“Lily has college,” she says. “I don’t want to ruin anyone’s time.”
Ryke rolls his eyes.
I tilt my head at her. “They want to see you.”
“Not like this,” she whispers, referring to her marred cheek.
And then Ryke removes the bandage completely. I scan her face, seeing the wound before, but not since she was asleep in the hospital. The large, reddened gash cuts from her temple to her jaw. Sliced but stitched straight through her cheek. Apparently she was hit with a board, something sharp on the end. The wound looks gruesome, especially on a girl as pretty as Daisy. It’ll scar. There’s no question about that.
She studies my reaction while Ryke unpackages a clean piece of gauze. “I’m happier, you know?” she says, her lips rising weakly. She’s free from a profession that has been slowly making her sick for the past few years. And subsequently, she’s free from her mom’s ridicule.
I mask my expression by adjusting my baseball cap again. “I’m glad,” I say. “But I’m never going to be happy that this happened to you.” There could have been a thousand other ways for her to reach that point—to quit modeling. I’d never wish this for her, or any one of the girls.
“That’s okay,” she says softly, her long blonde hair falling at her waist. I have a feeling she’s going to chop most of it off soon.
Ryke begins to cover her gash with clean bandages, and her arms slide further around his waist. To where his body is pressed against hers.
He whispers something to her, his lips brushing her ear, not discreet about it. They’ve never been. And then she smiles brightly, her fingers falling to the band of his jeans. Their embrace takes me aback, like a swift kick.
And it’s in this single moment, that I know for certain, they’re together.
So I ask: “Did I miss something?” I gesture between them, my jaw sharpening on instinct. I wait for my brother to tell me the whole truth. For once.
Please.
And then he takes a step back from Daisy with a pissed expression. Like I ruin everything. He’s not even giving me a chance.
He says, “We’re just friends.”
Right. I nod a couple times. “I’ll meet you at the car.” Boiling. It goes beyond them together. It’s that he can’t be honest with me. He asks me for his complete trust, but it’s becoming harder and harder when he builds walls between us.
He once said that I stand vulnerable in front of Connor, someone who wears layers and layers of armor while I bear all of myself to him.
Somewhere along the way, they switched places. I wonder what it’ll take for him to finally see it.
{ 57 }
2 years : 02 months
October
LILY CALLOWAY
“I have been informed by higher officers at the Pentagon that there still exists a top secret UFO project. That’s where your Roswell file is.” – Brigadier General Richard Mitchell (Ret.)
I squint at one of the many quotes on the museum wall, each one about the Roswell aliens. I relax against Lo’s hard chest, his arms draped over my shoulders. We reunited in the Smoky Mountains, and all seemed okay. Better than the phone call in the hospital. Even Daisy radiated with more life than usual, despite what’s happened to her cheek.
She made it really hard to be upset for her—she’s talented at that. But sometimes, I just want to hug her for an extended minute or two and put more attention on her, the good kind that she deserves.
“Did Wampa die from Tennessee to New Mexico?” Lo asks with a grimace. “It smells, Lil.” Lo places a hand on my head—or rather on my Wampa cap.
“Shhh,” I whisper.
And then he tries to snatch my white fuzzy Star Wars hat off my head. I hold the flaps of my Wampa protectively over my ears. “He does not,” I refute and sniff just to make sure. Oh. It reeks of wood smoke from the campfire back at the Smoky Mountains. The moment my hands fall, Lo steals the hat from me, my hair poofing up from the static.
I pat it down, and he combs his finger through the messy strands. The Smoky Mountains didn’t end on the best note, even if all the “before” parts were lighthearted enough. Though Rose did have a meltdown, brought on by hormones, and it got a little ugly.
I think Connor is onto her secret.
Not mine though.
Which means I must be smarter than her in this instance. I internally gloat at the idea.
The low moment in the mountains occurred right in the early morning. When we crawled out of our tent, the paparazzi sprung up out of the bushes. Literally.
In order to shake them off, we split up. Daisy and Ryke rode off together, and Lo, Connor, Rose and I drove our rental car the other direction. We’re going to meet up sooner or later, but for now, we’re separated from Lo’s brother and my little sister.
“Do you think they’re getting it on?” I blurt out. I should keep my thoughts to myself. “Nevermind,” I slur together and grab his hand, quickly tugging him over to a glass casing of a spaceship model with dirt, labeled: Corona Impact Point.
“Whoa, slow down,” he says, nearly running straight into me as I come to a halt.
“Look at this.” I try to distract him from my statement by pressing my finger to the glass. “What if the dirt is real? Like from the actual crash?”
He gives me one of those cold Loren Hale looks that usually cripples people. I’m too used to them, really. They’re more like pinches. Love pinches. “Who’s getting it on?” he asks, his brows furrowing. He smashes Wampa in a ball, anger tensing his biceps.
“I was just thinking about how we all split up,” I mutter under my breath. “Let’s go listen to the radio recording.” I try to tug him in another direction, but his feet stay glued to the floor.
And it clicks for him. “You mean your eighteen-year-old little sister and my twenty-five-year-old older brother?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds hotter than you think.” I flush a little bit.
He doesn’t make fun. “I don’t see how. Sister. Brother. Immediately kills everything, Lil.”
I shrug. “I kind of shipped them during Princesses of Philly. Didn’t you?” He’ll understand my fandom reference. To ship: aka, to fangirl hard over a prospective relationship.
He cringes like it’s a gross thought. “She was seventeen during the show. They’re not even legitimately together.”
“That’s never stopped you from wanting a ship to sail.” He’s a not-so-closeted Sterek shipper from Teen Wolf.
He rolls his eyes and lets out a deep sigh. I think it’s only appropriate that we’re talking about fandoms and ships in a place that birthed one of my favorite television shows: Roswell. Aliens never looked so hot than on The WB.
“Lil,” he says. “Let’s just say, theoretically, they’re together right now, doing…” The muscles in his jaw twitch and Wampa is a sad ball in one of his fists. “…whatever.”
I could add evidence that they’re doing something other than talking right now. Daisy had wild hair when she retreated from her tent in the morning, and I know post-sex hair. But just adding that fact will draw more irritated wrinkles by his brows.
“…then why,” he continues, “have they not announced it to anyone?”
“They’re scared of how you’ll react,” I say. And then I yawn. No one ever told me that being pregnant makes you tired. No one except Web M.D.
At my yawn, he steps nearer to me, our shoes touching. I didn’t know yawns worked like magnets, but I’m liking it.
“Yeah?” He swallows hard and glares at the ground. “Then why hasn’t Daisy at least told you or Rose, someone else?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, thinking more about this. “Do you think they’ve told everyone but us?” The idea hurts a little. Sure, we’ve kept things from all of them. We all choose who to share information with, but it definitely stings being on the receiving side, the ones in the dark.
“She would’ve told you, Lil,” Lo says with certainty. But I’m not so s
ure. It agitates him though—I can see it in his stiff posture. He hates that his brother would keep this from him. I worry, mostly, about Ryke’s intentions with my little sister. If he’s sneaking around with her, then their relationship can’t be as real as something like Rose and Connor’s. It has to be more sexual, and that makes me nervous.
I want Daisy to have the best guy out there. The one that gives her everything. Kissing in the dark, while fun, it’s not the type of relationship that will last.
“Can we just forget about it for now?” he asks. “It’s pissing me off.”
“You’re hurting Wampa,” I point out.
He realizes that he’s crushing my hat, and then he places it back on my head. His amber eyes flit over my face with a bit of longing, filled with more clarity than they have been in the past few months. I’d say: now is the time to tell him about the baby. But something dark swirls behind those eyes that frightens me. Pain that he has yet to deal with.
It’s way too soon. The weeks are ticking down, but I still have some time, I think, before I start showing.
Lo tucks a piece of my hair underneath the fuzzy hat, and then his fingers brush the sensitive skin on my neck. Shivers run down my arms. I shudder and hold onto his biceps.
“I’m happy that you’re here,” he whispers.
Happiness is better than just glad. It’s brighter and fuller and something I wish I felt more, but most of the time, I always sense it with him. “Me too,” I breathe.
He leans in to kiss me, a smile playing at the corner of his lip. I may not get this kiss so easily. I try to close the gap. He quickly leans back and then plants a kiss on my forehead.
“Just take your time,” Connor says.
I blush, but when we both turn our heads, Connor is standing in the middle of the museum with a phone to his ear. Rose sips an iced coffee and glares at a cheap cutout of an alien.
“We stopped in Roswell because Lily and Lo wanted to see the aliens,” he says. “They spent four hours in the museum—excuse me, I mean the propaganda shit hole.”
Spent. We’re about to leave, I take it. And we haven’t even reached the biggest exhibit at the end of the museum. There are extraterrestrial things left to be seen.
Lo wraps his arm around my shoulder and lets out a short laugh. “And you made us spend three hours at a graveyard,” he says to Connor. “Between us, who’s the super freaky one, love?”
Connor grins, that blinding white one, too pretty to stare at. “It was a war cemetery,” he says to the person over the phone, probably Ryke. “And Rose and I were searching for our ancestors.”
They were. The nerds were trying to find their once removed seventh-cousins.
“I won,” Rose says, raising her voice so Daisy and Ryke can hear. She stirs her ice around her cup. “I have three more dead relatives than Connor.” They speak through their eyes now, something I’ve most definitely grown fond of.
“Follow me,” Lo whispers, his breath hot against my skin, he motions with his head to the big exhibit behind a glass wall: an alien on a stretcher.
I smile and clasp his hand.
I want to believe that this road trip will end well, but a big heap of unresolved tension still pulls between Lo and Ryke.
{ 58 }
2 years : 02 months
October
LOREN HALE
We stopped at a gas station, not too long ago. The tabloid magazines were placed in a row at the check-out counter. The big bold print still flashes like blinding red headlights. I can’t get rid of them.
Sara Hale Tell-All Interview Leaves Theories Open-Ended: Investigation to continue. She neither confirmed nor denied much. All doors and possibilities are still left open for belief.
“Lo, slow down,” Lily says, sprinting to catch up to me as I storm as far away from the parking lot as I can. Red dust plumes in the air, my shoes kicking up the Utah dirt. A few couples scatter the hiking trail, and I veer off towards these red rock arches. My blood pumps full of adrenaline.
“I don’t want to see him,” I shout at her over my shoulder. I spot Rose and Connor following at a slower pace. Rose almost tips over, her heels caught on a rock, but Connor catches her around the waist and tucks her close to his chest.
She breathes with wide eyes, like she nearly fell off a mountain or something.
The other headline scorches my head.
Lily Calloway’s Addiction: Could it be linked to sexual trauma from her fiancée’s father? I’ve seen that theory before on another tabloid, but being reminded of it—it tore something inside of me that I can’t fix.
“Lo,” Lily says, reaching my side.
“I can’t…” I feel my cheekbones jutting out. In a few minutes, Ryke and Daisy are supposed to meet us at the start of the hiking trail. “He’s repeatedly lied to me,” I tell Lily, my bones throttling to march forward. Don’t stop. I return my course, storming further and further away. “You want to listen to him, that’s fine. I’m done pretending like everything is okay between us.”
It’s not. It hasn’t been since I broke my sobriety.
“It sucks,” she says, rushing to keep up with me, panting for breath. “They didn’t tell me either.”
The last tabloid was the one that cut me the worst. The one I can’t push away no matter how hard I try.
Ryke Meadows and Daisy Calloway Caught Kissing! Photographed outside of Devils Tower, a rock formation in Wyoming—she was on his shoulders, her hair chopped to her collarbones, with pink, purple and green streaks. Her head was dipped down, their lips touching, smiling.
They looked happy.
I spin around on Lily and she knocks straight into my chest. “What am I supposed to do?” I ask, my chest rising angrily. “Give him an easy time? Say it’s okay?” I point at the ground. “It’s not okay. I trusted him!” I make everything difficult for Ryke—being my friend, being my brother—but he doesn’t see how much I’ve given him, how much I’ve let him in and how much I fucking loved him.
“Maybe you both can sit down and talk it out,” she says hurriedly, reaching for a hand.
I take a couple steps back from her. “He had so many opportunities to come clean, to open up to me. To say anything that meant something to him.” I feel like I don’t even know him. Our relationship has been built off my addiction. He asks me about our dad. In relation to alcohol. In relation to my childhood. But I know absolutely nothing about his.
I don’t need him to be a twenty-four-seven sober coach.
I need him to be my brother.
Connor and Rose join us, and I stand in place, glaring ahead. “I don’t want to look at his face,” I sneer. Because I’ll see a guy that I desperately need in my life. He keeps me healthy. He’s the kick in the ass that has propelled me forward.
It’s why this hurts so much more. It’d be easier if he was Scott Van Wright or Julian. Someone I can just hate to hate.
His lies are like validations: You’re too weak to trust, Loren.
You’re just a little fucking kid.
Why would I tell you anything important?
“Hey guys!”
I rotate a fraction and spot Daisy waving as she walks down the red dirt, an unmarked path where giant rocks dot the landscape.
The sun has risen halfway in the sky, shade leaving us, sweltering my already boiling body. I watch Ryke approach, his unshaven jaw hardening the minute he meets my harsh gaze. Confusion coats his face for a brief second, and hate builds inside of me, prepared to launch it right at him.
My fingers curl into a fist. My heart is ripping to shreds. He just walks. Like nothing’s wrong. It’s my fault in the end, I remember. For trusting someone I shouldn’t have. For letting him in.
I’m the real fool.
“Love the hair, Dais,” Lily says, her voice spiking in fear.
They’re nearer. I fume, my muscles taut, stretched to the max. My feet move before my head does. A target right on my brother. I aim for him.
Ryke stops an
d puts a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “Daisy,” he says. “Go to your sisters.”
“Ryke—”
“Fucking go,” he growls.
She takes a few steps back, but she never joins Lily and Rose who stay beside a flat rock with Connor.
This isn’t just about Daisy. It’s so much more complicated than that.
“Lo.” He raises his hands, already telling me to stand down. If I was anyone else, he would hit me. He would punch me. He would throw his whole weight into my body and pin me to the ground. I am sick of being treated like a broken toy.
I am a goddamn human being. When will I ever be worthy of the truth?
“What’s wrong?” Ryke asks. “Let’s talk about this.”
We’re so close. Ten feet away. “You wanna talk about it?” I say, my voice layered with too many emotions to untangle. “I gave you a million fucking chances to talk about it. I’m so done talking with you.” I reach him, and I don’t hesitate. I can’t.
My fist pounds into his jaw. I rarely fight like this, but I just want him to put me on his level. For once. I knee him in the stomach, and he staggers, falling to the ground.
Ryke coughs, gripping the dirt.
Fight me.
“Lo, stop!” Daisy screams. She tries to rush us, but Connor grabs her around the waist and pulls her back with her sisters.
I can’t stop. Penance—that’s what I am to him. For all those years he never met me. I’m his way into heaven. Do right by me and all of his sins are absolved.
That’s why he sticks around.
Something cold drills straight through me, and I punch Ryke in the face again. He turns his head and spits blood on the dirt.
“Lo, calm down!” Lily screams. I don’t look behind me.
I just hit him again, my knuckles aching as they slam into his jaw, praying that he’ll get up. Get up. And punch me back.
“Hit me,” I sneer.
Ryke’s fingernails scrape the red dirt, almost clenching into a fist. His gaze stays fixed on the ground, his muscles tense like mine. And yet, his hands start to relax. He’s talking himself out of it.
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