Connor says forcefully, and I can see his chest rising.

  “Tell me that I’m wrong,” Ryke says. “Tell me that you’re not destroying him.”

  “I love him,” Connor says with so much conviction. “I would never intentionally harm Lo.”

  The door suddenly swings open, and the guys immediately separate.

  I hear the clap of heels. Rose stops midway into the room. “If I interrupted something, then maybe you two should realize that you’re fighting in front of my little sister. She has fucking ears, you know.” Rose has dropped more f-bombs today than usual. I almost wonder if Ryke is rubbing off on her. She flings the curtain aside, and everyone looks at me.

  Dried tears, my hand clasped in Lo’s. I’m just waiting, is all.

  Rose has four coffees in a carton, and she marches over, passing me one. “Dr. Banning wanted me to ask if you’ve been thinking about sex at all.”

  My therapist. I talked to her a little bit ago. My cheeks redden, and my eyes flicker to both Connor and Ryke who stand unwaveringly at the foot of the bed.

  “No,” I whisper. I’ve been sad, and usually I cope with sex. Not this time. I’ve suppressed most thoughts about orgasms, about that rush that would take me away from here. “Lo has been there for me for so many months.” Saying the words out loud makes them unbearably real. “I want to be strong for him.” It’s my turn now. I’m ready for it.

  “I’m proud of you, Lily,” Rose tells me, even giving me a smile. When she turns back towards the guys, they both reach out to collect their coffees. She tucks the carton tray to her chest. “No coffee for either of you. Not until you stop fighting over something that is no one’s fault.”

  “Rose is right,” I say softly. “Lo wouldn’t want you both to argue about this.” He’d blame himself if he woke up and heard Connor and Ryke going at it.

  They all asked me if the allegations were true. We heard about them around the same time the doctors began pumping his stomach. I said no. I can’t even, for a second, believe they’re true. Lo would’ve told me.

  Rose and Ryke seemed doubtful. And it hurt me to think that our own friends, his brother, may never believe the truth. We’re both known liars. It’s hard to accept anything we say as fact. So I understand, but it doesn’t hurt any less.

  Everyone stays in the room, taking the day off of work while I skip all my college assignments. I don’t join them on the couch. I just hold Lo’s hand while he sleeps.

  An hour passes before he finally stirs. His eyelids slowly open, and he blinks a few times to orient himself. Connor, Rose, and Ryke leave the room before he even wakes fully, afraid their presences will overwhelm him.

  It’s just Lo and me.

  When he finally turns his head to see me, there is something so vitally heartbreaking about those amber swirls. We’ve been in this place before. Him on a hospital bed. Me on the chair. I do what I did when we were teenagers. I pass him a glass of water.

  He shakes his head slowly and says, “Lie next to me.”

  I set the water on the small tray table and climb onto the wide bed. His arms wrap around me before mine tuck around his chest, tangled up in a few wires. Our legs intertwine, sufficiently embraced and connected together.

  It’s quiet, and we listen to each other’s breaths for a few minutes.

  “Lo,” I whisper, my fingers making circles on his black shirt. “I just want you to know that if you leave this world, I won’t be in it for much longer.” He’s a piece of me. You cut it off, and it’s like going through life with no lungs.

  That is how deep our love really goes.

  “Lil…I didn’t…” He cups my face, our lips inches apart. “That wasn’t my intention. I would never do that to you.”

  I wipe his tears before they fall far down his cheek. “How much did I drink?” His face contorts. He didn’t think he drank past his limit, I realize. Initially, I didn’t either.

  “Most of the bottle,” I say.

  “I should’ve just passed out,” he says in confusion.

  “You drank too fast, and you haven’t had alcohol in years, Lo. That matters.” The doctor said that his tolerance is different. He can’t function drinking the same extreme amount that he used to consume.

  He shuts his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  I hold him tighter. “I would’ve been upset too,” I whisper, “but it’s going to be easier than you think.”

  “Yeah?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  His eyes open but look faraway, lost to the rumors that have been spreading like wildfire. “They’re not true, you know.”

  “I know.” I kiss his lips, and he pulls me even closer and kisses me back more forcefully, full of eager desperation that tears at my soul. My legs clench around his waist. I break apart first. “Lo…”

  He breathes heavily. “Maybe you shouldn’t…be near me for a while.”

  “No,” I say. “You can’t enable me.”
/>
  “Why is that?” he asks, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

  “Because I can withstand your charm, Loren Hale.” Unless he layers it on, in which case, I will have to turn away to collect myself.

  He laughs into a weak, pained smile, and then he shakes his head, his features just shattering. “I don’t want to be the weak one.”

  It’s one of the most human things he’s ever said.

  I kiss his forehead, and he kisses my nose just as quickly. I smile a smile that is filled with tears and hopes and unspoken promises. “You won’t be. Not for long.”

  { 47 }

  1 year : 11 months

  July

  LOREN HALE

  June 16th passed. I remember Lily picking out the date for our wedding like a dream. I’d think it wasn’t real if Lily hadn’t marked the day on our calendar with stars. Before I drank, we briefly talked about a location, somewhere on the coast, but after I broke my sobriety, we just forgot about it.

  Our energy has been focused other places. I wish I could say that I haven’t tasted alcohol after that one night, but it’s so much easier to break my sobriety again now that I’ve done it once.

  I haven’t been right for a while, not since March. Some days I can barely stomach the thought of starting a morning without something to get me through it. I can’t force myself to take Antabuse. The only thing keeping me here is Lily. I try to make every day count for something. For her. When I fuck up, she doesn’t act like it’s the end of the world. She tells me that the next day will be better.

  But sometimes I think that my dad was right. I was never going to be anything more than a bastard.

  { 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 pro
mise 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.