I look over my shoulder, at the girls. Lily has her thin arms wrapped around her tall sister while Daisy cries, wetting Lily’s shirt. I turn back to Ryke, but he’s still staring at Daisy.
His expression—it’s beyond just caring for her. I remember him sympathizing with Daisy some years ago, in Cancun; I remember Ryke explaining how they were raised by similar kinds of mothers. But this is empathy reserved for one other person in your life, the type that some people may never even feel. It’s just written all over his face.
No matter how weird it seems, this is how it’ll be. I’m not going to separate two people that love each other. I wouldn’t intentionally do that.
When he focuses back on me, he speaks again. “You can leave me here,” he says passionately, “but I’ll find a way back. I can’t leave her, and I won’t leave you, no matter how hard you fucking push me out.” His eyes bleed with this distraught strength, an oxymoron that I can understand. I’ve had that same look in context of Lily.
“How much did it hurt?” I ask.
“Did what hurt?”
“Watching her with other guys.”
He flinches back like air escapes him. After a short pause, he says, “It felt like someone was drowning me in fucking salt water and lighting me on fire.”
I almost give him a weak smile. “Same.” I steady my breaths. “I need some time.” To get used to them. Together. Christ. It’s fucking weird. “But I’m not going to hit you again. So revel in that.”
“Thanks,” he says.
I nod. “I wish you fell in love with another fucking girl.” I’m going to wish it every day that my father attempts to use Daisy to get to Ryke. Just to try to patch up their relationship. It’s something Jonathan Hale would do in a heartbeat. Maybe Ryke doesn’t realize that yet.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I really fucking am. For lying.”
I shrug. “You didn’t want to get hit.” What’s past is past. I want to restart. Maybe we’ll both have more faith and trust in each other after this.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
I know. “I’ll get over it. Just…give me fucking time.” I walk towards the girls who all huddle together, talking while Daisy rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. In his button-down, clean and undusted, unlike our clothes, Connor watches us with that impassive face, the one I can’t read very well.
And I don’t sense my brother behind me.
I stop and spin fully around, turning my back on Connor. The reddish marks along Ryke’s eye start to purple underneath, winding my emotions. I’m sorry. I’m still not sure if he’ll ever go to the press, to vouch for our father, for me. But I’m truly sorry that my existence caused him so much pain.
He lived the bastard life, in disgrace and hiding, all this time. And I didn’t even know it.
He must read my eyes because he saunters ahead and stands beside me. We start walking together, towards everyone. And I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder.
He flinches at first, startled by the acceptance.
But then he rubs the back of my head, messing my hair roughly. “I’m glad you hit me.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“Not a lot of people stand up to me.” Because he’s intimidating, and if he wants to keep his problems hidden, no one is stupid enough to go up against him, just to let those things surface. “I’m happy you did.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hit back,” I say. “And it’s not like it was a complete selfless act.”
He rolls his eyes. “Can’t you take a compliment and not turn it into a character assassination of yourself?”
“Maybe someday,” I say. But not today. I pat his shoulder and then drop my hand.
I’m more at peace with him now than I have been in years. It took blood and a hot desert, but we reached this place.
I can almost breathe again.
{ 60 }
2 years : 03 months November
LOREN HALE
“Get away from the window, Daisy,” I say with edge. She presses her forehead to the glass and clutches the door handle, peering out of the car as far as she can. But her view is blocked by cameras who attempt to capture us through the tinted windows. Paparazzi have swarmed my father’s Escalade that’s parked outside of the jail. Back in Philadelphia.
Anderson,
my dad’s driver, sits idly in the front seat while we wait for my father and hopefully my brother to return.