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It was then. That I fucking knew how much I really understood her. How much I related to the loneliness in her eyes. I felt closer to her in a way that I couldn’t articulate.
And then, suddenly, dangling bulbs illuminate. What. Rounder and bigger than Christmas lights. Dozens of them. All at once. My lips part. They’re strung horizontally along trunks, creating a bright pathway into the thicket of trees. Leading somewhere.
He walks towards me, my heart racing with his lengthy stride. I watch his hand disappear into his pocket, and I can’t speak, a soulful force tugging locked parts of me. For a rare moment, I am utterly still.
“I made your life crazy,” I whisper. He nods like it’s a good thing. “Yeah, Dais. You made it fucking crazy, and I’ve been so crazy in love with you.”
“I fucking love you.” Tears build in his eyes. I’m crying more, and his thumb brushes my cheeks. “All I need is you.”
“You’re my family, Dais. And if it’s only the two of us in the end, I’d be just as fucking happy.”
“At Janie’s first birthday party, I asked them if they’d be okay if I married you.”
“I’ve been in contact with Emily here and there to hand her checks for keeping Loren’s birth quiet,” my dad explains. He takes a deeper breath and scratches his neck. “Apparently, Emily decided last night was a good time to tell me that Willow was also my daughter.”
This really may be true, and if it is… Willow is Lo’s full sibling. Willow is my half-sister.
Jane Eleanor Cobalt is speaking French. I should clarify: a one-year-old baby is uttering French words,
We’ve had two serious conversations in the past month about having babies. One short. One long. Each time we came to the same conclusion. We want to try now.
“If the doctor said I could carry a baby myself, I’d planned to ask you something…” She offered to be my surrogate, but now that I might not need her like that—I do still want her to be a part of this in another way. She listens intently. “Would you consider trying to get pregnant the same time as me?” I wonder with a smile. It’s no secret that Connor and Rose want more kids. They’ve been postponing because of my situation, and I don’t want her to wait that much longer.
Ryke wheeled me out of the hospital yesterday—one less ovary and one less tube after surgery.
“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” I tease. “And how am I looking at you?” “Like you love me.” “I do fucking love you.”
“We’re together,” Willow suddenly says, briefly lifting her hand up with Garrison’s.
“Never give up or back down on the things that fill your soul, Calloway. There is no worse life than a hollow one.”
I lock eyes with Willow for a millisecond before she turns her back on me and hangs her head. It’s a new reaction, something I’m not fucking used to yet. A couple days ago, Lo let it slip that she’s Jonathan’s daughter.
Every day, I can feel myself growing into my own skin, and I love myself more than I ever have. Ryke is a variable in my life that has led me here. I know it.
“There was a time where I tried to contain you from what I imagined was harm’s way, but you helped me realize that I can’t bottle lightning.”
“Then, one day, I realized that you are lightning. You can’t be bottled or contained anymore than she can. And together, you both make a beautiful, perfect storm.” She raises her champagne glass. “To my daughter and her husband-to-be, I hope you only know true happiness.”
“Hey, Sully,” Daisy says before she hugs him. He hugs back like she’s a fucking stuffed animal and mouths to me, I love her.
Watching Ryke surrounded by the one thing he has truly always loved is absolutely priceless. I’ve never found a passion, not like Ryke, but observing his carries me to new heights.
It hits me about this moment. When he still can’t find a foothold. It hits me. That I may witness his death.
“We’ve narrowed it down to a continent,” I tell him, “but we’re still trying to pick a country.” Sully looks to Ryke for the final answer. And he says, “South America.” We’re going to be married in South America.
The wind takes her brunette hair, and my love for this girl just fucking floods me.
“I may have never been to camp,” Daisy says, “but I’m more determined to build one. Where summer-long campers make new friends and live their wildest adventures.” It’s the most Daisy Calloway thing in the entire fucking world. A place that brings happiness to kids through wilderness, friendship, and thrills like zip-lining and ropes courses.
It’s a dream-like feeling. Making love with the hope to procreate.
“I’m not writing up a business proposal for you, Richard. I’m defending myself and our unborn child.” Unborn child. Just like that, the meteor explodes against the fucking world.
The facts: Connor and Rose planned to postpone trying for a baby until Daisy got pregnant. So that Rose could be her surrogate if her sister had trouble on her own. Now we can pretty much cross surrogacy off as an option for the next year or even two years. Another fact: Connor and Rose should be happy. We should all be fucking happy. Adding another kid to their family—this has been one of their dreams and goals. No one should diminish their joy.
“I’m just Ryke Meadows now.” It took me about ten years to settle with this decision. I’ve always wanted to change my first name, to disassociate from my dad. To become more of the person I am and less like the person he wanted me to be. Like all things attached to Jonathan, he never made it fucking easy for me. My inheritance and my trust fund are tied to a simple stipulation. I couldn’t legally change my first name without losing both.
Panda bear is a code name for getting pregnant. It would be devastating if the media found out before I told my parents, so one night over nail polish and a One Tree Hill marathon, we all concocted secret terms.
Lo sets a firm hand on my shoulder. “Pardon my brother, we both suffer from the same hereditary disease called being a dick. Assholes Anonymous couldn’t even cure us.”
It’s the feeling of being alive. I reread the text, guaranteeing this is happening. Daisy: I think I might be pregnant.
I’m not pregnant. Again. The New Year’s Eve false test can be added to the other ones.
Relationships that take the most effort and the most time become the mightiest, most resilient bonds in the end.
“Christ, don’t say it,” Lo interjects, “the baby has hooves.” “Babies,” Rose amends. My mind can barely process the word. Or even the plural form of it. Lo immediately glares. “You were going to let us bet on the gender when you’re having goddamn twins? That’s the dirtiest thing you two have done in a while.”
“These following months are going to be very important,” Dr. Yoshida says. “Getting pregnant was the first step, now carrying the baby to term will be your next big challenge.” Blood drains out of my head, like I’ve been hung upside-down. “I don’t understand.” Dr. Yoshida finally smiles. “Congratulations, Daisy, you’re pregnant.”
“We’re going to have a baby,” I whisper, tears dripping down mine. He nods and smiles, wider than almost anytime ever before, and he says, “Yeah, Calloway. We’re going to have a fucking baby.”
The irony is not lost upon most of the table. Everyone—minus my parents and Jonathan and maybe nine-year-old Maria—share furtive glances. Full well knowing that I have a surprise in my oven, and it’s been baking for ten-weeks. My sisters cried when I told them, but I’m not sure my surprise constitutes as a “good” one for my father.
I brave a look towards my parents. Wide-eyed, my mom has her hand to her throat like she’s choking. My father is as pale as the tablecloth. “Surprise,” I say with quaky lightheartedness. “I’m pregnant.”
Why can only certain girls be “meant” for something? It shouldn’t be bad to want to be a mom. It shouldn’t be bad to want to only have a career. It shouldn’t be bad to strive for both or nothing at all. We all should just be what we want to be.
YES!!
It’s impossible to forget the kind of love that rattles my bones and screams I am alive every single day of my life.
It’s not that I don’t love my father enough to do it. It’s just that I like the idea of freely giving myself away. Without needing the final approval of anyone but my own heart and my own voice.
Do you want to know what love feels like for me? It’s breathing and suffocating. Sobbing and smiling. Yearning and fading. To ache that much harder. To live that much larger. It’s every moment. Every single, tiny one.
I had no preconceived notions of what I’d feel today. I didn’t think that fucking far ahead, but waiting for the bride to step out, my bride, shortens my breath. More than anyone else, I just want to see her. And then she rounds the hedge. I’m almost knocked back. I take an audible inhale, my gaze fixed on her unparalleled smile and her golden blonde hair.
In the last moments, I see her walking down the aisle. Her smile like the sun. Radiating. Radiating. All around me. Watching her. Light up the world. Before it darkens.
“On transit to the hospital,” the radio says, “Ryke Meadows was pronounced dead.”
Some say that you don’t know what a person means to you until they’re gone, but I’ve always been aware of the extraordinary impact Ryke Meadows has on people around him. And on me. I fell in love with his heart. Soulfully caring. Selfless. Generous and kind.
“I bled a lot,” she suddenly says. “I thought I miscarried and the doctor did too when I arrived.”
“I thought we decked,” I tell her, my eyes burning at the memory. “I thought we slipped off the end of the rope and we hit the fucking ground, falling a hundred feet. But my knot held.”
