I breathe in sporadic, choppy inhales, and my head spins so much that my vision starts to whirl with it. Lo presses his hands to my cheeks, cupping my face with strength that I do not possess. Months ago, he’d probably leave me on a bench in the hallway to go collect bottles from the liquor cabinet. Now that he’s here, I try to ingest some of his power to stand upright. But all I see is a boy who’s good and whole and a girl who’s broken and weak.
I want to be him.
I want that.
But those are my parents. And they hate me.
I think I hate myself more.
“Lily,” he says, very softly. “You’re going to have a panic attack if you don’t slow your breaths.”
Going to? This isn’t a panic attack?
“Lily,” he snaps. “Breathe. Slowly.”
I try and listen to him and focus on his chest, the way it rises and falls in a stable pattern. When my lungs feel less strained and my breath steadies, we both turn to the team of lawyers who linger in the corridor. Exhaustion sags their eyes, and they each hold stacks of papers that they’ll be sifting through for the next forty-eight hours.
The head lawyer, Arthur, holds the largest stack. “We need to discuss what should happen in the upcoming weeks.”
I don’t know what my parents have decided to do. Send me to rehab? Fly me to Switzerland? I’m supposed to tell them to go to hell, but after confronting my mother, all I want to do is make this right.
And that means giving in to whatever they want. Whatever they need. I’ll repair the damage I’ve done.
Jonathan Hale steps forward, already clutching a crystal glass of scotch. Surprisingly, like my parents, he didn’t utter a word during our briefing in the den. “I can take it from here, Arthur,” he says easily. “I think Loren and Lily have had enough of this intermediary bullshit.”
Arthur sways on his feet, hesitant to leave.
“You don’t need to relay information,” Jonathan snaps. “You need to get your ass back to your office and make phone calls and fact check the hell out of those stories. It’s time for you to go. Now.”
They disperse quickly, and Arthur hands Jonathan a couple files before he leaves. A burst of envy pops in my chest, and I’m frightened that I covet Lo’s father and want to trade mine in for the Jonathan Hale version, wishing mostly that my dad could be more supportive.
The world has gone mad.
Jonathan looks to us. “We should do this at my house. The staff here is getting on my last goddamn nerve.” On cue, one of the groundskeepers walks into the house from the back door and then speeds off in another direction. Jonathan mumbles something that sounds like ridiculous motherfuckers. But I really can’t be certain.
The farther I am from this house, the better, even if it means that we have to drive through mobs of camera crews again. Lo and I climb into my car, and before he puts it in drive, he faces me.
“I have to tell you something, and you’re probably going to be mad.”
I frown, not having a clue where this could go. I watch Jonathan’s car exit the gates, cameras flashing and clicking, the light glinting off the tinted windows.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice smaller than I like.
He licks his lips, guilt lining his face. Uh oh. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen my father since rehab.”
The truth washes over me in a freezing cold wave. I shiver and nod, letting this sink in fully. Okay. He’s lied. But he just opened up, so that has to count for something, right? Still, no matter how much I make excuses for him, I can’t help the sadness that pours into me.
I lift my legs to the seat and bury my head in my knees, hiding from Lo, not the paparazzi.
“Lil,” he says, his hand hovering above my head, hesitant to touch me. “Say something.”
I can’t speak, the words tangle, swollen in a pit midway up my throat. So Lo pulls the car out and navigates past the cameras. He explains his conversations with his father and how he went to him specifically to find the blackmailer and to learn more about his mother.
By the time we reach the street, away from the paparazzi and news vans, he has finished spilling all these secrets. After a long tense silence, he asks, “Are you mad?”
“No,” I say softly, silent tears streaming down my cheeks. I don’t lift my head from my knees. I’m just sad. I should have known and busted him like he did me. He was able to go to rehab and come back a little stronger than before. I didn’t have that. When he returned, I started back at day one, trying to figure out how to cope with my addiction and him in the same room. And I’m just realizing how much of a rock he is for me, and how much I may have let him down if he relapsed and I didn’t stop him sooner.