Chapter 32 #3
“No,” Ryke says quickly. “No. Sara said a lot of bad things about Jonathan, but she never said that. I don’t think he loved your mom, or else he would have found a way for her to be in your life.
I think it was…a one-time thing.” He runs his hand through his hair.
“I think she walked…” He struggles to finish the truth.
“I think she walked away from you. I don’t know why she chose to have you, but she did.
And I know she didn’t want to keep you after. ”
Jonathan raised Lo, when no one else wanted him.
As the words sink in, Lo’s hands tremble and his chest barely rises to accept breath. “It was just easier for everyone if I didn’t know, right?”
“I wasn’t sure if Jonathan ever told you the whole truth,” Ryke professes. “But when you met me, I knew he hadn’t. You had no recognition of who I was.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me upfront?” Lo asks. He points to his chest. “I deserved to know.”
“You did. You’re right,” Ryke says. “But you’re not well, Lo. I wanted to help you. So I made up a couple lies to be close to you. I even had to ditch Rose’s fashion show because Lily’s father showed up. I’ve met him. He knows me, and I didn’t think you were ready to find out the truth.”
My father knows? He had the answers the whole time. I can barely process this.
Ryke edges closer. “I was afraid if you found out, I’d push you to a dark place. Can you understand that?” His eyes flicker to me. “I think you can.”
Lo rubs his eyes again. He can’t stop crying. I see the hurt coursing through him like jagged tidal waves, crashing and crashing until he loses breath and focus and drowns beneath the rapids. He screams into his hand—angry, pained, pissed.
He slowly drops to his knees and puts a palm on the carpet .
“Lo,” Ryke says, bending to him. He tries to help, but Lo swats him away with wild, watery eyes.
“Where’s Lily?” he asks, frantic. “Lily!” He whips his head. “Lily!” he cries, searching for me.
Rose finally lets me go, and I run into Lo’s arms. He holds me tightly and cries into my shoulder, his body heaving. “I’m here,” I breathe. “It’s okay.” When I look up, I see Ryke and Rose exchanging hesitation.
I understand now. They’re afraid of our closeness. We’re not good together.
Not yet anyway.
He clutches onto my dress, and he cries until there are no more tears. I try and pray to hold mine back—to be strong for him. He whispers to me, in a dry voice, “I feel like I’m dying.”
“You’re not.” I kiss him on the cheek. “I love you.”
After a few more minutes, we rise and silently walk outside to the valet with Rose and Ryke close behind. I convince them to leave us alone in one of the cars, but they’re going to meet us at the Drake.
Lo slides into the Escalade first. And then me.
“The Drake,” I say, not even looking at the front seats. The car starts moving, and I turn to Lo who has a hand covering his eyes.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re going to rehab,” I say assuredly, even though a pain weighs on my chest. I know this is the right thing. For both of us.
“I can’t leave you.” He drops his hand. “It could be months, Lily. I don’t want you with another guy…”
“I’m going to be strong,” I tell him, taking his hands in mine. I squeeze. “I’m going to go to therapy.”
“Lily…” His pained voice sends daggers to my heart.
“I’m going to move in with Rose.”
He shuts his eyes and more tears spill.
I keep from crying. I swallow. “I’m going to transfer to Princeton, and I’ll be waiting for you when you return. ”
Lo nods a lot, letting the news sink in. “If that’s what you want…”
“It’s what I want.”
Lo licks his lips and leans a shoulder against mine. “I’m sorry, about today. I shouldn’t have done that in the hotel room. I…I was upset, and it had nothing to do with you. I…”
“What is it?” I frown. What could be so bad that he threw back mini-bottles of alcohol, breaking his short sobriety that meant a great deal to him, to me, and our friends…his brother.
“Penn sent me a letter this morning.” He pauses. “They’ve kicked me out.”
“What? They can’t kick you out. You haven’t done anything wrong. We’ll go to the Dean?—”
“Lily, I haven’t gone to half my classes. I’ve failed almost every one. I have a one-point-something GPA. They can kick out people that don’t meet their academic standards. They warned me last year, and I didn’t give a shit.”
“What?” I squeak. I knew something was wrong, but I thought he had been pulling better grades than me at least. “So…so you’ll go to Princeton with me. You can transfer. They’ll let you in with your last name.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, I’m not going back to college. It’s not for me, Lil.”
I process this. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Lo says. “How about get healthy first?”
“That works,” I murmur. “What about your father? Lo, if he finds out, he’ll take away your trust fund.”
“He won’t find out. I’ve already called admissions and told them not to contact him.”
I exhale in relief.
The car rolls to the curb. “We’ve arrived, Mr. Hale.”
I stiffen. That voice—that voice did not belong to Nola.
The driver shifts slightly, and I see the gray whiskers, feather hair, and glasses perched on a beak nose .
“Anderson,” Lo says tensely. Anderson, Jonathan Hale’s driver, the guy who has been known to rat us out. “Please don’t tell my father…”
“Have a nice night,” Anderson says with a fake smile. He spins back to the front, waiting for us to leave.
We do, and in my heart, I know that everything is about to change.