“Okay. Thanks, Noah. Thanks for picking up. It helped.”
“I’m here. Call me anytime, okay? I love you, Tully.”
“I love you too.”
We hang up.
I should have been there for her.
I think about Lola at twenty-one, alone, and afraid, andsomewhere underneath the grief and the anger, there is something cold and clear and absolutely certain settling into place.
Daniel’s wrecked too many lives. He’s been comfortable for a long time, controlling things he had no right to.
He took away something that was so important to me.
That’s about to change.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE
LOLA
I know every crack in my ceiling.
This is the kind of thing you learn when you don’t sleep, when you lie on your back in the dark and your brain refuses to stop, no matter how much you try to make it. A hairline fracture above the window appeared a couple of months ago. The water stain near the light fixture looks like it’s growing. On the wall next to my bed, the paint has bubbled, a small raised circle the size of a quarter that I have touched approximately a thousand times in the dark.
I told Tully.
All these years of holding it all inside, sometimes having to leave my phone anywhere that I wasn’t, just to not be tempted to call him. I see him three times, and it all just comes out.
Daniel. The money. My dad. The baby.
I close my eyes.
I told him about the baby.
Isla is the only other person who knew about the baby.She didn’t know the rest of what was going on, but she knew Daniel was pressuring me to go, saying Tully had a bright future ahead of him that I would ruin if I stayed. I was a wreck after leaving school and losing the baby. She held me while I fell apart, not leaving my side for months.
And now Tully knows.
Something lighter, somewhere underneath the surface, tries to break through. But I’ve gone so long trying to protect Tully and my father that I mostly feel terror now that the truth is out there.
Tully looked like I’d hit him with a car.
At some point, I give up on sleep entirely and call my sister. She answers on the third ring, her voice groggy.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have called.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I told Tully.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Wow. Good. I’m so glad, Lo. You’ve been carrying this secret alone for so long.”
We talk about it until she’s yawning.
“Go to sleep. Thank you for picking up.”
