“It means what it means,” I breathe. “He doesn’t have anyone besides you and me. I just need to know you’ll be there.”
“And so will you,” he snaps.
“Not if my parents force me into rehab or halfway across the country.” My mother will want to bury away this problem by transporting it to a different time zone.
“You’re almost twenty-one. You’re a fucking adult. Your parents can’t make you do shit, Lily.”
“I owe them—”
“For tarnishing the Fizzle name? For bringing you up with cash and luxury?” He keeps shaking his head. “You and Lo have it so warped. You think you’re indebted to your parents because they gave you everything you have. But they didn’t give you what fucking mattered. They owe you. They owe you for not asking why their daughter isn’t home. Why she looks distant and sad. Why she has barricaded herself in a fucking apartment with her boyfriend. They have failed you, and if they tell you to get on a fucking plane or go to rehab—where we all know you shouldn’t be—then you need to tell them to go to hell. And if you don’t, Lo and I will. I promise you that.”
The right words stay at the back of my throat—thanks, Ryke. It’s a hard phrase to produce, especially when he delivers his opinions with such fervor and force.
I land on something though.
“Go Fish.”
He lets out a short laugh as he reaches for the deck. “You’ll be fine, Calloway.”
At least one of us believes it.
{ 32 }
LOREN HALE
I lean against the bathroom wall, staring at my pallid face and sunken eyes. I look like utter shit. I feel even worse. My left hand keeps shaking, and I have to clench my fingers into a fist just to make it stop. My father bitches me out on the other line for ignoring his previous calls.
“I’m in the goddamn air,” I remind him curtly, keeping my voice low so Ryke doesn’t hear. “Unless you’d like reception to magically be invented over the ocean.”
“Hey, I’m just as fucking livid as you are.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I say, my voice slightly breaking. I don’t want to be talking to him while Lily looks one second from opening the hatch and jumping from the plane without a parachute. And every time I picture her crying like that—goddamn, I can’t start. I rub my eyes to push back the emotions. I want to kick the wall so fucking hard, and I swallow a scream that needs to escape.
“Whoever this motherfucker is,” my father says, “I will personally rip him a new asshole, Loren. You hear me? He’s not getting away with this shit.”
I have to ask. “Did you do it? Did you leak it?” One week after I told him, the news exploded across the globe. Is it really all a coincidence?
There’s a long pause. And then this: “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Did you not hear what I just said? I have busted my ass trying to find this fucker.” He growls a little. Yeah, it’s not him.
“Then who?” I ask. “Who would do this? What do they possibly have to gain?”
“Money,” my father says flatly. “We’re still working on some leads.”
I bring the phone away from mouth and struggle between not shouting and screaming my head off. No sound escapes, but I catch myself in the mirror, and I look like I’m fighting an invisible battle against a shadowed enemy. I look crazy and tortured.
“I have to go,” my father says quickly. “Greg is on the other line. I’ll talk to you soon. Keep your head up.” Words of encouragement from my father. Those don’t come often. So I take them.
We hang up at the same time. I lean over the sink and splash some water on my face. Trying to get my shit together.
I should call Brian, the therapist that Ryke and Lily believe I’m talking to about my deep inner thoughts. But I can’t discuss alcohol. Even the thought makes my stomach turn. Because Lily shouldn’t be worried if I’m going to relapse. The world is crashing down on her shoulders, and I don’t want to add to that weight.
I let out a long breath, bearing her pain that feels so much a part of me. We’ve become entangled, years and years of lies and childhood memories and stories all wrapped into one. I know her better than her sisters. I know her sometimes better than she does herself. I know just how much this is killing her inside.
And then one thought punctures me.
I’m here.
I could be at a bar. Passed out cold.
I could be in rehab. Away from her.