When he doesn’t ask what I said, I suspect he heard. “I know I can be a royal asshole. But I love you. You’re my best friend, and the only person I’ve ever told that I have a problem. It doesn’t matter if we’re in a fucking fake relationship. We’re supposed to talk to each other. Come to me before you go off the deep end, okay?”
I wipe the last of my tears and sniff. “How’s Cassie?”
“She hasn’t been in the apartment in days, Lily,” he says, reminding me of all the time I lost in my hazy state.
“What happened?” My chest lightens, and I hate that I’m taking pleasure in his aloneness.
“There’s this girl who ran out of my apartment.” He pauses. “She looked like a bat out of hell. She barely combed her hair, not unusual for her”—he shrugs—“but she seemed pissed, and the only difference in our relationship had been this new blonde girl on a bar stool. So I dumped her, figured it may solve a problem or two.” He waits, tilting his head at me while I process what he just said.
My chest swells.
“Did it?” he asks.
I should be the better person and say no, let him have a normal life with a beautiful blonde bombshell. But I’ve never been good at the morality bit. “Maybe.”
He actually smiles and rests a hand on my neck. He kisses my forehead before I can form thoughts, and when he pulls away, his lips brush my ear. “I’m here for you. Always.”
I take a deep breath, his words enough to guide me into the clinic with my head upright and my shoulders back. I’m going to be okay. Whatever happens, at least Lo will stay by my side.
*
After the health clinic, Lo mixes himself a drink at the counter while I make plans to study for an upcoming exam, popping open my laptop and spreading out my notes on the bar. Once I find two weeks of neglected practice problems for economics, I realize how far behind I truly am.
There is an upside. I’m clean. Free of diseases and complicated decisions. Like rehab or abortion clinics. I choked Lo to death when the test came back, hugging the life from him as I cried in relief. I don’t know what I would have done if he didn’t know my secret—if I was alone with the knowledge of my problem.
Long before we started our fake relationship, I helped hide Lo’s addiction on every occasion. I would smuggle him into one of my guest bedrooms at Villanova until he slept off a hangover. I’d kick bottles of Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark underneath his bed before the maid lurked around and his father inspected the stateliness of his son’s things.
Back then, he would lie to my sisters about my weekend plans. Most were spent at parties hosted by public school kids. Screwing boys from different schools helped diminish rumors about me at Dalton. I was calculated in the selection.
Then one chilly night in October, I crawled through Lo’s window. With Jonathan Hale at a conference in New York, I could have used the door, but ever since I watched Dawson’s Creek I believed there was only one way to make a proper entrance.
I was seventeen and tear-streaked, and I just had sex. Lo sat on the hardwood floor, his phone in one palm and a Glencairn whiskey glass in the other. He jumped to his feet as soon as he saw my matted hair and smudged mascara.
“Who was it? Did he hurt you?!” Lo frantically scanned my body, looking for wounds.
“No,” I said with a grimace. “He didn’t…it’s not him.”
Leaving Lo confused, I walked to his desk and picked up the bottle of Maker’s Mark. He grabbed it from my hand before I could even uncap it. “This is mine,” he said.
“So now you don’t share?”
“I never do.”
I rubbed my arms, feeling empty and cold. He kept staring at me as if his intrusive gaze would open me up. I guess it kind of did.
“The party was pretty lame,” I muttered under my breath.
“Apparently enough to make you cry,” Lo said bitterly. He cringed at the sound of his own voice and took a swig from the bottle. Then stepped forward, eyes softening as he rubbed his mouth. “You know you can tell me anything, Lil. I’m not going anywhere.”
Lo knew most of my dirty secrets by then. The sex. The porn. The constant self-love. But telling him about this had been the hardest part of our friendship. It felt like admittance to something unnatural.
I sank down on the mattress while Lo stood holding the bottle by the waxy red neck, waiting for me to start.
“It was fine. The sex was fine.”
Lo rubbed his temple in distress. “Lily. Spit it the fuck out. You’re driving me crazy.”