“I do,” he says, nodding. “I should’ve done it months ago. The hardest things in life are usually the right things. I just hated Dad too much to do the right thing.” He throws the towel on his gym bag. “When I clear his name of the allegations, I want you to know that it’s not for him, okay?” He turns to me. “I’m doing this for you, and for me.”
I pat his back, choked up for a second. I rub my lips as I process these feelings. It takes me a minute to finally say what’s been inside of me for years. “Thank you.”
Without my brother, I wouldn’t be sober. I’m not even sure I’d be alive. His decision to enter my life and never let go was one that saved me. No thank you will repay what he’s given me. But it’s all I have. And by the smile that begins to lighten his normally darkened face—something tells me that it’s enough for him.
{ 67 }
2 years : 04 months
December
LILY CALLOWAY
I hug my chunky knit sweater tight around my body, the wind whipping my hair as I step outside. No vans parked on the street. No one snaps pictures of me. The gated neighborhood reminds me of our childhood, not all of it good, but the unease sits beneath these temperate feelings.
It’s a shelter from the media storm.
I pass a fir tree on the lawn, walking down the driveway towards the mailbox with quick steps. My cheeks rose in the cold, but nothing stops me from checking the mail every morning. I open the lid with giddy anticipation, and I spot the long tube and my excitement explodes into fireworks.
I pull it out like it’s a dream.
“You did it, Lil,” Lo says, heading down the driveway with a cardboard box labeled Christmas. One of my puffy winter jackets rests on top of it. He sets the box down and joins me.
“I can’t believe that I didn’t even cheat,” I say, waving the tube around like a lightsaber. “Towards the end, at least.” Although Connor caught me scribbling a cheat sheet on my water bottle label my very last semester. He gave me a lecture about not needing a crutch, and I tossed the bottle away before the exam. Without his tutoring skills and ethics, I would’ve never made it this far.
“Open it,” Lo smiles.
I pop the lid off the tube and delicately remove the thin paper that contains my certificate.
“Now you’re an official college graduate, Lily Calloway. How does it feel?” he asks, pride overtaking his features.
“Good,” I say. Really, really good. It took me a long time to graduate from Princeton, especially after transferring there. I passed with a very low GPA, but I passed. That’s all that matters to me. I look up at him. “But it’s not as good as other accomplishments.” Going through recovery, taking the steps to be a better me, that achievement surpasses all others.
He tugs my Wampa cap on my head, pulling the flaps over my ears for warmth. “Are you too good to hang out with me now?” he asks, propping an arm on the mailbox.
I lose myself to his amber eyes for a moment, and then I say, “We’re the same.”
His lips slowly rise, dimpling his cheeks. He nods to the box, telling me to follow him up the driveway. “I got us out of furniture shopping with Connor and Rose.” He collects my puffy winter jacket and helps me put it on through each arm.
“How’d you do that?” I ask, watching him lift the cardboard box, the handwriting looks childish. Like…one of ours when we were little.
“We have to decorate that tree.” He nods to the big ass Christmas tree in the middle of the yard. I told Rose it was going to look weird off season, but she shooed me and said that this was the house. She stood outside of it, hands on hips, like she once did with our sisterhood house. The Princeton one where our boyfriends subsequently joined us.
“Good thinking,” I tell him. I’d much rather decorate a tree than spend hours listening to Rose and Connor digress from furniture to Faulkner to Shakespeare and scientific things that hurt my head.
“Want a ride?” he asks me, bending down. I jump on his back a little haphazardly, Wampa almost flying off.
“Careful, Lil,” he tells me. He has to hold onto the box, but I have no trouble wrapping my legs around his waist and holding onto his biceps like a monkey. “Can you feel it?” he asks on the short trek to the tree. I feel him roll his eyes. “Not it but I mean him or her or whatever.”
It’s weird for me too. “Not really, not yet at least.” The bump on my belly is a little bigger but not by much. He sets me on my feet, the giant brick and stone house looming behind us. Eight rooms. Even more bathrooms.
It reminds me, every day, that we can afford our mistakes. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why we end up making more.
He squats and opens the flaps of the box. “So I was thinking,” he says, while I try to peer into it. “If we have a boy, I know what we should name him.”
My lips part a little in surprise. “You’ve been thinking about names?”
“I mean, yeah,” he says. His brows crinkle as he looks back at me. “Haven’t you?”
“Once, maybe twice.” I haven’t let myself revel in the good parts of being pregnant. But now that Lo has, I think I can begin to.
He rises from the box, holding a bundle of ornaments, plastic toy action figures with strings on their heads. From our childhood. We used to play with them during the holidays, plucking them off the Hale family Christmas tree in the den.
My heart speeds as he sorts through the collection in his hand and picks out a certain one. He passes it to me, the blue paint chipped on the X-Men’s costume. This was his favorite superhero when we were little. Not Hellion, who appeared in comics in our adolescence. And not Scott Summers, who slowly grew into a man that he admired.
In the beginning of everything, he empathized most with Quicksilver. For being the son of an undesirable man. For being rebellious and wishing that life would just hurry up already. He’s not perfect by any means, but that’s why Lo loves him: every imperfection, every flaw. He is a hero in my eyes because of each one.
“Maximoff,” he says. My tears brim. I flip the ornament over and see Lo’s name etched into the back. He draws me closer and rubs his sleeve below my eyes. “Say something.”
“I love it,” I say with a laugh the produces more tears. Maximoff. Quicksilver’s last name. And then it clicks. “Remember when we said that the best Ravenclaws are the ones who can cheer for the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs?”
Lo nods.
“Luna,” I say. “For a girl…”
He smiles. “It’s perfect…just don’t tell Rose and Connor that it’s because of them.” He knows that Luna makes me think of my sister and his best friend. “It’ll go to their heads.” Very true.
If we have a girl, the origin of her name is a secret that stays between us.
I stare back at the ornament in my hand. “This isn’t pretend anymore, is it?” We spent three years playing house together before we became an official couple. Lines between our relationship and our worlds have always blurred. Like one foot in an alternate reality and one in Earth-616.
“No, love.” Lo tilts my chin up so I meet his swirling amber eyes. “This is real.”
{ Epilogue }
2 years : 05 months
January
LILY CALLOWAY
“House meeting is in order,” Rose announces. I think she wishes that she had a gavel to bang on the table, but she has to settle for the less dramatic route. Silence.
She sits poised on a Queen Anne chair in front of the fireplace. With Connor in the adjacent chair beside her, they look like royalty presiding over us common folk. I think they know that, which is why they both seem a little too excited.
“Did you guys have house meetings back in Princeton?” Daisy asks Lo and me. Even though we all roomed together in the townhouse during Princesses of Philly, this is different. That situation was temporary and our setting was strict and guided by production. Here we have more freedoms, and that means learning to deal with each other on a new level.
D
aisy curls up with Ryke on the suede couch, adjacent to the one Lo and I sit on.
“Yeah, but King Connor and Queen Rose never had their own throne,” Lo says, his arm around my waist and fingers tucked in the band of my leggings. At least I wasn’t the only one thinking they looked like royalty.
Rose narrows her yellow-green eyes. “When you detail everyone’s complaints and suggestions and announcements, then you can sit in my chair,” she says, waving a piece of printer paper, signifying all the work she’s done.
“Or you can just sit on my lap, darling,” Connor offers to Lo, the corners of his lips curving in a grin.
Lo laughs, “Tempting.”
“Can we just fucking start?” Ryke asks, running a hand through his damp hair from his shower. Daisy’s is equally as wet, tangled in a messy bun on her head.
All three guys went to the gym this morning, and Daisy joined them at Ryke’s request. My little sister and Lo’s older brother are flying out to Costa Rica tomorrow, and Ryke needed to assess her skill level at the gym wall. She told me with a mischievous smile that he wanted to “bust her ass on real rock” which sounded so dirty in my mind, and I’m still slightly unsure whether that was a hidden innuendo for anal sex.
I should have just asked because it’s been plaguing me every time I see them together. Like dirty pop-ups. Right now, I keep my focus on Rose and her supreme posture.
“First, and most importantly,” she says, “there’s the issue about cleanliness.”
Oh yeah, I knew Ryke would be burned by Rose for the mess he leaves around. And by the disarray of Daisy’s room during the reality show—clothes everywhere—I know she prefers living in disorderly chaos too.
“Daisy and Ryke,” Rose says. “You both need to wash your dishes or put them in the dishwasher. The sink is not a trashcan. Neither is the coffee table or the garage or the den.”
“Fucking A,” Ryke groans and leans back into the couch like he can’t believe this. “We’re not twelve, Rose.”
I can feel Lo’s grin behind me, and I elbow him to wipe it clean. But Ryke catches sight of it. “What’s so fucking funny?”
“I’ve had to live with Rose for almost three years. It’s nice to see someone else suffering under her reign.”
Daisy chimes in, “Rose, I like being able to have this kind of freedom. Mom always got onto me about my room—”
“I will not be manipulated about this. Nice try,” she says, “but no.”
Connor looks impressed by Rose outsmarting Daisy, which really is a higher compliment to my little sister.
Daisy shrugs like had to give it a shot.
Rose snaps her fingers, regaining everyone’s attention. “It’s not a hard concept. If we’re living together, clean up after yourself.”
“What if I don’t fucking want to,” Ryke refutes.
“What?” Rose glares like he’s offering another choice to a true and false test.
He kicks his feet up on the table to further infuriate her. Connor says something in Italian, and since Rose only knows French, I realize quickly that he’s secretly speaking to Ryke.
“Whoa!” I hold up my hands. The room silences on impact, all eyes turning to me. Wow, that worked better than I thought. “Can I make a rule about no secrets in foreign languages?”
“Learn the foreign language and there won’t be any secrets,” Connor says swiftly.
Easier said than done. But I see the power in Rose’s eyes, like she’s accepting a new breed of challenge.
Ryke nods to my older sister. “Let Daisy and I hire a maid like we wanted.”
“No,” Lo and I say together.
Ryke groans again. Lo and I have already voiced our opinions on servers and staff, maids and butlers. We grew up with them, and this house, humongous as it is, already reminds us of the places we were raised.
Neither of us wants to return to that. To walk through the hallways, reminded of times that were darker and more sinister. Fresh starts and new beginnings mean changes, and I want to change how I live. Plus, we’ve been backstabbed and screwed over far too many times. I can’t imagine trusting someone enough to allow them free rule of our house.
“You have a warning,” Rose tells him before moving on. “Second order of business. The hot tub is not a place to fuck.” Crudeness, but she barely even falters or blushes.
And then the realness of that accusation sinks in. “Who had sex in the hot tub?” I didn’t.
“Well it wasn’t us,” Lo starts, raising his eyes at me, and he’s having a hard time looking at the adjacent couch.
Oh. Ohhhhh. I grimace as a pop-up image of Ryke and Daisy screwing in the bubbly hot waters fills my brain. Erase! Delete! Ahhhhh.
Daisy’s eyes are giant saucers, and I’m more aware that she’s much younger than all of us. She’s probably feeling that age gap right about now too. Something about us knowing that she’s having sex with Ryke makes a layer of awkwardness sweep the room. Or at least, it’s sweeping big fat gusts towards me, completely missing Rose and Connor.
Maybe their throne-like chairs have magical, immunity properties.
“Is this meeting just a way to bust my balls?” Ryke asks angrily, his hand on Daisy’s head as she slouches. His fingers are lost in her hair, and I wonder if he’s giving her a head massage or something.
“You’re not broken in yet,” Connor says. “It’ll take you a couple of months, or a year since you always refuse to be trained.”
“Fantastic,” Ryke replies.
“Not fucking fantastic?” Daisy whispers to him with a bright smile.
He actually smiles back, and his eyes graze her intimately, reserved for bedrooms and foreplay.
Connor clears his throat. “The last thing…” His eyes land on Lo, but Connor’s deep blues are filled with only seriousness. All the humor and banter dies right there. I don’t think this is about dirty dishes and screwing in hot tubs anymore. “It’s something that affects the four of you.” He scoots to the edge of his chair so that he’s a little closer to us. My heart skips a beat. “As you know, the Calloway’s publicist is revealing Lily’s pregnancy to the media tomorrow.”
All day, I’ve been bracing myself for the firestorm. If the reaction is anything like my parent’s, I’ll be facing discontent and disapproval. Lo and I aren’t married. He relapsed only a few months ago. We’re not the bright and shining couple like Rose and Connor.
But I think I’m ready to bear the judgment. I’ve been through so much of it already that I can’t see a future where ridicule tears me apart anymore.
The only snag in Connor’s statement is the beginning: It’s something that affects the four of you. If this is about my pregnancy, then why does it affect Ryke and Daisy too?
“I don’t understand,” Lo says first, his voice full of annoyance. Like the world is clawing at him before he has a chance to raise his guards.
“I spoke with a contact that I have from GBA News,” Connor says. He collects many people, so it’s not surprising that he’d know someone on the inside. “They have the exclusive rights to break the story about Lily’s pregnancy. I called him to ask what kind of backlash there would be. I wanted to prepare you two.” His eyes flit from Lo to me.
So maybe we do have time to put on armor.
“What he told me,” Connor continues, “was something I didn’t expect.”
I wait for someone to crack a joke about Connor not knowing everything, but Ryke and Lo stay eerily quiet, their silence only intensifying the moment.
“He said that people will debate whether the child is really Loren’s. Or if it’s Ryke’s.”
His announcement drops an indescribable weight in the room. No one mentions a paternity test. How if I took one, the argument would be put to rest. That’s not the point.
The point is that this is wrong. That I’ve finally trampled over the three-way rumors. I’ve finally moved on.
It’s something that affects the four of you.
Ryke is whispering
in Daisy’s ear, his eyes hardened to stone. She stares faraway at the rug and shakes her head. “We’re together,” she says under her breath.
The muscles in his jaw tighten, and he rises to his feet. “Can we have like ten fucking minutes to talk about this alone?” Ryke asks us. “It’s a big deal.”
I’m frightened to make eye contact with Lo or to even move. My little sister is dating Ryke, and now people will believe that I’m having his baby. How many times will my addiction hurt her?
Rose stands. “That’s probably a good idea.”
In a quick second, Ryke holds Daisy’s hand and they retreat up to their room. Both Connor and Rose exit into the kitchen, giving us privacy too.
I want to believe that these rumors aren’t different. But they’re ones that may actually sting both Ryke and Lo more than any others. They could affect all of us in new ways, challenge us again.
“Lil…” His voice isn’t as edged as I predicted. In a deep breath, he says, “Look at me.”
I turn my head to stare up at him. I read his features, the creases of his forehead, the flicker of hurt, but it’s not as dark as it could be.
“Is this the right thing, being here?” I ask him. I don’t want to cause Daisy anymore suffering, and if we distanced ourselves from them, then maybe—
“If I’ve learned anything in the past two years,” Lo says, “it’s that we need to be surrounded by people we love. And honestly, I don’t think they’d even let us have it any other way.”
I try to smile, but it’s a weak one. I agree though. No pushing family and friends aside. We’ve grown closer to them through every struggle, and we shouldn’t abandon that over a theory or a what if. We’re all united together by these events, a team that I don’t want to disband. Not now.
He cups my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. “One day at a time,” he says, his amber eyes boring powerfully into mine, “that’s how we’re going to take this.”
Thrive Page 39