I blush, but when we both turn our heads, Connor is standing in the middle of the museum with a phone to his ear. Rose sips an iced coffee and glares at a cheap cutout of an alien.
“We stopped in Roswell because Lily and Lo wanted to see the aliens,” he says. “They spent four hours in the museum—excuse me, I mean the propaganda shit hole.”
Spent. We’re about to leave, I take it. And we haven’t even reached the biggest exhibit at the end of the museum. There are extraterrestrial things left to be seen.
Lo wraps his arm around my shoulder and lets out a short laugh. “And you made us spend three hours at a graveyard,” he says to Connor. “Between us, who’s the super freaky one, love?”
Connor grins, that blinding white one, too pretty to stare at. “It was a war cemetery,” he says to the person over the phone, probably Ryke. “And Rose and I were searching for our ancestors.”
They were. The nerds were trying to find their once removed seventh-cousins.
“I won,” Rose says, raising her voice so Daisy and Ryke can hear. She stirs her ice around her cup. “I have three more dead relatives than Connor.” They speak through their eyes now, something I’ve most definitely grown fond of.
“Follow me,” Lo whispers, his breath hot against my skin, he motions with his head to the big exhibit behind a glass wall: an alien on a stretcher.
I smile and clasp his hand.
I want to believe that this road trip will end well, but a big heap of unresolved tension still pulls between Lo and Ryke.
58
2 years : 02 months
October
LOREN HALE
We stopped at a gas station, not too long ago. The tabloid magazines were placed in a row at the check-out counter. The big bold print still flashes like blinding red headlights. I can’t get rid of them.
Sara Hale Tell-All Interview Leaves Theories Open-Ended: Investigation to continue. She neither confirmed nor denied much. All doors and possibilities are still left open for belief.
“Lo, slow down,” Lily says, sprinting to catch up to me as I storm as far away from the parking lot as I can. Red dust plumes in the air, my shoes kicking up the Utah dirt. A few couples scatter the hiking trail, and I veer off towards these red rock arches. My blood pumps full of adrenaline.
“I don’t want to see him,” I shout at her over my shoulder. I spot Rose and Connor following at a slower pace. Rose almost tips over, her heels caught on a rock, but Connor catches her around the waist and tucks her close to his chest.
She breathes with wide eyes, like she nearly fell off a mountain or something.
The other headline scorches my head.
Lily Calloway’s Addiction: Could it be linked to sexual trauma from her fiancée’s father? I’ve seen that theory before on another tabloid, but being reminded of it—it tore something inside of me that I can’t fix.
“Lo,” Lily says, reaching my side.
“I can’t…” I feel my cheekbones jutting out. In a few minutes, Ryke and Daisy are supposed to meet us at the start of the hiking trail. “He’s repeatedly lied to me,” I tell Lily, my bones throttling to march forward. Don’t stop. I return my course, storming further and further away. “You want to listen to him, that’s fine. I’m done pretending like everything is okay between us.”
It’s not. It hasn’t been since I broke my sobriety.
“It sucks,” she says, rushing to keep up with me, panting for breath. “They didn’t tell me either.”
The last tabloid was the one that cut me the worst. The one I can’t push away no matter how hard I try.
Ryke Meadows and Daisy Calloway Caught Kissing! Photographed outside of Devils Tower, a rock formation in Wyoming—she was on his shoulders, her hair chopped to her collarbones, with pink, purple and green streaks. Her head was dipped down, their lips touching, smiling.
They looked happy.
I spin around on Lily and she knocks straight into my chest. “What am I supposed to do?” I ask, my chest rising angrily. “Give him an easy time? Say it’s okay?” I point at the ground. “It’s not okay. I trusted him!” I make everything difficult for Ryke—being my friend, being my brother—but he doesn’t see how much I’ve given him, how much I’ve let him in and how much I f**king loved him.
“Maybe you both can sit down and talk it out,” she says hurriedly, reaching for a hand.
I take a couple steps back from her. “He had so many opportunities to come clean, to open up to me. To say anything that meant something to him.” I feel like I don’t even know him. Our relationship has been built off my addiction. He asks me about our dad. In relation to alcohol. In relation to my childhood. But I know absolutely nothing about his.
I don’t need him to be a twenty-four-seven sober coach.
I need him to be my brother.
Connor and Rose join us, and I stand in place, glaring ahead. “I don’t want to look at his face,” I sneer. Because I’ll see a guy that I desperately need in my life. He keeps me healthy. He’s the kick in the ass that has propelled me forward.
It’s why this hurts so much more. It’d be easier if he was Scott Van Wright or Julian. Someone I can just hate to hate.
His lies are like validations: You’re too weak to trust, Loren.
You’re just a little f**king kid.
Why would I tell you anything important?
“Hey guys!”
I rotate a fraction and spot Daisy waving as she walks down the red dirt, an unmarked path where giant rocks dot the landscape.
The sun has risen halfway in the sky, shade leaving us, sweltering my already boiling body. I watch Ryke approach, his unshaven jaw hardening the minute he meets my harsh gaze. Confusion coats his face for a brief second, and hate builds inside of me, prepared to launch it right at him.
My fingers curl into a fist. My heart is ripping to shreds. He just walks. Like nothing’s wrong. It’s my fault in the end, I remember. For trusting someone I shouldn’t have. For letting him in.
I’m the real fool.
“Love the hair, Dais,” Lily says, her voice spiking in fear.
They’re nearer. I fume, my muscles taut, stretched to the max. My feet move before my head does. A target right on my brother. I aim for him.
Ryke stops and puts a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “Daisy,” he says. “Go to your sisters.”
“Ryke—”
“Fucking go,” he growls.
She takes a few steps back, but she never joins Lily and Rose who stay beside a flat rock with Connor.
This isn’t just about Daisy. It’s so much more complicated than that.
“Lo.” He raises his hands, already telling me to stand down. If I was anyone else, he would hit me. He would punch me. He would throw his whole weight into my body and pin me to the ground. I am sick of being treated like a broken toy.
I am a goddamn human being. When will I ever be worthy of the truth?
“What’s wrong?” Ryke asks. “Let’s talk about this.”
We’re so close. Ten feet away. “You wanna talk about it?” I say, my voice layered with too many emotions to untangle. “I gave you a million f**king chances to talk about it. I’m so done talking with you.” I reach him, and I don’t hesitate. I can’t.
My fist pounds into his jaw. I rarely fight like this, but I just want him to put me on his level. For once. I knee him in the stomach, and he staggers, falling to the ground.