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Lo says, already unbuttoning his shirt. I sit on the armrest of the couch, watching my boyfriend shed his clothes. I cross my ankles, and Lo glances back at me knowingly. The corner of his lips rise.
GIGGLING.
Connor finds a hole in my declaration. “You can’t retract an offer that was never stated.” I look at Ryke. “Would you like me to fix your hair?” He opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “I retract my offer. Ha!” I raise my fist to Lo, and he fist-bumps me.
SO CUTEEE.
Rose says, “Then I’ll try to get pregnant right afterwards, just so I can have a girl.” Connor grins, a blinding one. “I don’t pray to anyone but myself, but I may make an exception, just so we can have a boy first.”
Rose’s proclamation is like his heaven right now.
How are we going to be responsible for another human being? We’ve struggled for so long just to take care of ourselves.
Lo’s face reddens in anger. “Get this through your head.” Every word is emblazoned with power. “I will never subject a child to this fucking torture. I’d rather be burned alive than live knowing I put someone through this kind of hell.” It’s like a fist has torn out my heart, snapping each artery terrifyingly slow. And he just continues on. “So destroy all of those goddamn dreams of grandchildren.”
He’d rather die than embrace the thought of bringing life into the world. “Lily,” Rose whispers. I’m okay. I internally shake my head. I’m not.
As soon as I see Lily, clothed, sitting in the plugged tub with the shower beating down on her thin body, I jump right in, the water freezing. I fit her between my legs while she trembles, while she clutches her knees to her chest. Water pours on us, soaking our hair, our clothes. And I hold her delicate face between my hands as she cries.
I feel like I’ve broken the only girl I’ve ever loved.
“Lil, shhh,” I say, her pain just tearing right through me. “You’re okay.” She clings to me like I may slip through her arms, pull back and leave. I wouldn’t. I can’t. Our love is rare. It’s one I can’t abandon, even if I tried. When she screams, an identical one rips through me. When she cries, my world rains with grief. When she loves, I truly, truly fly. I have never wanted anyone else but Lily.
And she says with a big inhale, “I’m eight weeks pregnant.”
My mind reverses back to yesterday, and I frown. What I admitted out loud about kids—I had crushed her and I didn’t even fucking realize it. I go further back. Paris. I still feel that night like a deep scar beneath my skin. I was lost, and no part of me would’ve functioned the right way with this news. She had eight weeks, maybe less, to tell me the truth. And all of them, I wasn’t strong enough to handle it.
No. I have never wanted a baby. But met with this reality, I only want to do right by Lily. I just want to fix every wrong that I have ever made. I am ready, so fucking ready, to defeat this. To never face these demons again. I am done feeling sorry for myself.
The perseverance to do anything, to be anything. To thrive. Someday, that word will belong to us too. After years of coming up short, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
“Lil…” he says softly, but it’s my turn to read the answers behind his gaze. “I’m scared too,” I admit. “We’ve never even been able to keep a goldfish alive.
He stares deeply into me and says, “I just don’t want our kid to be damaged like us.”
When we break apart, his forehead on mine, he whispers, “You and me.” I smile against his lips. “Lily and Lo.” “And someone else,” he says. And someone else.
I’m beginning to realize that we only see fragments of people, and the pieces that I’ve been given create one of the most incomplete pictures of my brother, of Daisy and their relationship.
It takes me a minute to finally say what’s been inside of me for years. “Thank you.” Without my brother, I wouldn’t be sober. I’m not even sure I’d be alive. His decision to enter my life and never let go was one that saved me. No thank you will repay what he’s given me. But it’s all I have. And by the smile that begins to lighten his normally darkened face—something tells me that it’s enough for him.
“Now you’re an official college graduate, Lily Calloway. How does it feel?” he asks, pride overtaking his features. “Good,” I say. Really, really good. It took me a long time to graduate from Princeton, especially after transferring there. I passed with a very low GPA, but I passed. That’s all that matters to me. I look up at him. “But it’s not as good as other accomplishments.” Going through recovery, taking the steps to be a better me, that achievement surpasses all others.
“Who had sex in the hot tub?” I didn’t. “Well it wasn’t us,” Lo starts, raising his eyes at me, and he’s having a hard time looking at the adjacent couch. Oh. Ohhhhh. I grimace as a pop-up image of Ryke and Daisy screwing in the bubbly hot waters fills my brain. Erase! Delete! Ahhhhh. Daisy’s eyes are giant saucers, and I’m more aware that she’s much younger than all of us. She’s probably feeling that age gap right about now too. Something about us knowing that she’s having sex with Ryke makes a layer of awkwardness sweep the room.
IMCRYING.
“He said that people will debate whether the child is really Loren’s. Or if it’s Ryke’s.” His announcement drops an indescribable weight in the room. No one mentions a paternity test. How if I took one, the argument would be put to rest. That’s not the point. The point is that this is wrong. That I’ve finally trampled over the three-way rumors. I’ve finally moved on. It’s something that affects the four of you. Ryke is whispering in Daisy’s ear, his eyes hardened to stone. She stares faraway at the rug and shakes her head. “We’re together,” she says under her breath. The muscles in his jaw
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“If I’ve learned anything in the past two years,” Lo says, “it’s that we need to be surrounded by people we love.
He cups my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. “One day at a time,”
I watch his gaze fall to my belly. And then they flicker to my features. He searches them like he’s engraining each freckle, each piece of me. “Life moves too quickly,” he says. “I don’t want to speed through a single moment. Not anymore.”
:')
