Thrive

by Krista Ritchie

  “Come on!” I yell, my eyes burning, water brimming. “I’ve seen you beat the shit out of guys twice the size of me. I know you want to punch me.” I step towards him. Treat me like I deserve to be treated. Treat me like I can handle this shit. “Fight back!”

  He staggers to his feet, his face beaten. “I won’t.”

  I slam my palms into his chest, shoving him hard.

  He holds his hands up in surrender. “Lo—”

  I sock him in the jaw. Again. He stumbles but stays upright.

  “STOP IT!” Daisy cries, her strangled voice pitching.

  I can hear Lily sobbing. It breeds more pain inside of me, clawing to get out. I can’t back down. Not now. I point an accusatory finger at Ryke. “You’re a goddamn coward.”

  His lips press closed, darkness clouding his eyes.

  “You’re so fucking scared to talk to our dad,” I say coldly. “You’re so scared to talk to your own mom.” I barrel forward, and he actually steps back, keeping distance between us. I’ve never seen him do this. The aggression still exists in him; he just refuses to use it on me.

  “What do you want me to say?” he growls. Anything you feel. “I’m fucking scared?” He points at his chest. “I’m fucking scared, Lo!” His eyes are bloodshot. “I’m so fucking scared they’re going to manipulate me into loving them when all I want to do is forget!”

  “What’d they fucking to do to you?!” I scream. I see Ryke Meadows with Sara Hale. And I see a doting mom. I see love that I never fucking had. I don’t get what happened that’s so horrible that he hates everyone that much. He just won’t ever tell me. “I lived with our dad. You sat in your pearly white fucking mansion with a mom who loved you!”

  Ryke shakes his head. Over and over. His lips pressed closed again. Why is this so hard for him? He pushes me to my breaking point every damn day. Maybe it’s finally time someone pushes him.

  “Tell me!” I yell, taking a step closer. He breathes like it hurts to inhale, a sentiment I’m familiar with. “Tell me how you had it so fucking bad, Ryke. What’d he do to you? Did he smack the back of your head when you got a C on a math test? Did he scream in your face when you were benched for a little league game?” Hot tears pour out. I am so close to him, with narrowed eyes, watching this brick wall crumble between us. “What’d he fucking do?”

  He shakes his head again.

  Goddammit, Ryke. I slam my hands on his chest another time, and he finally pushes back. I stagger but keep my balance, still standing.

  “I’m not fucking fighting you!” he screams.

  I grind my teeth and charge him again, hoping to knock him down, but his strength outmatches mine.

  His forearm rams into me, and my back is on the ground in an instant. His hands grip my wrists, his knee putting pressure on my ribs, the couple that I’d broken. I stifle the pain beneath every aching emotion.

  “I don’t want to fight you, Lo,” he chokes, his anguished face near mine.

  I feel hot, raging tears roll down my sharp cheeks. “You spend so much of your fucking time trying to save me,” I breathe, “and you don’t even realize that you’re killing me.”

  His hard, masculine face just contorts in pain.

  “The news isn’t just in Philly, you know. It’s everywhere we fucking go. All the way to a gas station in Utah.” I let out a weak laugh. “They think he molested me. The whole goddamn nation.” Saying it out loud to him—the weight of the words smash into me, harder than any fist could. “People think my own father touched me, and you won’t do a thing about it.” I stare right into him, a question on the tip of my tongue, one I’ve wanted to ask. I never pressured him about the allegations. Never pushed him. Maybe I should have earlier. Like he’s always done me. “Why do you believe them and not me?”

  “I believe you,” he whispers. Maybe I shouldn’t trust him, not after all the lies. He could be placating me, afraid that I’m too close to this dangerous edge. But he wears a haunted look, one dragging him back to the past. This isn’t about me. It’s about the demons he’s buried. It always has been. Finally, I think he realizes that.

  “What the fuck did he do to make you hate him so much?” I ask, referring to our father. I expect another brush off, so I’m surprised when he finally talks.

  “He chose you,” he says with a hollow, dark voice. “He chose his bastard kid over me and my mom, and I fucking lied for him my entire life. I hid my identity for him. I had no mom in public because I was a Meadows and she was Sara Hale. I had no fucking dad to show for.” His eyes drill into mine, filled with hurt that he’s refused to come into contact with. Hate. For everyone. “I saved his reputation, and he buried me six feet in the fucking ground every single day he chose you over me, every day he paraded you around and shoved me aside. I couldn’t breathe I was so fucking angry.”

  I find a real hole in his words, one that latches onto me like a parasite. “I thought you knew about me when you were fifteen.” How many opportunities has he really had to come meet me?

  “I told you that I met him at a country club every week. I knew his name. I knew he was my father. He was a fucking socialite, so I was smart enough to figure out that his son was my brother. They just didn’t tell me until I was fifteen.” His arms shake, not with fear, just pissed. He crawls off of me but stays on his knees, exhausted. His face is reddened everywhere my fist landed.

  I stay on my back and stare at the blue sky. And I wonder. I wonder what it must’ve been like to be him. Alone, no real dad or mom. Friendships that mean less when you can’t explain who you are.

  “I hold grudges,” he confesses. “But I think you do too, Lo.” My jaw locks. I give him a hard time. Because I’ve been jealous of his strength, of the way people respect and trust him. Not because he showed up late in my life. The fact that he appeared at all is more than what I would’ve done. How could I keep holding that against him? If he feels any regret about that, then he’s projecting it on me. Beating himself up about it.

  Our dad has always been at the center of our grief, and I recognize how hard it must be to help a man that has shit on you, cast you away and chosen the bastard. I get it now. But I’m also a part of this mess.

  A cloud rolls over the sun, and I say, “I just wish you could love me more than you hate him.” I turn my head to the side, facing my brother’s mostly hardened features that rarely break. My eyes glass again. “Is that even fucking possible?”

  He lets out a deep breath. “I love you, you know that.” He touches my leg in comfort.

  My body tightens. “You didn’t answer my question.” Yes or no. Will you stand up for me?

  “I don’t know, Lo,” he says. “I want to. I want to so fucking badly, but it’s not as easy as wishing for that kind of peace. I hate him for things he did to me, for the things he does to you.”

  I sit up and wipe my face with the bottom of my shirt. “Jesus Christ,” I laugh shortly. “You don’t get it. I deserved every word he said to me. You didn’t know me in prep school, Ryke. I was a fucking shit. I was terrible.”

  He glares. “Don’t ever fucking tell me that you deserved it. No one deserves to be beat down every fucking day.”

  I feel like I did. Still do sometimes. I exhale, my eyes flickering up to his as I say, “He’s never touched me.” It’s the truth. I know the whole world may never believe me, but I need the people closest to me to.

  Ryke holds my face between both of his hands, his brown eyes boring into mine, flecked with hazel. “Stop defending him. Not to me, okay?”

  He’ll never love my father the way I do. It’s impossible to even try to convince him. He just doesn’t see the good that’s hidden beneath all the bad. Or maybe, he just thinks the bad parts outweigh all the good.

  I draw back, the tension loose between us. But there’s still something left that we have to confront. I’m not leaving this desert with more things left unturned.

  I gesture to the red welt on his cheek. “That bruise right there, that’s f
or fucking my girlfriend’s little sister by the way.”

  His lips part in horror.

  { 59 }

  2 years : 02 months

  October

  LOREN HALE

  “Tabloids caught you making out just outside of Devils Tower.” I dig in my pocket for my new cell that I bought after the old one was destroyed in the riot. Then I scroll through Celebrity Crush, finding the picture of Daisy on my brother’s shoulders, both of them kissing. I throw my cell at him, and he catches it in his hands. “The photograph is on every gossip site.”

  Off his shocked expression, I’m guessing he never saw the headlines. The longer he looks at the picture, the more his face settles on rage, his eyes glazing with this darkness. Then he chucks the phone back. It hits me in the jaw before thudding to the ground.

  I pick it up and dust off the casing. “Pissed you got caught?”

  He stays quiet. Not again.

  I internally growl in frustration. “Please talk to me,” I snap, “because I need to understand what’s going on or I may just punch you again.”

  He shakes his head, his shirt covered in red dirt like mine. Bruises begin to form on his jaw. “It just happened.” His voice is husky and lowered, like that’s all he’s ever going to give me.

  It just happened. I blink a couple times. “It just happened?” I’m so tired of hearing that. “That’s a really shitty thing to tell me.” He runs his hand through his hair, red dust billowing. “You fuck Lily’s little sister, and you say, oh it just fucking happened? What’d you fall on her? Did you add her to your tally of girls? Is it a one-night stand kind of thing?” My chest thrums in worry, in fear that all of this could be true. He’s never said otherwise.

  “That’s not what I fucking meant.” He grimaces and rubs his face with his hands quickly, like maybe he’ll wake up and this issue will just be buried with everything else.

  I won’t let him. “Then what did you mean?” I ask.

  He looks at me. “It’s serious.”

  “So serious that you shared it with everyone.”

  “Because I knew you were going to jump down my fucking throat!” He springs to his feet with this fury, and I rise to mine, my ribs expanding with each heavy breath.

  “If you cared about her, then you wouldn’t be sneaking around like you’re doing something wrong!” What am I supposed to think? He’s an older guy. She’s a younger girl. And if he liked her at all beyond just sex, he’d be with her. For real.

  “Fuck you!” Ryke shouts, veins protruding in his arms and neck. “You’ve made this impossible, Lo!”

  “She’s EIGHTEEN!” I yell, nearing him. And even though his nose flares in anger, he forces himself to step back. “She’s like my little sister. It wasn’t supposed to be possible! But you didn’t care. You still banged her.” I trusted him. I accepted him into my life, and if he hurts her at all, it’s partially my fault.

  He cracks his knuckles, probably to stop himself from forming fists.

  “Your cock finally got the best of you, didn’t it?” I ask. “She turned eighteen and you could finally stick it in—”

  “No, it wasn’t fucking like that!” His muscles flex and knuckles whiten, hands balled into fists.

  “I should leave you alone in this desert,” I tell him. “I am kicking myself right now, for every time I let you near her, for every time I let you be alone with her—”

  “You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.” He huffs in aggravation, but he never explains himself. I wait a second, expecting him to clarify. I can’t read your fucking mind, Ryke.

  “I don’t know what I’m fucking talking about?” All I have to go on is what I see. And not all of it is good. Most of it is just inappropriate, starting from when she was fifteen. “How long, Ryke? Tell me that, how fucking long have you liked her more than just a friend, and let’s see if it’s all in my head?”

  “I don’t know.” His hard gaze falls to the red dirt.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” I say, a tremor in my voice. “How long—”

  “Stop,” he grits.

  I take another step towards him. “No, how long—”

  “FOR YEARS!” he screams, blood rushing to his face, red and pissed and tormented. I don’t want to believe him. Even if I have for so long. Even if I’ve seen it right in front of me. “Is that what you want to hear?! Years, Lo.”

  I wished that it wasn’t true. That he didn’t drag Daisy into our family. That girl deserves to be free from this shit. “You’re lying?” I say.

  “I’m not,” he says, tears welling in his eyes. “I have been so fucking attracted to that girl. And I never planned on doing a fucking thing about it. I never was going to try. And I tried…I tried so fucking hard not thinking about her like that.” The honesty pours out of him. “It was wrong. I knew it was fucking wrong. I suppressed everything as much as I could.”

  He liked her from the start. “Then why not stay away from her?” I ask. “Why not put a hundred fucking feet between you and Daisy? You flirted with her every day, Ryke. You became her friend.” It sounds like a motive to end up with her, like he was just waiting around until she became the right age.

  “I convinced myself that nothing would ever happen, so I thought it was okay to push further.”

  “You’re a fucking idiot!” I shout. Seriously. The moment he decided to be a part of her life, it was over. “She was so hot,” I say, “that you couldn’t say no after she became legal—”

  “No,” he interjects, stepping forward with purpose and rage. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Then what was it fucking like?!” I shout, trying to pull something out of him that he won’t let go.

  And then he screams, “I FUCKING LOVE HER!”

  My jaw drops, his words physically knocking me back a couple steps. I just—I scan his features, his eyes that plead for me to understand and scorch with emotion.

  “I fell in fucking love with her,” he finally explains. “It hurt to be away from Daisy. It hurt to watch her with other guys. Everything fucking hurt, and I didn’t want to live with that pain anymore. I fucking couldn’t.” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t tell you when it became unbearable, but it did.”

  I scrutinize him for a while, letting every single syllable sink in. It hurt to watch her with other guys. I spent years being the best friend of a sex addict. I spent years loving a girl who opened her door to every guy but me. And there isn’t one day that I would wish that kind of torment on my brother or a friend. Not one.

  So I say, “I understand, more than anyone, how painful it is watching someone you love be with other people.” I pause. “But you can’t really love her—”

  “I’ve known her for over two years,” he says. “I’ve spent so much fucking time with her, Lo. We’ve been through a lot together, so yes, I fell in love with her.”

  I look over my shoulder, at the girls. Lily has her thin arms wrapped around her tall sister while Daisy cries, wetting Lily’s shirt. I turn back to Ryke, but he’s still staring at Daisy.

  His expression—it’s beyond just caring for her. I remember him sympathizing with Daisy some years ago, in Cancun; I remember Ryke explaining how they were raised by similar kinds of mothers. But this is empathy reserved for one other person in your life, the type that some people may never even feel. It’s just written all over his face.

  No matter how weird it seems, this is how it’ll be. I’m not going to separate two people that love each other. I wouldn’t intentionally do that.

  When he focuses back on me, he speaks again. “You can leave me here,” he says passionately, “but I’ll find a way back. I can’t leave her, and I won’t leave you, no matter how hard you fucking push me out.” His eyes bleed with this distraught strength, an oxymoron that I can understand. I’ve had that same look in context of Lily.

  “How much did it hurt?” I ask.

  “Did what hurt?”

  “Watching her with other guys.” />
  He flinches back like air escapes him. After a short pause, he says, “It felt like someone was drowning me in fucking salt water and lighting me on fire.”

  I almost give him a weak smile. “Same.” I steady my breaths. “I need some time.” To get used to them. Together. Christ. It’s fucking weird. “But I’m not going to hit you again. So revel in that.”

  “Thanks,” he says.

  I nod. “I wish you fell in love with another fucking girl.” I’m going to wish it every day that my father attempts to use Daisy to get to Ryke. Just to try to patch up their relationship. It’s something Jonathan Hale would do in a heartbeat. Maybe Ryke doesn’t realize that yet.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I really fucking am. For lying.”

  I shrug. “You didn’t want to get hit.” What’s past is past. I want to restart. Maybe we’ll both have more faith and trust in each other after this.

  “No,” he says. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  I know. “I’ll get over it. Just…give me fucking time.” I walk towards the girls who all huddle together, talking while Daisy rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. In his button-down, clean and undusted, unlike our clothes, Connor watches us with that impassive face, the one I can’t read very well.

  And I don’t sense my brother behind me.

  I stop and spin fully around, turning my back on Connor. The reddish marks along Ryke’s eye start to purple underneath, winding my emotions. I’m sorry. I’m still not sure if he’ll ever go to the press, to vouch for our father, for me. But I’m truly sorry that my existence caused him so much pain.

  He lived the bastard life, in disgrace and hiding, all this time. And I didn’t even know it.

  He must read my eyes because he saunters ahead and stands beside me. We start walking together, towards everyone. And I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder.

  He flinches at first, startled by the acceptance.

  But then he rubs the back of my head, messing my hair roughly. “I’m glad you hit me.”

  “Why is that?” I ask.

  “Not a lot of people stand up to me.” Because he’s intimidating, and if he wants to keep his problems hidden, no one is stupid enough to go up against him, just to let those things surface. “I’m happy you did.”