Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

Garrison almost smiles. “Yeah. I’ll do it first thing.” He acknowledges the rest of us with a curt wave and then heads out the door.

“When? Where? How?” Lily blurts out first to Willow.

Willow smiles and relaxes some. “So you’re all not upset?” She lingers on Lo.

“You can do better,” Lo tells her.

Daisy steps forward. “She knows Garrison in a way that none of us do, so we should really trust her instincts.” Willow looks appreciative at Daisy, and they exchange smiles.

“You know what I don’t trust?” Lo says, “An eighteen-year-old horny motherfucking guy’s instincts.”

“Same,” I add.

“That’s why there are rules, right?” Willow says. “So nothing should go wrong?”

If that doesn’t fucking hit you right in the heart—what would?

Garrison Abbey better not pressure her or push her further or faster than she wants to go. Maltreatment of women might just be my number one boiling point, and if he sets it off—surrounding my sister no less—I’m going to lose my shit.

DAISY CALLOWAY

Did you get the present? – Cleo

I keep opening the text, tormenting myself. After the fiftieth time staring at it, I click delete. An insignificant weight eases itself off my shoulders. Like a dust particle vacating a sand dune of anxiety. I don’t want to trudge through my past friendships and unearth those feelings. There’s no kindling left to reignite anything with Cleo or Harper. They’ve destroyed everything there ever was, proving my theory right after all.

Friends aren’t forever. They’re not even for a while.

It’s a theory I hate with all my might¸ and so I cling to the one person who has the only chance of overturning its validity.

Willow sits on the other side of the small little pink table. It’s nestled in the back of FroYummy—my favorite frozen yogurt spot in Philly. I’ve been itching to escape the house since my surgery, and four days after, with minimal soreness down below, I’ve finally moved beyond my gated neighborhood.

I spot Mikey, my bodyguard, a couple tables away, spending more time flipping through a worn James Patterson paperback than paying attention to us. Not that I blame him. It’s a pretty dull sight in here.

Nobody has spotted us and blabbed my whereabouts to the paparazzi, so the store only has a few bodies milling about. I award my baseball cap as the winner of disguise here. Plus, it’s just way easier being discreet when I’m not out with Ryke or my sisters.

Willow stares at the opened box on the table, her eyes wide in alarm. The bracelet that Cleo and Harper gave me practically glints in the light.

“I can’t believe they’re bribing you,” she says, shaking her head. Her face rises to me. “And I can’t believe they did that stuff to you at school.”

I raise my brows. “After your amazing senior year at Dalton Academy, you can’t believe they stuffed my locker with condoms?” She’s confided in me about all her tribulations at prep school. I’ve shared my horror stories as well, but I left out the part about most of the deeds being the indirect product of my best friends turning their backs on me.

Until now.

I didn’t want her to be scared of making friends at Dalton. She had moved from Maine, and it was her chance of starting over. There had to be hope in there, right?

“Tampons stuffed in my locker doesn’t seem that bad though…in hindsight,” she mutters and pushes her glasses up her nose. She doesn’t mention how the tampons were dipped in red dye, and I don’t bring it up.

Deflecting, I say, “Rose used to buy tampons for me when I was in middle school. I was too embarrassed to go in the store and check them out.” I hold up my spoon coated in chocolate froyo. “In defense, the cutest boy was always the cashier, and middle school boys are always weird about tampons.” Though, Ryke was never really embarrassed by them. He told me he’s always been unabashedly unashamed. It’s not something he grew into. He just was.

“I feel you,” Willow nods. “You’re so lucky you had a big sister. I always used to buy like a magazine or something really big to hide the box in my basket. Then I’d pray for a girl to be at checkout.” She cringes at her memory. “Never really worked.”

“The gods of luck will bless you one day, Willow. I feel it in my bones.” I take a big bite of my yogurt and then close the jewelry box beside my cup.

I’ve already convinced Connor to donate the bracelet, so I’m heading to his office after I drop Willow off at her work. He’s sworn not to tell me where it’s going, and I trust he won’t accidentally let the location slip. I didn’t want to put that pressure on Ryke, especially since I talk to him way more about my ex-friends than anyone else.

“So…” Willow says with an ominous tone, her eyes lighting up. “When are you going to tell me about your plan?” She scoops a heap of strawberry froyo on her spoon.

“When you tell me yours.”

She already knows of my fibs, shaking her head. “Not true. You know my plans. I’m working at Superheroes & Scones long enough to afford college. Yet…I still know nothing about your plans. Just that mysterious journal you keep writing in.”

My journal. It’s the new item in my life where I’ve translated my future into lists. And these lists, they’re actually being checked off. My future is being molded by my own will, and it’s something exciting. I know exactly what I’m going to be doing five, ten, twenty years down the line. Even thinking about it, my chest puffs out and I could toss my hands in the air and howl.

“Due time.” I lick the side of the spoon. “It’s going to be a fun surprise. And anyway, I want to talk about you. You have major news.” I have news for her too—that she’s Jonathan’s daughter—but it’s not mine to share. I hate keeping this secret from her, but Ryke said he’d do it when it was the right time. And it’s not yet. So I just have to trust him.

Willow looks confused. “What news?”

“You have a boyfriend. Did you already forget?” I nudge her elbow with mine. This is her first real boyfriend. She’s never even been kissed before, and she’s eighteen. A fact that I find precious. All her firsts are coming closer to reality, and I’m just really happy for her.

“Yeah, but…no news yet,” she tells me with a smile. “You’ll be the first I tell, though…oh wait.” She grimaces.

“Lily got to you, didn’t she?”

“She made me pinky promise I’d tell her first,” Willow says.

“She does that. I get second though, right?”

“Definitely.”

I pause for a moment, thinking about something important. Mikey stands up from his table, closes his book, and heads to the bathroom.

My thoughts morph into a question. “Are you okay with Lo’s rules?” A part of me worries that Lo is being strict because of me. I’ve had terrible experiences with my ex-boyfriends growing up, and I’m the only little sister figure he’s really had in his life. I’d hate for Willow to be affected by my past.

“We talk a lot, so he knows me pretty well,” Willow explains. “I think he knew that I’d want the rules. It’s just…this is new for me. I’m used to having Garrison in my room, but not as my boyfriend. And I’m worried that I might not know how to say no. Or not be able to.” She takes another spoonful from her cup. “It’s just nice being able to blame some things on a curfew or an overprotective brother.”

Loren Hale. Who would have known?

I’m about to ask her about her work, but something wet and cold lands on my shoulder and slides down my chest onto my white shorts. I jump up, my chair hitting the ground behind me in a clatter.

Pink frozen yogurt.

The girl who spilled her dessert looks like she just committed an act of murder. Her eyes are saucers and her face is sheet white. “I’m…so…” Her hands fly to her mouth. “I tripped…and…” My brief panic starts to subside.

“It’s okay.” I say quickly. “Please don’t cry.” I hold up m

y hands in surrender when the waterworks begin. “Seriously, it’s really okay.”

She nods a couple times, wiping her eyes with her knuckles and then shuffling back. Before I can process what happened, two girls are approaching me with napkins in hand.

“Daisy, oh my God, are you okay?! We just walked in when we saw what happened?” What? The strawberry blonde hair is unmistakable.

Cleo.

My ex-best friend.

I blink like maybe I constructed her from my scarred imagination. Like maybe she’s just a kind stranger and not the girl who trapped me in an elevator. Who tried to humiliate me. And scare me.

But the more I blink, the more Cleo’s fish-tail braid and diamond studs come into focus.

How real she is.

How real this all is.

She reaches out, frantically trying to dab the stains on my shirt. Her hands everywhere. All at once. I raise mine in defense. Wait…

Harper roughly digs at the frozen yogurt on my shoulder like she’s scrubbing burnt oil from a pan. “It didn’t look accidental. She probably recognized you and wanted to get her fifteen minutes of fame.” What are you doing here?

Touching me.

Their hands are everywhere. Wait…

My head pounds, cold icing over my veins. Cleo pats her napkin near my breast, and I trip backwards, my hands pushed out more in front of me.

“Careful,” Cleo says, her manicured nails clawing into my arm. “You’re probably in shock. It’s totally normal. Strangers are fucking weird. Fame mongers even more.” She pulls my hair off my shoulder. “Oh shit, it’s in your hair.”

“Should we cut it?” Harper says with a coy smile.