I’m praying he’ll withstand the blow.
{ 62 }
2 years : 03 months
November
LILY CALLOWAY
“Let’s talk about the future little Calloway,” Jonathan says at the dining room table, Sunday family luncheon in session.
“Cobalt,” Connor corrects him, sipping his wine.
Jonathan’s eyes flicker to the liquor briefly, but he makes no motion to switch his coffee for alcohol. I can barely believe he’s sober. I don’t even think Jonathan believes it, but three twenty-four-seven sober coaches sit on chairs by the door, proving that he’s dedicated to his rehabilitation.
“Right,” Jonathan says. “Whatever you need for your baby, Hale Co. will provide: toys, cribs, diapers.”
After Connor learned about Rose’s pregnancy on the road trip, my sister announced the news to the family and subsequently the world. Television networks have been proposing a new reality show that focuses on the days leading up to the birth. They’ve turned them down, but the excitement from fans, family and friends is palpable.
I just have a strong feeling my news will have the exact opposite effect.
“I’m barely warming to the idea that I’m breeding,” Rose says, pinching the stem of a wine glass, water only, “so can you please not talk about baby toys? The last thing I need to think about is a toddler smacking me with a rattle.”
“The best part,” Lo says, “those toys have my last name scribbled on the side.” He gives her a signature half-smile. Rose’s baby playing with a Hale-monogramed toy—that’s a picture she would not accept in any universe.
Rose’s eyes narrow icily. “I’d like to see the reviews on those plastic rattles. I bet twenty kids have choked on them already.”
“That insult died in your womb.”
Rose rolls her eyes. “Your insensitivity isn’t anything new, Loren.”
“I’m sorry,” he says flatly, “I didn’t realize that witches had feelings beyond satanic anger.”
Okay, this is heading in dangerous territory. I pinch Lo’s arm, and he takes the hint, grabbing his water to stop himself from going on.
“What happens if you have a boy?” Daisy asks from the other end of the table, with Ryke, Sam, Poppy and my dad. Ryke has his arm around the back of her chair, which may or may not be a good move. I can’t tell where my father is concerned. He cuts his prime rib with a steak knife, looking to Ryke every so often in stiff warning.
Rose silently fumes at the question, her knife ripping into her salmon. She demolishes the tender piece of fish, and Connor rests his palm on Rose’s hand. She slows down her jerky knife movements.
Rose says, “Then I’ll try to get pregnant right afterwards, just so I can have a girl.”
Connor grins, a blinding one. “I don’t pray to anyone but myself, but I may make an exception, just so we can have a boy first.” He wants lots and lots of kids, so Rose’s proclamation is like his heaven right now.
“Your prayers won’t work against fate,” Rose retorts. “There’s a fifty percent chance I’ll win over you.”
“It’s not fate. It’s science, darling.”
“We’ll see then,” she says.
Connor’s grin stretches across his face, and he says a word or two aloud in French and then stops himself. He rarely looks irritated, but on account of a certain someone lying about their foreign language knowledge, it has induced a Connor Cobalt scowl.
“What other languages don’t you know?” Connor asks Ryke from across the table. All this time, Ryke has understood what Rose and Connor whisper about in French. So unfair. He’s fluent in French and Spanish, for sure, from studying as a kid, per his mother’s strict request.
“Why?” Ryke asks. “Is it that important that you talk in code with your wife?”
I raise my hand sheepishly. “I just want to add,” I say to Connor and my sister, “that I don’t understand some of the things you say in English. That is all.” Everyone stares at me for a hot second, and I kinda slump in my seat, regretting that interjection. There are just way too many people at this table.
Connor tells him, “Rose only knows French, so that’s really not the point.” He goes off and adds a couple words in what sounds like Italian.
Ryke absentmindedly replies back in the same language, just as fluent.
Connor looks amused, like he’s playing with a new toy that’s built to test his wits. He switches to German, which sounds pretty on his tongue, but Ryke has enough of this game that Connor wants to start. He shuts it down with a middle finger.
My father looks ticked off, wiping his mouth with his napkin. I’m sure he wanted someone less vulgar for Daisy.
But my little sister hardly cares about my dad’s feelings. She pushes her food around on her plate, more sullen since the jail incident. She just hasn’t forgiven our parents yet.
Lo asks the nearest server to bring out coffee, and I realize it’s for me. I’ve been yawning more than usual, and on the plane ride from California to Pennsylvania, I basically passed out from exhaustion. He’s catching on. Yesterday he said that he’d take me to the doctor, but I mumbled a no thanks and distracted him with sex. Not one of my most noble moments.
After lunch, I remind myself. He’ll learn that our new future will consist of an extra person. I stare at the white tablecloth. It’s scarier when I think of it like that. How are we going to be responsible for another human being?
We’ve struggled for so long just to take care of ourselves.
“So when will you start showing?” Lo asks Rose, actually nicely. Maybe this won’t be so bad.
“I already have a small bump,” she says, trying to salvage the salmon she demolished on her plate.
“What happens when they find hooves on the ultrasound?” His nice streak didn’t last long.
Jonathan cuts in, “Honestly, Loren, when you take over Hale Co. you have to be more sensitive to these things. The company has already been through hell and back. It won’t survive if you don’t care about the industry.”
Lo grinds his teeth before saying, “Like you’re so sensitive? Like you care about this shit?”
Jonathan devours the insult with a harsh glare. “When you’re a father—”
“That’s just it, I won’t ever be a father,” Lo interjects, gripping the table as he leans closer to Jonathan. My heart catapults to my throat.
I’m paralyzed from head to toe.
“You love to do the opposite of everything I say,” Jonathan declares. “I tell you to run. You walk. I tell you to drink. You get sober. I tell you to lead my company. You start your own.”
I remember—one time, maybe on our very first date as a real couple—Lo professed a similar acknowledgement of his teenage rebellion. But this is different.
Lo’s face reddens in anger. “Get this through your head.” Every word is emblazoned with power. “I will never subject a child to this fucking torture. I’d rather be burned alive than live knowing I put someone through this kind of hell.” It’s like a fist has torn out my heart, snapping each artery terrifyingly slow. And he just continues on. “So destroy all of those goddamn dreams of grandchildren.” He rises to his feet. “Your Hale empire begins over there, with him.” Lo points at Ryke down the table. “Not me.”
He throws the cloth napkin on his seat and walks away, fuming.
I can’t follow him. My haunted, petrified gaze is fixed on my half-eaten plate of food. Tears are submerged beneath the weight of his opinion. He’d rather die than embrace the thought of bringing life into the world.
“Lily,” Rose whispers.
I’m okay.
I internally shake my head. I’m not.
I don’t see how I can ever break this news in a good way. I don’t see how this can ever be okay like I hoped.
{ 63 }
2 years : 03 months
November
LOREN HALE
“We’re offering a solution,” Connor tells me, sitting in the
living room. For Christ sake’s, every time we attempt to watch a movie, a serious conversation is somehow brought up. “It’s nothing to be upset about.”
I touch my chest. “I’m not going to live with you. You’ve been a great roommate for these past two years, but you’re having a baby, man.”
Everything has changed with Rose’s pregnancy, and the topic is honestly straining my relationship with Lily. She’s been distant from me since the luncheon. And I know it hurts her that we’re never going to have kids, but it’ll hurt even more if she’s reminded of it every day with Rose and Connor’s baby hanging around us.
I add, “You don’t need to be dealing with our shit on top of that.”
“You’re not ready,” Rose chimes in. “You relapsed only a few months ago—”
“I’m never going to be ready, Rose!” I yell, my pulse thrumming. “If you’re waiting for me to be cured, then you might as well give up now. This is going to last forever. Not a month. Not a few years. I’m an addict. I could very well stay sober for ten years and relapse again. You gotta accept that.”
Her face marbleizes. “And what about Lily?”
“I can take care of her like I always have,” I say adamantly, but a pressure weighs on me. I’ve been doing a good job until…I don’t know. Maybe when we returned back to Philly. After the road trip. She’s just withdrawn from me. It’s the worst goddamn feeling in the world.
“Oh,” Rose says, “you mean when you spent years letting her have sex with different men every night.” It’s like a right hook in the jaw.
I can’t even stomach that part of my past anymore. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I brought Lily into my arms sooner, that I supplied her with everything she was searching for, stopping her before she sought it with other men. That I quit drinking for her, from the start.
I channel the hurt that courses through me into something darker, but I notice the small bump through Rose’s black dress. And I stifle a vindictive retort.
“That’s your pregnancy pass for the fucking night. Whoever is growing in your belly is a demon. Straight up making you evil.”
Rose holds her hand out like shut up. “I don’t care about the baby. I want Lily to live with us, and if she wants to, then you shouldn’t be fighting me on it.”
“She doesn’t,” I shoot back.
“Have you asked her?”
“Yes!” I shout. No. I grimace internally, my hands shaking. I just haven’t hand the chance, really.
“How long has she been gone?” Ryke suddenly asks.
And the bottom of my stomach drops. I check the cushion next to me, already knowing Lily isn’t on it. “Shit,” I curse. I shoot to my feet. Fear rattles my bones, vibrating every ounce of me until I’m filled with dread and panic. And the rawest form of adrenaline.
Just forced to act by instinct. I barely hear Connor announce how long she’s been gone. I don’t wait for them to follow. I run to the one place she retreats to whenever she battles her addiction.
* * *
“LILY!” I scream, jostling the doorknob to the bathroom. I pound on the wood. “LILY!” Fear has already begun to cannibalize my soul. Yesterday, she rejected me when I attempted to kiss her after the luncheon. I thought space was what she needed—I didn’t think that it was this bad.
I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems that I couldn’t see what was happening. I cannot lose her. Not for a moment. Not for second.
She is the only reason why I’m still living this life.
I frantically try to enter the door, the water gurgling through the walls. The shower is on.
“Move,” Ryke tells me.
I shift so he can slam his shoulder into the door. After two tries, it blows open. He barrels in before me, the shower curtain rings clinking against the rod as he yanks it back.
As soon as I see Lily, clothed, sitting in the plugged tub with the shower beating down on her thin body, I jump right in, the water freezing. I fit her between my legs while she trembles, while she clutches her knees to her chest. Water pours on us, soaking our hair, our clothes. And I hold her delicate face between my hands as she cries.
My chest collapses, every part of me screaming inside. I feel like I’ve broken the only girl I’ve ever loved. And all I want to do is rearrange the pieces and put her back together. I search her eyes that brim with tears, and even when Ryke shuts off the faucet, we both shake from more than just the cold.
“Lil, shhh,” I say, her pain just tearing right through me. “You’re okay.” She clings to me like I may slip through her arms, pull back and leave. I wouldn’t. I can’t. Our love is rare. It’s one I can’t abandon, even if I tried. When she screams, an identical one rips through me. When she cries, my world rains with grief. When she loves, I truly, truly fly.
I have never wanted anyone else but Lily.
“I’m…sorry…” she sobs, her black, long-sleeve shirt sticking to her thin body. She buries her head into the crook of my shoulder, and I hug her close, rubbing her back. Warming her with the friction. This is catastrophic. Another Wednesday, where we both lie exhausted and fractured on the carpet. Clung to the fact that we can’t live without each other, but beaten down by the roadblocks that say we should.
“Sorry for what, Lil?” I whisper.
“I meant to tell you…” Lily murmurs, coming out of her hiding place on my shoulder. Her wet hair is darker and molds her pale cheeks, sadness pouring out of her eyes. I stroke her head. It’s okay, Lil. “Yesterday, I was going to…I got scared…”
“Lily…” I say softly. “…you can tell me anything.”
“Not this.” She shakes her head, crying profusely. I brush my thumb over her cold skin. “Not this.”
Hot tears roll down my cheeks. She could have cheated on me. The thought chokes me for a second. I can’t think of anything else that would cause her this much agony and guilt. My lips are close to her forehead as she stares at her hands, like they’re a gateway out of this world.
I take them in mine, lacing our fingers together. One at a time. If she wants to leave, I’m coming with her.
“You have to tell me, Lil,” I whisper as more water pools in her green eyes. “I can’t guess.” I try to hold back more emotions, but I connect so succinctly with her that it’s almost impossible not to feel every single thing. Like the flick of each nerve. Like fingertips to fire then snow. I am terrified of what she might tell me, but I am more scared of losing her. “Please…don’t make me guess.”
She nods a couple times, staying quiet. And then her lips part in shock and realization. “Do you think…you think I cheated?” Her face shatters at that possibility. What? I almost start crying heavily. I suck it down, my nose flaring from holding it back.
This pain. It’s like someone bulldozes me flat. On the ground. “I don’t know, Lil,” I breathe. “You’ve been acting distant, and you didn’t come with me to Paris, so you had that time alone…I just, I don’t…I don’t know.”
“I didn’t cheat,” she says, her chin trembling again. She looks like she could punch me in the arm, like she usually does. But she has no energy to do so, no fight left for that blow. “You have to believe me.”
“I do, Lil,” I say, taking a breath, not of full relief. “But you have to fucking tell me what’s going on.”
“I was upset…overwhelmed.” She rubs her eyes with her palm but the tears have yet to cease. “And I wanted to do things and I just thought…this would help.” The shame builds as she glances between the showerhead and her knees, crumpled into herself.
“Just spit it out,” I urge. “Whatever it is. Just get it off your chest right now, love.” I just want her to feel okay again.
She focuses on our laced hands. “I didn’t know how to tell you…I thought while you were in Paris, I’d figure out a good way to say it, but I don’t…I don’t think there’s a good way. And I just kept putting it off, thinking tomorrow will be the day.” She keeps rubbing her eyes.
Then finally, she drops her hands.
And she says with a big inhale, “I’m eight weeks pregnant.”
I go cold, like a car impacts me on the right side. Glass shattering. The car swerving. Spinning. The airbag popping into my chest, knocking the wind right out of me. The shock and fear pummels me into a state without thoughts.
“You can’t be…” Blood rushes to my head. My eyes fall to her stomach, the black shirt that suctions to her belly. I roll the fabric to her ribs. I mistook the faint bump as weight gain. Nothing detrimental to our lives. Nothing that could overturn us.
I finally look to the other people who’ve been standing in the bathroom. Ryke. Connor. Rose. Rose. “You’re pregnant,” I say to her.
“We both are,” Rose says in a quiet voice, scared of me. Everyone is frightened of me.
Of how I’ll react.
I have never once wanted a child. Never even considered it for a moment’s time. I’m selfish, damaged and spiteful. No matter how much I love Lily, there are things about me that will never change. “That’s not possible,” I say. Though it is. With the amount of sex we have—too much and too careless—this could’ve always been an end result.
“The probability is slim but it’s not impossible,” Connor answers, his hands casually pocketed in his slacks. He’s known this for a while. “Their cycles had synced up after living together. I don’t use protection with Rose, and I’m sure you didn’t with Lily.”
“I forgot to take my birth control a few days,” Lily whispers, not able to meet my eyes, staring only at her hands, the ones I’ve abandoned. “I didn’t realize it…”
I pick up both of her hands again, and her tears fall harder. I squeeze them. “You could’ve told me sooner.” My mind reverses back to yesterday, and I frown. What I admitted out loud about kids—I had crushed her and I didn’t even fucking realize it. I go further back. Paris. I still feel that night like a deep scar beneath my skin. I was lost, and no part of me would’ve functioned the right way with this news.
Thrive Page 37