I am grown up.
I’m more of an adult than him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Ryke shouts, his face blood-red as he steps nearer. I shove him back before he storms ahead.
Connor even helps by grabbing Ryke’s bicep and forcing him beside us. Before he yells and reignites old arguments, I just want simple answers.
“How long?” I ask our dad, a tremor in my voice. “How long have you been drinking behind our backs?”
He prolongs the answer with another swig of scotch. His smug smile irritates me the most. The way his lips curve. Like it’s funny that he’s drinking. And I’m not.
That’s it for me. I just snap.
I run across the den before I can process my movements. And I struggle to pry the goblet from his iron-grip. Somewhere in my head, I’m thinking: if I can get it away from him, it ends this. But it doesn’t end like this. I know better than that.
“Loren!” he sneers and pushes my shoulder. With two palms, I shove him back even harder. He stumbles into the window and clutches a waist-tall vase for support.
I’ve never been physical with him, not like this. But I am screaming inside. Disappointment and hurt crush beneath everything. I take a couple steps towards him and try to remove the glass again, but he raises it above his head.
“Stop acting like a little shit!” he shouts. “Talk to me like a grown fucking man.”
My throat is on fire. “Like you, Dad? Talk like you?! Are you a grown fucking man?” I point at his chest. “Is that what you are?” I swallow a brick. “How long? How fucking long have you been lying to me?!” My face twists with too much pain.
I get it.
I get relapsing. I am a master at it. I also understand pretending and lying. It eats at vital pieces of you, but it rips the people you love apart.
I am at the mercy of it.
I am on the other end. Shreds of a former self.
“Get a fucking grip and we’ll talk,” my dad sneers.
“Fuck you!” That’s Ryke. Seething behind me. “You’re a sad, pathetic excuse for a father. And I believed you when you said you’d fucking try.” He steals the bottle of scotch. “What is this?” The pain in his voice silences my father.
He goes eerily quiet.
“WHAT IS THIS?!” Ryke shouts again.
My dad flinches and shuts his eyes.
With raw lungs, each breath comes roughly for me. My head spins, but I ask my dad one more time. “How long?”
His eyelids open. And his hollow gaze meets mine. “Since Daisy’s birthday on the yacht.”
Nausea builds. That was months ago. A lifetime ago.
Ryke laughs angrily, which morphs into a scream. He pitches the bottle at the wall, and it shatters, alcohol sliding down the paint. He destroys the nearest bookcase, knocking over paperbacks and tearing apart a shelf. His rage has always been in his fists.
Mine resides somewhere else.
“Congratulations,” I say dryly. “You’re a better liar than me.”
He raises his glass like he’s toasting to my words.
“Stop,” I tell him before he presses it to his lips, panic shooting into me. “Just stop, Dad. You can always try again. It’s not over.”
He shakes his head like I’m wrong. I’ve always been wrong. “It’s over for me, son. I’m not going to pretend anymore.” And then he finishes off his glass.
Ryke squats, breathing heavily, and then he kneels. He can’t look at our dad. He knew—early on, I guess—that if our dad relapsed he couldn’t be convinced to try again.
It’s harder the second time around. I know it. I’ve been there. “Please,” I beg. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you can do this.” I sound pathetic, the worst part of me believes. I refuse to give into that part. This is right. What I’m saying is right.
“You don’t understand,” my dad tells me in a controlled voice. “I don’t want to try again. So stop pleading like a little—”
“Okay,” I cut him off, not waiting for the insult that I don’t fucking deserve. I can’t give up on him. Ryke wouldn’t give up on me. But I’m not prepared to be a sober coach.
My dad sets down his empty drink, and he finds a new target across the room. His probing gaze lands on Connor. “Does Loren know what you’ve done in your past?” he asks him. “Or better yet…who you’ve done.” His brow tics, and his features darken in distaste.
“This isn’t about me, Jonathan,” Connor replies with ease. “Deflecting the issue here won’t help you.”
He lets out a weak, manic laugh. “Nothing will help me.” He buttons his suit jacket with a shaking hand, one that almost matches mine. “In less than a year, I’ll be gone.” He turns to Ryke, broken picture frames lie by his knees.
My brother must feel the heat of our father’s gaze because he raises his head.
“You can stop assaulting my things and celebrate,” our dad says. “Your dear old pathetic father will be dead. Hooray.”
My lips part in confusion. “What are you talking about?” He’s not making sense.
“That.” He points to the glass on the desk. “Has killed me. Or will kill me.” He flashes me a dark, agitated smile. “I received the news a couple weeks before the yacht trip. Liver disease. Cirrhosis. Non-reversible.”
Before my legs buckle beneath me, I dazedly find the couch and sink onto the leather cushion. The weight of his words silences the room. I rub my lips as I process his declaration.
He’s dying.
I choke on a pained laugh. He’s really dying.
The only parent who has ever loved me. The one person who gave me a chance at life. He’s going to be gone? Just like that.
I hear his voice. “Stop crying, Loren. Don’t be a baby.”
I go to wipe my eyes, my stomach roiling at his words.
“Fuck you,” Ryke sneers. He rises to his feet. “You tell him you’re dying and then the next minute you say shit like that? Who the fuck are you?” Connor reaches Ryke’s side and places a hand on his shoulder, partly, I think, to restrain him.
My dad scowls at the liquid dripping down the wall, I’m sure wishing it was all in his glass instead.
I clench my hand that trembles brutally. I can practically feel the alcohol sliding down my parched throat. The bitterness and power. All in one.
I breathe out. “If you have liver disease, you shouldn’t be drinking.” Hasn’t he thought of this? My doctor educated me on the topic, even sat me down with a dietician to create a post-recovery health plan. But it doesn’t take that formality to see the obvious.
“I’m dying anyway,” he says with edge. “Might as well revel in life’s few luxuries. Whisky and women.”
Women. The word stands out to me. “Is that why you’ve been bringing dates to functions?” I ask. Why he’s been choosing women half his age. Why he hasn’t even attempted to hide this part of his life from me.
“I’m enjoying the company while I can,” he admits.
I shake my head, heavy and weighted but it’s starting to clear. “There has to be other options.”
“There’s not.” He shuts it down immediately.
“What about a liver transplant?” I ask, knowing this road exists.
He laughs. “I’m so far down the donor list you can barely see my name. There are some things money doesn’t buy.”
He’s forgetting something. “I have your blood type. We’d be a match—”
“No.”
That’s all he says.
I grimace. “What do you mean, no?” I shoot to my feet, my veins pumping. “This could save your life and you’re just going to say no?”
He stares at me, square in the eye, no retreating. “You’re not doing that for me.” So this is pride? Compassion? I don’t understand.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I snap. “If I want to be a donor, I’m being your donor.”
“You want to try, have at it then,” my dad combats. “Your liver is in tiptop sha
pe, I’m sure.”
“It’s better,” I argue. Like most alcoholics, I used to have fatty liver disease. But it goes away with the right diet and sobriety. I’ve been healthy for almost a year now. “They only need to remove a portion of it, right?” I turn to Connor for confirmation.
He nods once. “It’s not an easy recovery, Lo. This is a major surgery.”
I don’t care. It’s life and death, and I’m not going to stand by and watch my dad die. I can’t do that, no matter how terrible he can be. He deserves a second chance. Everyone deserves another fucking chance. I’m going to give him one.
My dad opens his mouth to protest again, to tell me no. I’m sick of that word.
“I’m doing this,” I say first. “You’re always telling me how you saved my life.” He wanted me when my own mom didn’t. “I want to save yours.”
He blinks a few times. It’s not like he decides all of a sudden. He stands there and stares at me, like it’s a contest to see which one of us backs away first.
I don’t move. I might have a year or two ago. Maybe even five months. Ryke would’ve been the one to rival Jonathan Hale. To stand up to him. To shut him down.
Now it’s my turn.
I never flinch or give him the easy road because I love him. I love him, so I’m going to give him the hard road, the better one. Like Ryke always did with me.
“You look different,” my dad says. Fear flashes in his eyes…the most human thing I’ve ever witnessed from him.
“I’m older,” I remind him.
He shakes his head, just as Lily had done before. “It’s not that, son,” he says in a whisper.
I know. I feel different.
He sniffs loudly, controlling his emotions. Then a minute or two later, my dad finally shuffles to his desk. He crouches behind a drawer, and I hear bottles clink together. He emerges with four handles of whiskey. My alcoholic father, who has spent more days with liquor than without, tosses his whiskey in a nearby trash bin.
And he walks away from them. Heading towards me.
I let out a long breath. When I turn to look for Ryke, I think he’ll be happy about our dad’s choice. But he’s not here. I spin around, casing the area. He’s probably outside. Where he can breathe.
“I’ll talk to Jonathan about our situation,” Connor says, reminding me about why we first showed up. “You should go find him.” Ryke, he means.
I hesitate to leave Connor alone with my father, who already seems aggravated at the idea of conversing with him. I’d rather not push my dad towards the four bottles of booze he just rejected.
But I’m too concerned about Ryke to stay.
My decision is an easy one.
{ 55 }
LOREN HALE
I find Ryke in the driveway. The rain has stopped. Without Connor’s car keys, he’s left waiting by the Escalade. He sits on the edge of the pavement—where the cement meets the grass. His knees are tucked to his chest, his face buried in his hands.
My pulse quickens. “Hey,” I say softly, approaching my older brother.
He runs his fingers through his hair, but he never looks up. His gaze transfixes on the ground.
“It’s all worked out,” I tell him.
He shakes his head a single time, and his fingers clench his thick brown hair.
I rub the back of my neck. “I know you don’t like him…and you probably don’t want me to be the donor. But I can’t just let him die.”
His eyes redden, and his jaw hardens. I’m saying the wrong things. Christ. What do I say? Ryke’s not me. He doesn’t think like me. He never has. It’s why we’ve had too many fights. Why it took years to build our relationship. We’re always on separate pages. Different chapters of the same story.
I waver uneasily, wondering if I should bend down to comfort him. Or stay upright, towering above his frame. I end up frozen in place. “Ryke…” I choke out his name.
His nose flares, and he lets out a heavy breath. His hands fall to his sides, and he finally raises his head. Tears surface that he couldn’t bury. “He told us that he was dying,” he says, his voice trembling, “and the first thing I felt was relief.”
I watch water roll down his cheeks.
“That’s sick,” he breathes. “Really fucking sick.” He gestures to me. “You’re the one who should be relieved. You’re the one he’s abused. You’re the one who had to live with him.” His throat bobs. “But you didn’t even hesitate to help him, even when he didn’t ask for it.” More than vulnerable, Ryke stares right at me, his chin quaking and his features torn up.
I’ve personally seen him like this maybe twice before. When he learned his mom betrayed him, outing Lily’s sex addiction to the public. And then in Utah. When we fought each other with our fists. Almost a whole year ago.
And then he says, “You always think you’re the bad guy, Lo. But you’re not.” His head hangs. “You’re fucking not.” He buries his face in his bent knees again.
This time, my joints work, and I sit beside my brother. I wrap my arm around his tense shoulder that shudders with his body.
“I know him better than you,” I defend. “That’s why I want to help him.”
Ryke stays quiet for a minute. “What if you can’t, Lo?” he asks in a whisper. “What happens then?”
The bottom of my stomach nearly drops. I don’t want to think about it.
“Because you know there’s only one other option.” Ryke stares at his calloused hands, chalk residue on his palm. “And I don’t know if I can make the same choice as you.”
I pinch my wet eyes and squeeze his shoulder like it’s okay. There’s a good chance he shares the same blood type as me and my father. But I won’t ask Ryke to be our dad’s donor. That’s too much. He’s already done enough.
“It’s okay,” I say the words aloud.
“It won’t be,” Ryke refutes, choking on a sob. “You and I fucking know it won’t be. Because in the back of your mind, every day when you have to fucking look at me, you’ll be thinking the same thing.”
“No,” I tell him, shaking my head adamantly. No, I won’t.
“You’ll think I killed him,” he finishes. He swallows hard again. “And here I thought my relationship with Daisy would ruin you and me.”
“Stop,” I snap, shaking him a bit. My fingers dig into his shoulder. And I feel his tears fall on my hand. “It’s not going to happen, Ryke.” It’s not going to happen.
But somewhere in his mind, he’s doubting everything. “Yeah…we’ll see.”
{ 56 }
LILY CALLOWAY
For the tenth time Lo checks his cellphone, his mind far, far away from the comics that line his desk. I’ve accompanied him to the Halway Comics office above Superheroes & Scones. He asked me to.
I can tell that he yearns for the quick fix, even if it’s the very thing destroying his dad.
Maximoff sleeps in his carrier on the couch, and I set down an old New Mutants comic and rise from the blue sofa. Careful not to wake him.
“When did they say they’d call?” I ask Lo, resting my butt on his desk.
“Hm?” His brows knot as he stares at the indie comic. He’s been on the same page for ten minutes. Lo is a slow reader but not that slow.
“The hospital,” I clarify, nudging his arm with my finger. “When are they supposed to call?” He was tested this morning. To see if he’d be eligible for the liver donation. The surgery frightens me, but I’d support Lo no matter what. His emotional distress would be harder to watch than any recovery from the transplant.
“Today or tomorrow.” He pushes his rolling chair away from the desk and swivels to me. With one hand, he reaches out and clutches my hip. I smile as he guides me to his lap. I find myself straddling him.
A very good position, indeed.
He brushes my hair from my face, his fingers grazing my skin with lightness and care. “I know you’re nervous about it, Lil,” he breathes. “But it’s all going to be okay.”
Th
e office door suddenly swings open, and about the same time I spin around, the wood shuts closed, the person out of sight.
“I’m sorry!” Maya calls through the other side. “I should have knocked…”
Lo laughs, like a real humored one. And he whispers to me, “She’s carrying about ten plastic Thor hammers.”
I smile at that image of my super geeky store manager. She’s also proven her loyalty by not sharing any personal info with the press.
“It’s okay!” I shout back to her.
Lo kisses my cheek before I climb off him. “You’re not red,” he states like a fact.
I look at my arms. No blushing elbows. No rash-like flush. I beam. “My superpowers are—”
“Kicking in?” he finishes for me, his hypnotic amber eyes right on mine. His lips pull upward.
“It’s a lame superpower, isn’t it?” I ask as I head to the door. The ability to avoid roasting from head-to-toe—it’s not very grand or epic but at least it’s something. Right?
“Horrible,” he banters. “You’re better than that, love.”
I smile. “Am I?”
He nods. “Most definitely.”
With this nice confidence boost, I open the door. Maya lingers with a heap of plastic Thor hammers in arm. Her glasses fall to the bridge of her nose and her straight black hair frizzes like lightning struck her. “I’m sorry, Lily,” she apologizes again, her eyes permanently widened in terror.
“We weren’t really doing anything,” I tell her quickly. Heat gathers on my neck, a red heat. Damn. That lasted too short. “Do you need help?” I motion to the merchandise she juggles.
“This? No, no, I have it. It’s just…” She leans in close and whispers, “There’s a girl who keeps asking for Lo. She’s been here the past two weeks, and she says she’ll keep coming back for as long as it takes.”
Jeez. I gently shut the door to Lo’s office, not wanting to disturb him. He’s in a weird place, and I don’t think he should be handling super fans.
“Maybe she’ll be satisfied with just me?”
Maya nods repeatedly.
I leave Moffy with Lo and descend the twisty staircase into the Superheroes & Scones break room. A few employees perk up by my sight. I haven’t been present much since my son was born, and it’s been easier to communicate by email and phone.
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