Baby Doll(46)

Wes spun around, startled by her plea. Lily hadn’t considered what she’d say next, so she simply waved. She moved over to the swing where he’d been sitting, and sat down, shivering slightly. Wes shrugged out of his heavy down jacket and handed it to her. Lily wrapped it around her shoulders, his woodsy smell and spicy aftershave overwhelming her senses. Wes hovered a few feet away, still waiting for Lily to speak. She’d grown used to silences, always waiting for Rick to talk, never wanting to speak out of turn. At this very moment, Lily wondered what Wes was thinking about her. She knew that her skin, hair, and teeth had been damaged by her ordeal. She was scrawny, no longer toned or tan from her endurance training. His opinion shouldn’t matter, but she still wanted him to think she was beautiful.

“It didn’t happen overnight, Abby and I…” he said.

Lily offered up a slight smile. “So that’s it? No awkward silences. No ‘how’ve you been?’ Or ‘how ’bout them Phillies?’”

Wes looked uncertain.

“I’m joking, Wes. I still know how to joke.”

He smiled and she was transported to sophomore year and that sweet boy leaning against her locker, grinning as he waited to walk her to class. But Lily wasn’t going to let people treat her like she was made of glass, tiptoeing around her. Not anymore. She was going to reclaim every remnant of who she’d been.

“I’m sorry about how I reacted earlier. I… I guess I never thought about what would happen if we… if Sky and I got out. I spent so much time surviving, so much time thinking about the past, I never considered what was happening out here. And I love… I loved you so much.”

He winced and Lily realized how stupid she sounded.

“I’m not making this better, am I?”

“I loved you too, Lily. I still—”

“Don’t. Please.”

“No, I have to explain, because you can’t be mad at Abby. It would kill her if you were mad at her. I have to make you understand what happened between us.” He apparently forgot about her judgment, or maybe his nerves got the best of him. Wes reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, taking a long drag before he spoke.

“You know Abby drove me crazy. We never thought about each other like that… romantically. All we wanted was to find you. We were obsessed. Consumed. Every day we were putting up fliers, joining the search parties, scouring the forests and woods for hours on end. And then they called off the searches and your dad died, and… Abby was wrecked. By the start of senior year, people didn’t want to be sad anymore. I tried to be the Superjock and do all those things I used to love, but without you cheering me on, I couldn’t seem to care. I quit the team, and somehow Abby and I started hanging out after school. Everyone treated us like we were made of glass, but we could tease each other and listen to music and talk about you. And then one day, we were watching a movie at my house and talking about that time you hit that parked school bus—”

“And that it was a giant yellow school bus…”

Wes smiled. “How do you miss a school bus?”

“How many times do I have to say that it was in my blind spot?”

He laughed and then caught himself, as if the moment was too solemn for jokes. He continued.

“I don’t even know who kissed who. We both freaked out. Didn’t talk for days, but by then she wasn’t your sister anymore. She was my best friend. She wasn’t you, Lily. I wasn’t replacing you. Abby was never like you. Never as lighthearted or easygoing, but she did everything with this intensity that made her hard to ignore. Most importantly, she understood how losing you changed me.”

“So you’ve been together ever since?”

“No. I got into Penn. I didn’t want to leave her, but we both decided we needed to see what life was like when we weren’t both missing you or punishing ourselves for not being able to save you, or for not being the one who disappeared. And then…” He trailed off.

“Then what?”

“I finished school and came back here to take care of my dad, and somehow, we fell back into old patterns.”

“So that’s all it is now? Old patterns?”

He evaded the question, but Lily realized he never said he loved Abby. He hadn’t said it once.

“Abby never stopped believing that you were alive. You have to know that. Anything you want, she’ll do it, Lil. She’ll leave me. She’ll give up our baby if you ask her to.”

“That’s crazy. I would never ask that. And she’d never do something like that.”

“You don’t know her. Not now. You don’t know what losing you did, what you coming back means to her.”

Lily didn’t answer. What else could she say? Leave her. Be with me. We’ll raise Rick’s children together. We’ll have the life we were meant to have. It was almost impossible, being this close and knowing he’d moved on. If this were Rick, he’d want her to lash out at Wes and Abby. Get even for their betrayal.

He would say, Make ’em suffer, Baby Doll. They deserve to suffer.

After all, Wes hadn’t simply chosen another woman to love; he’d chosen her twin sister. If she used Rick’s logic, it would make sense that she’d want to destroy them both. But Lily was grateful that Rick hadn’t completely ruined her. She was still capable of her own thoughts and actions. Wes seemed to understand that Lily had heard enough.