Chapter 23 Tigerlily
Chapter Twenty-Three: Tigerlily
I’m sitting in Victorian Lit staring at the same paragraph I’ve been staring at for twenty minutes.
Jane Eyre is trying to leave Thornfield. Running from Rochester because staying means losing herself.
I underline a sentence. I realize I have no idea what it says and start over.
My professor is talking about symbolism and moral agency and the constraints of gender, but all I can hear is Jax’s voice in my head.
Your dad installed new cameras last week.
Two more.
I pay attention.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the desk to make them stop.
The girl next to me glances over. I pretend to take notes, write the date in the margin, and underline it twice.
Class ends, and I don’t remember a single thing that happened.
I drive to Zinnia’s elementary school on autopilot, gripping the steering wheel so tight my fingers ache. She climbs into the passenger seat and immediately starts talking about her day—something about a science project and a boy named Alfie who keeps stealing her eraser.
I nod at the right moments and make sounds that could pass for engagement.
“Did you see the letters on the table?” Zinnia asks suddenly.
My foot slips off the gas pedal. The car lurches forward, and I slam the brake just before we hit a parked truck.
“Lily!” Zinnia yelps.
I pull over to the side of the road and put the car in park. My heart is hammering against my ribs. My hands won’t stop shaking now.
“Sorry,” I manage. “Sorry, I just—”
“Are you okay?”
I’m not okay.
Letters?
From Mom?
Why would she be sending letters after all this time? Why letters instead of calls or emails, or I don’t know? And why after all this time? It’s been years like who cares, let’s move on.
“Lily?” Zinnia’s voice is small.
I take a breath. Then another. Force my hands to unclench from the steering wheel.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Um, did you say letters?”
Zinnia nods but says nothing more. She sits there quietly while I pull myself back together enough to drive.
When we get home, the Honda Pilot is in the driveway.
My stomach drops.
I park in the garage and sit there for a second, staring at the steering wheel, trying to breathe normally.
Zinnia gets out first.
I pull out my phone, open Instagram, and send Elle the first meme I see. I was trying to lighten my mood by opening social media, but it doesn’t help.
I shove my phone in my pocket and follow Zinnia inside.
My dad is sitting at the kitchen table. He looks up when I walk in, and without a single word, I know that he knows. Just one look and I can tell I’m in deep shit.
“How was school, Zinni?” he asks.
Zinnia shrugs. “Boring.”
“Okay.” He turns to me. “And you?”
I don’t answer as I head toward the hallway, already planning to lock myself in my room and not come out until morning.
“A moment, Lily,” he says. Not a question. A demand.
I stop and turn around. “Okay.”
Zinnia disappears down the hall. Her bedroom door clicks shut.
Then it’s just us.
He’s still sitting at the table, hands folded, and calm.
“We chose this, right?” he asks.
I blink.
“We chose this life, right, Lily?” he repeats.
I nod because I don’t know what else to say. But yes, he’s right. We chose this.
He nods back.
He scratches his forehead like he’s thinking through a problem. “We did. And we have to live with it, so you know what you have to do.”
I shake my head, confused. “What do I have to do?”
“Hockey players?” he seethes. His face scrunches in disgust. Then he shakes his head. “You better end it before I do. Understand?”
My chest tightens as I nod.
“No boys, Lily. That was the deal.”
I nod again.
He stands and walks past me toward his room. “Dinner at six.”
I don’t argue. Don’t cry. Don’t ask him what he knows about the hockey players. I just stand there in the middle of the kitchen feeling like I’m being pulled apart. Fractured. Controlled. Trapped in choices that aren’t mine.
It’s been years of this. Isn’t it going to end soon? Surely, it’ll end at some point. How old do I have to be?
I pull out my phone and scroll to Callum’s contact. My finger hovers over his contact.
I think about his smile. The way he kissed me. The way he made me feel like I could be normal for a few minutes.
I think about Jax watching my house. About the cameras my dad installed that I didn’t know about. About how nothing I do is actually private.
I close my phone without texting anyone, walk to my room, close the door, and lock it.
I flop on my bed and stare at the wall.
I don’t cry.
I just do what I’ve always done when my dad’s watching—
I disappear.