I realize Daisy is still in the dark—about a lot of things. It’s not fair to her, especially since we’ll be talking freely now. “Do you have any questions, Daisy?” I ask, slouching on the couch.
She places the remote carefully on the coffee table and sits cross-legged on the floor.
“I do have a beanbag,” Ryke says.
“I see it.” But she hugs her knees loosely, making no move. Her eyes flit to me. “I have hundreds of questions, but I can wait to ask Lily. I don’t want her to be upset if you reveal something that she wants to keep secret.”
“You’re going to hear it on the television or the tabloids anyway,” I tell her. “She would prefer if you knew the truth from me.”
She hesitates. “I can ask anything?”
Anything is a strong word, but I’m confident in my ability to deflect the too-personal questions. I agree with a nod.
“If this is going to be a Q&A, then I have a couple questions as well,” Ryke says.
I smile bitterly. “Of course you do.”
Daisy throws the nearest pillow at him. “This is my Q&A.”
He catches the pillow. “Now you’re throwing my things, but you won’t sit on the damn beanbag?”
“You’re pushy—did anyone ever tell you that?”
“I do all the time,” I say. “He never listens.”
Ryke raises his hands like what the fuck. “I’m sorry if I can tell that there’s an uncomfortable girl on my fucking floor, and I know how to fix the problem.”
“Don’t,” I warn him. We’re not opening those floodgates ever, ever again. I can withstand him being friendly to Daisy in tiny microscopic doses, but when he starts talking about girls on floors and fixing shit, it makes me nervous.
Daisy asks the first question, which doesn’t necessarily lessen any tension in the room. I’m not sure anything can after the leak. “Have you and Lily been in an open relationship?”
I like to refer to what we had as a “fake” relationship, but when we became a pretend couple, we were a couple. I had everything with her that a boyfriend would have. Except the sex. But when I think of open relationships, I picture swingers and people who have multiple partners. I’m sure the term is vague enough to encompass a variety of situations. Just not ours.
I don’t have a yes or no answer for Daisy, so I have to go into explaining what we did. How we lied to her and everyone around us. How our friendship turned into something more but still remained something less.
“Wow,” Daisy says when I finish. “All to hide your addictions? Couldn’t you have just, I don’t know, moved to Europe?”
“We contemplated it.”
Her face falls. “I was joking.”
I shrug, indifferent about it all. “Lily and I never ignored you because you’re younger. The phone calls we didn’t pick up, the lunches we canceled, all of that was because we’d rather drink and have sex than be around people. Especially ones that we’d have to lie to.”
“That’s messed up,” Daisy tells me.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Actually, I told you it was fucked up,” Ryke clarifies.
Daisy ignores him. “Why is she a sex addict? Is there something that caused it?”
My throat goes dry and my eyes flicker to the bedroom door.
Lily and I haven’t discussed the cause of her addiction, but I know she’s been trying to sparse through the past with Allison.
Lily shuts down when it comes to her childhood, refusing to look at her relationship with her family for what it truly is. I can touch her painful memories without being terrorized by the hurt, and in turn she can focus on mine without bearing the guilt. It’s a symbiosis that I’ve come to recognize after hours and hours of therapy.
Whether we allow ourselves to open up to our own feelings—well that’s something we’re both working on.
My silence lingers in the air as I try to focus on a suitable answer.
Ryke grows restless by the quiet. “I’ve read that eighty percent of sex addicts are abused as a child. Did Lily—”
“No,” I cut him off, my tone defensive and edged. My eyes bear the same heat, and I wonder if this is why Ryke has never asked me that question before.
“I’m not the only one who will fucking ask that,” he snaps. “You’re going to have to start being less sensitive.”
I glower at that word…sensitive. It makes me sound weak and fragile. It’s one of those words in my father’s arsenal. I wasn’t living up to my potential when I failed a sixth grade math test, when I had to do a group project alone after no one picked me, when I lost a Little League game. He told me I was worthless, and as a kid I didn’t know how to stop those tears. Don’t be so sensitive, Loren. You’re being too sensitive, Loren. Why are you so goddamn sensitive, Loren? So I stopped crying. Now I just get mad.