My stomach tosses. My muscles bind, and acid scorches my throat. “To Uncle Ryke’s, little guy.”
He mumbles out words that sound like can I go with you?
“No, I won’t be long.” I walk around the couch and enter the foyer, out of sight from the living room. Lily suddenly darts around me, skids to the door and splays out her arms on either side.
She’s so much smaller than me and weighs just barely over a hundred pounds—but to see her try to physically stop me wrenches my insides and scalds my brain.
I love Lily more than I love myself right now.
“Lily Calloway,” I say her maiden name, which feels weird on my lips. I haven’t said Lily Calloway in a long time, but it hurts more when I remind myself that she’s connected to me. My wife. My best friend. My first and only love.
My soul mate. If I hurt, she hurts.
“Loren Hale,” she counters, trying to remain tough. She pushes out her chest like she can truly keep me from walking out that door.
I step closer and motion to her. “You think this is really going to stop me?”
“Yes,” she says, chin high. “Because you’re better than this.”
You’re better than I was. My father’s words dagger my chest. I glare up at the ceiling and shake my head, my eyes glassing almost instantly. “Right now, I’m not.”
He was wrong. I can’t shake these urges and these cravings. No matter if I have one kid, two, three, four or none. I’m still an addict. I’m always going to feel like this. There’s no escape.
I want to leave this skin.
“You are,” she says strongly. “This is a horrible day, night, week, month…maybe even year.” Her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths. “But there’ll be good days. You just have to get through this part, Lo. Okay?”
We’ve unconsciously drifted closer to one another. I’m fragmented, and when I pull her in my arms, when I tuck her to my chest, when she holds on so tight, when her warmth blankets me—I’m whole. Like this is where I belong.
Cravings don’t magically end with her embrace, but she reinforces my defenses, my belief in myself. It’s not really a girl who fixes me. It’s an army of people who I love and who love me.
It’s a phone call to my brother. It’s Connor’s reminder that I’m doing my best. It’s Lily being the other half of my heart.
I stare down at my best friend. Her eyes carry the same pain as mine. We share our feelings like we share everything else. I fight this agony.
I’m barely able to say, “I don’t think I can take a horrible year, Lil.”
She holds me tighter.
I clasp her cheek, my thumb catching a tear.
“One year is a blip in our lifetime, Lo,” she whispers. “You’ve been through worse. You can take a horrible year. I know you can.”
I nod a couple times, letting her words sink in. Maybe one year will feel shorter than I think.
“There’ll be good,” she suddenly adds. “You might not see it now, but there’ll be good in the year. We’ll see our sons and daughters smile.” My chest rises. “We’ll hear Luna tell us stories—”
I kiss Lily. A kiss that blisters my entire soul. I’m alive. I’m awake. I hold her face and deepen the kiss until she pulls further against my body. Breathing life into me.
I want to keep my eyes wide open for the little things. A smile. A laugh.
A story.
I don’t want to close my eyes and wait for the year to end.
We only break apart when someone knocks on the door. Then my phone starts ringing in the pocket of my jeans. We both struggle to let go, but when we finally disentangle, she heads to the door and I check the caller ID on my phone.
Shit.
It’s Hannah Yankton. The mother who lives one street over on Cider Creek Pass. She’s hosting the sleepover. The one Luna is at right now.
Just as I answer the call, Lily swings open the door. My brother in track pants and a gray Camp Calloway shirt suddenly crosses the threshold. My features sharpen at the sight of his dark concern for me, but I love him. I love that he’s here, and I’m glad Lily called him without me knowing.
Hannah greets, “Hi, Loren?”
“Is everything okay?” I watch Lily’s worry rise. She tugs at the hem of her long-sleeved shirt. My older brother walks further in the house, peeks in the living room. I hear him greet Xander before returning to the foyer.
“Um…” Hannah falters a little. This isn’t good. “I’m calling because…um, Luna needs to be picked up. She wants to go home early…can you or Lily swing by to come get her?”
* * *
Wind bites my exposed skin, my soles hard against the street while I run. I left without grabbing a jacket, but the Yankton’s house is on the adjacent street. Not far. So I just ran out. Less than a minute and my legs grind like steel and iron. At the corner of Whisper Ridge and Cider Creek, I slow to a walk. Dragging.
Go, Lo.
The sooner I move, the sooner I can take Luna home. My heavy breath smokes the air, and I glance at my older brother. He’s kept my pace, skidding to a walk with me.
Lily didn’t follow us, not since Ryke did, someone who will definitely make sure I won’t take a sudden detour. He can actually physically stop me if it comes to that.
But it won’t.
I won’t choose alcohol over my daughter. She needs me, and that has to be enough tonight.
Ryke reaches down and massages his right thigh.
“Cramp?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s fucking cold.”
Winter is worse on his leg, and he didn’t stretch prior to running. “I can help you stretch later.”
“Gym after this?” He blows on his hands. His offer sandpapers some of the grit in my bones.
“Yeah.” This. What is this? It might be cold, but my body runs hot, boiling at different scenarios. I pick up my pace, but my stride shortens to a weak jog. I end up walking really goddamn fast down Cider Creek.
Ryke’s shoe comes untied. He’s able to tie it and keep up with me, not falling behind. It’s not because I’m slow. It’s because my brother strengthens his body every day, hurdling over an accident that once dragged him down.
Him, here, reminds me that we can all stand back up again.
I can do this.
And I run. He’s right by my side, and when I reach Hannah’s mailbox, I slow again.
“What do you think fucking happened?” Ryke asks as we jog up the cobblestone to an oak-finished front door. The house is large, white siding, several ten-foot white columns and a manicured yard. I step onto the red welcome mat. On the front porch, three rocking chairs creak with each gust of wind.
The place is nice. Friendly, even.
“Maybe she got scared.” I knock on the door and then ring the bell. “It’s her first sleepover.” At a place other than Aunt Rose and Aunt Daisy’s, at least.
Ryke beats the door with his fist.
Then a second later, it swings open, a petite thirty-something brunette on the other side. “Hi.” Hannah squeezes into the d
oorway, containing the warmth inside and the cold outside. “Luna is just grabbing her things.”
She never steps aside. I realize very quickly that I’m not invited in. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“What happened?” I ask.
Hannah shivers, her cheeks flushing. I’m not sure if it’s the cold or something else. My defenses catapult, but I try to take Connor’s sage advice: don’t overreact. Get the facts first. It’s much harder than he makes it seem.
“I’m so sorry,” she tells me quickly. “I didn’t know that Jeffra and the other girls planned to do something…like that. If I knew that she wasn’t really friends with Luna at school, I wouldn’t have let Jeffra invite her.”
All the blood rushes out of my head. Ryke’s nose flares, and just as I open my mouth to ask for more details—to start from the goddamn beginning—my daughter appears in the doorway.
She tries to open the oak door more so she can slip by Hannah.
Ryke helps and pushes the door, warmth rushing out and cold rushing in.
As soon as we fully see her, time stands still for a moment.
“Daddy,” Luna calls out to me, tears brimming. “Can we go home?”
I don’t have to ask Hannah what the other girls did anymore. I see it. On Luna’s forehead. In permanent marker. They scrawled a word.
WEIRDO
Fire fills me. Something that overpowers hatred. This paternal urgency races through my veins—this resolve to protect my daughter from this shit. To take her far, far away from here.
I barely hear Hannah talk while I move fast with my brother. I bend down to Luna, who drags her alien-shaped backpack and rolled-up sleeping bag, dressed only in purple PJs, no shoes. Luna throws her arms around my neck.
“I’m…I’m so sorry,” Hannah stammers. “I’ve had a talk with all the girls. Really. This is just a huge mistake, and my daughter will definitely be punished.”
I rub Luna’s back and pass her backpack to my brother. He unzips it and digs for her shoes and coat. He passes me one sneaker. Luna is too upset to put them on herself, though her tears haven’t fallen yet. I fit her foot into the shoe. Ryke hands me the other, and I put that one on.