Her face falls. “I was joking.”
I shrug, indifferent about it all. “Lily and I never ignored you because you’re younger. The phone calls we didn’t pick up, the lunches we canceled, all of that was because we’d rather drink and have sex than be around people. Especially ones that we’d have to lie to.”
“That’s messed up,” Daisy tells me.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Actually, I told you it was fucked up,” Ryke clarifies.
Daisy ignores him. “Why is she a sex addict? Is there something that caused it?”
My throat goes dry and my eyes flicker to the bedroom door.
Lily and I haven’t discussed the cause of her addiction, but I know she’s been trying to sparse through the past with Allison.
Lily shuts down when it comes to her childhood, refusing to look at her relationship with her family for what it truly is. I can touch her painful memories without being terrorized by the hurt, and in turn she can focus on mine without bearing the guilt. It’s a symbiosis that I’ve come to recognize after hours and hours of therapy.
Whether we allow ourselves to open up to our own feelings—well that’s something we’re both working on.
My silence lingers in the air as I try to focus on a suitable answer.
Ryke grows restless by the quiet. “I’ve read that eighty percent of sex addicts are abused as a child. Did Lily?—”
“No,” I cut him off, my tone defensive and edged. My eyes bear the same heat, and I wonder if this is why Ryke has never asked me that question before.
“I’m not the only one who will fucking ask that,” he snaps. “You’re going to have to start being less sensitive.”
I glower at that word…sensitive. It makes me sound weak and fragile. It’s one of those words in my father’s arsenal. I wasn’t living up to my potential when I failed a sixth grade math test, when I had to do a group project alone after no one picked me, when I lost a Little League game. He told me I was worthless, and as a kid I didn’t know how to stop those tears. Don’t be so sensitive, Loren. You’re being too sensitive, Loren. Why are you so goddamn sensitive, Loren?So I stopped crying. Now I just get mad.
My eyes are on Ryke and my mouth moves before I can stop it. “I’m not sensitive,” I deadpan. “You’re the one who flinched every time I called your mother a cunt.” Granted, that was before I knew Sara Hale was his mom. I just thought she was mine, the one who abandoned me.
On cue, Ryke cringes at literally the only curse word he can’t stand.
I watch the way his face flips through emotions, and in a quick second he settles on one:Guilt.
I expected rage, a battle of words, something to perpetuate the turmoil spinning in my stomach. Not his eyes to cloud with remorse, as if he was the one who spitefully slandered his mother.
He knows me. He knows what I was thinking, why I say the things I do.Between the aggressive attitude and foul language, I often forget Ryke has a brain, probably one that works better than mine.
“Not sensitive,” he says softly, almost hesitant. “I think guarded and defensive are better words.”
His eyes fill with apologies, not wanting to hurt me like my father does. Ryke doesn’t have the same fear as me, the one where I turn into Jonathan Hale. But for a moment, Ryke must have tasted what it was like to be him. I personally know it isn’t pleasant.
After a deep breath, I say, “I can’t help it. I’m always going to be defensive when it comes to Lily.”
“We’re her sisters,” Rose pipes in. “Everyone in this room loves Lilyandyou. We are the last people you should be guarded around.”
Something burns inside of me, words that ache to be released. I’ve never talked to any of Lily’s sisters about their childhood. I only know what I’ve seen and what Lily has told me. If anyone can fill in the blanks and help me answer Daisy’s question, it’s Rose.
“Why was Lily allowed to spend nights at my house?” I ask.
“You were her friend.”
“Rose. What friends at twelve, thirteen, fourteen,fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years oldspend the majority of nights at someone else’s house?”
She narrows her eyes. “It was usually on the weekend.”
Holy shit. Someone has taken a sledgehammer to my stomach.
