“I’m sorry,” I say in a small, tired voice.
Ryke raises his hand. “I’m going to call Lo. You cannot start crying and have a breakdown over the phone. He can’t do anything to help you right now, and you know how much that’ll kill him.”
I nod wildly, my heart lifting at the very idea of speaking to him. “I promise.”
He hesitates before dialing.
I lean my arms against the bathtub rim, nearly falling over to be closer to the receiver—to hear his voice.
After a couple rings, Ryke says, “Hey, did I wake you?” He rolls his eyes. “You’re such a fucking smartass…yeah, well, I have someone here who wants to talk to you.” He pauses and then glares at the ceiling. “No, she’s fine. She just finished talking to her therapist.” He rubs his jaw and then nods to himself before holding out the phone to me.
I grab it quickly, but once I have it against my ear, my thoughts start to sink somewhere foreign. I forget what I planned to say. Maybe I had nothing to tell him. Maybe, I just wanted to hear his voice. I whisper, “Hi.”
“Hey,” Lo replies back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryke kicking my comforter back into the living room. He avoids the vibrator and doesn’t ask questions about it, but my cheeks flush, mortified all the same. I sink lower in the tub.
“It’s Daisy’s birthday,” I tell him. “I’m in Mexico.”
“Ryke told me already.”
Oh.
Ryke props the door open against the wall and nods to me. “Don’t close this.” He heads to his chaise, plopping down with an exhausted sigh.
Long, silent tension pools over the phone, and I lose track of what I should say. I’d rather not bring up the fact that I’m sitting in an empty bathtub after an emotional meltdown. I don’t want to give him another reason to avoid me when he returns home. Because who in their right mind would want to take care of this?
I’m about to mention how we’re all going ziplining tomorrow at Daisy’s request, but he beats me.
“So what happened tonight?”
Shit.
“Nothing really, and I don’t think we should talk about it. You’re all the way over there.” Wherever there is. No one will tell me his exact location. He could be in Canada for all I know.
“If Ryke handed you the fucking phone—someone who definitely disapproves of our relationship—then I know it had to be bad. I want to know, Lil.” This is not how I imagined our conversation. I thought we’d avoid the topic like we’ve always done in the past. He briefly mentions alcohol. I’ll say a little bit about sex, but when things become messy and truly focus on our addictions, we abort.
“It wasn’t bad,” I mumble under my breath. “Ryke told me not to bring it up. I think we should talk about something else. You need to concentrate on your recovery, not worry about me.” I hesitate from going further. Dr. Banning invades my mind, and I can almost hear her saying that Ryke is wrong. That separating from Lo isn’t the answer. Finding a healthy way to be together is.
But does he still want me? I’m not so sure. I wipe my eyes.
He lets out a short, bitter laugh. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to be worrying about it all fucking month, Lil. And Ryke hasn’t fully comprehended the fact that I’m going to eventually come home. And when I do, I’m going to be with you again. We’re going to have to start talking and reforming a better relationship. If I can’t handle this shit over the phone when I’m sober in rehab, then I shouldn’t be returning home anytime soon.”
All I hear is: I’m going to be with you again. I bring the receiver away from my mouth and wipe uncontrollable, silent tears that stream down in an avalanche. A huge pressure rises off my chest. I feel like I can breathe again.
“Lily?” he says in a frantic voice. “Lily, you there? Lily, dammit…”
I put the speaker back. “I’m here.”
I hear him exhale and breathe heavily. “Don’t do that. And don’t make me fucking guess what happened.”
I rest my back against the tub. “It’s embarrassing,” I admit.
“So?”
“So you really want to do this? To talk and stuff…”
“If we want to stay together, like really stay together and not go back to enabling each other, then yes, we’re going to have to talk. I need to know when you’re freaking out, and you need to know when I am so that we can stop each other from doing stupid shit.”