“Ryke,” I whisper. I have to know what happened.
He takes a deep breath. “I guess it started after Lily’s sex addiction became public.” My brows pull together, recognizing how long ago that actually was. “Daisy was teased a lot by stupid fucking teenagers from her prep school. On New Year’s Eve, she said some fucking guy kept throwing condoms at her.”
I glare. “What?”
Ryke’s eyes narrow. “They kept making fucking remarks about Lily…”
“Because she’s a sex addict?” My voice shakes.
“Yeah,” Ryke says. “Everyone wanted to believe that Daisy was one, would become one, whatever would fucking create a good story.” Veins ripple in his forearms, his muscles tense. “And then during the reality show, a camera guy, not part of production, broke into the townhouse one night, and he went into her room and started taking pictures.”
I pale. “Where was I?”
“Asleep,” Ryke says.
I glower. “Why did no one tell me about any of this? It’s been over a year.”
Connor interjects, “It all started because of Lily’s addiction.” Guilt. They were afraid of saddling Lily with more and more guilt.
I recall all the articles that speculated how Daisy would turn into a little Lily, a future sex addict, but I never saw how it affected her. She hid it too well from us. “She seemed happy.” I cringe. Not happy exactly. Daisy has always been sad, in a way. Depressed. I’ve known it like everyone else.
“She was miserable,” Ryke confirms. “She had trouble sleeping almost every night after the fucking guy broke into her room.”
“What about after the show?” I ask, staring off, dazed by the reality of how much our addictions have truly affected those around us. It’s a double-edged sword. We need their support, but in being closer to them, we’ve only made their lives harder.
They probably thought we’d rationalize Daisy’s issues as a reason to step away from them, to distance ourselves from the people that have lifted us every time we’ve fallen. Maybe we would have.
“Daisy had to move back home after the show, remember?” Ryke says, shaking his head at the thought. “I hated it because I saw how bad she was during Princesses of Philly, and I couldn’t go into that house when her mom was home. So she was largely dealing with the ridicule by herself.” He pauses. “And then something worse happened before she graduated.”
Connor sets down his cup, and the confusion on his face takes me aback. “You don’t know either?” I wonder.
“No,” Connor says, his eyes like pinpoints on Ryke. “You never told me.”
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” Ryke retorts. He’s been waiting for Daisy to rehash everything to her sisters. He looks physically ill. “I hate even thinking about it.”
Connor pours more coffee into his cup, listening intently with me. I have no clue what more could’ve happened to her. It already feels like too much.
“She had a couple prep school friends named Harper and Cleo,” Ryke says. I try to prepare for the worst. “On their way back from shopping with Daisy, the girls stopped the elevator.” He hesitates for a second. “Some guys had told Harper and Cleo that they wondered how many inches could fit inside Daisy.”
I flinch back. “What?” I snap angrily.
Connor keeps his expression blank on purpose, which just irritates me more.
“They had bought a couple dildos,” Ryke continues.
“No.” I shake my head repeatedly, imagining just how this ends. I have met kids as bored, as cruel and as fucking stupid as ones like that. I have been the subject of harassment all throughout my adolescence, some justified, others without reason. I can taste the fear and the hatred that swallows my youth.
I would never wish that on someone like Daisy.
“She fought them off,” Ryke says, anger swarming his eyes like he wishes he had been there to stop it all himself. “But only after they gave her an ultimatum. She could either put it in or they’d torment her until graduation. She chose the latter.”
No.
I shake my head. No. “She lived in fear for how many fucking months?” Scared to walk the hallways, afraid that something equally terrible would occur at any single moment.
“She had six months left,” he says.
I crash forward this time, my elbows on the counter. I bury my face in my hands. Six months. Post-traumatic stress. “I’m sorry,” I immediately say. That’s why he wanted Daisy to live in the same apartment complex as him. That’s why he spent so many days and hours with her.