Her eyes flit to Lo as he comes to my side. Coldness blankets me, and my hand feels numb to his palm. My mother looks him over in one long gaze before she says, “You could do better.”
I try to disentangle my hand from his, but he grips fiercely, holding on. Tears spill down my cheeks as I focus on prying each one of his fingers off mine. He directs his attention to my mother.
“You don’t know us,” he says. “If you did, you would realize how guilty she already feels, so stop tearing her down.”
I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. I want to hear her anger and disappointment. I’m so tired of people telling meit’s okay when it’s not. It’s not okay that my little sister is being theorized as a future sex addict. It’s not okay that my father’s company has lost investors. I don’t want to lock myself in an apartment and pretend that everything is fine anymore.
There is no one else to blame butme.
Lo squeezes my hand with extra force, making it impossible for me to let go.
My mother purses her lips. “It’s late. You both need to talk with the lawyers.” She spins on her heels, and they clap all the way down the hall.
I breathe in sporadic, choppy inhales, and my head spins so much that my vision starts to whirl with it. Lo presses his hands to my cheeks, cupping my face with strength that I do not possess. Months ago, he’d probably leave me on a bench in the hallway to go collect bottles from the liquor cabinet. Now that he’s here, I try to ingest some of his power to stand upright. But all I see is a boy who’s good and whole and a girl who’s broken and weak.
I want to be him.
I want that.
But those are my parents. And they hate me.
I think I hate myself more.
“Lily,” he says, very softly. “You’re going to have a panic attack if you don’t slow your breaths.”
Going to?This isn’t a panic attack?
“Lily,” he snaps. “Breathe.Slowly.”
I try and listen to him and focus on his chest, the way it rises and falls in a stable pattern. When my lungs feel less strained and my breath steadies, we both turn to the team of lawyers who linger in the corridor. Exhaustion sags their eyes, and they each hold stacks of papers that they’ll be sifting through for the next forty-eight hours.
The head lawyer, Arthur, holds the largest stack. “We need to discuss what should happen in the upcoming weeks.”
I don’t know what my parents have decided to do. Send me to rehab? Fly me to Switzerland? I’m supposed to tell them to go to hell, but after confronting my mother, all I want to do is make this right.
And that means giving in to whatever they want. Whatever they need. I’ll repair the damage I’ve done.
Jonathan Hale steps forward, already clutching a crystal glass of scotch. Surprisingly, like my parents, he didn’t utter a word during our briefing in the den. “I can take it from here, Arthur,” he says easily. “I think Loren and Lily have had enough of this intermediary bullshit.”
Arthur sways on his feet, hesitant to leave.
“You don’t need to relay information,” Jonathan snaps. “You need to get your ass back to your office and make phone calls and fact check the hell out of those stories. It’s time for you to go. Now.”
They disperse quickly, and Arthur hands Jonathan a couple files before he leaves. A burst of envy pops in my chest, and I’m frightened that I covet Lo’s father and want to trade mine in for the Jonathan Hale version, wishing mostly that my dad could be more supportive.
The world has gone mad.
Jonathan looks to us. “We should do this at my house. The staff here is getting on my last goddamn nerve.” On cue, one of the groundskeepers walks into the house from the backdoor and then speeds off in another direction. Jonathan mumbles something that sounds likeridiculous motherfuckers. But I really can’t be certain.
The farther I am from this house, the better, even if it means that we have to drive through mobs of camera crews again. Lo and I climb into my car, and before he puts it in drive, he faces me.
“I have to tell you something, and you’re probably going to be mad.”
I frown, not having a clue where this could go. I watch Jonathan’s car exit the gates, cameras flashing and clicking, the light glinting off the tinted windows.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice smaller than I like.
He licks his lips, guilt lining his face. Uh oh. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen my father since rehab.”
