Addicted for Now (Addicted #2)(105)

I land on something though.

“Go Fish.”

He lets out a short laugh as he reaches for the deck. “You’ll be fine, Calloway.”

At least one of us believes it.





{ 32 }

LOREN HALE



I lean against the bathroom wall, staring at my pallid face and sunken eyes. I look like utter shit. I feel even worse. My left hand keeps shaking, and I have to clench my fingers into a fist just to make it stop. My father bitches me out on the other line for ignoring his previous calls.

“I’m in the goddamn air,” I remind him curtly, keeping my voice low so Ryke doesn’t hear. “Unless you’d like reception to magically be invented over the ocean.”

“Hey, I’m just as f*cking livid as you are.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I say, my voice slightly breaking. I don’t want to be talking to him while Lily looks one second from opening the hatch and jumping from the plane without a parachute. And every time I picture her crying like that—goddamn, I can’t start. I rub my eyes to push back the emotions. I want to kick the wall so f*cking hard, and I swallow a scream that needs to escape.

“Whoever this motherf*cker is,” my father says, “I will personally rip him a new *, Loren. You hear me? He’s not getting away with this shit.”

I have to ask. “Did you do it? Did you leak it?” One week after I told him, the news exploded across the globe. Is it really all a coincidence?

There’s a long pause. And then this: “You have got to be f*cking kidding me. Did you not hear what I just said? I have busted my ass trying to find this f*cker.” He growls a little. Yeah, it’s not him.

“Then who?” I ask. “Who would do this? What do they possibly have to gain?”

“Money,” my father says flatly. “We’re still working on some leads.”

I bring the phone away from mouth and struggle between not shouting and screaming my head off. No sound escapes, but I catch myself in the mirror, and I look like I’m fighting an invisible battle against a shadowed enemy. I look crazy and tortured.

“I have to go,” my father says quickly. “Greg is on the other line. I’ll talk to you soon. Keep your head up.” Words of encouragement from my father. Those don’t come often. So I take them.

We hang up at the same time. I lean over the sink and splash some water on my face. Trying to get my shit together.

I should call Brian, the therapist that Ryke and Lily believe I’m talking to about my deep inner thoughts. But I can’t discuss alcohol. Even the thought makes my stomach turn. Because Lily shouldn’t be worried if I’m going to relapse. The world is crashing down on her shoulders, and I don’t want to add to that weight.

I let out a long breath, bearing her pain that feels so much a part of me. We’ve become entangled, years and years of lies and childhood memories and stories all wrapped into one. I know her better than her sisters. I know her sometimes better than she does herself. I know just how much this is killing her inside.

And then one thought punctures me.

I’m here.

I could be at a bar. Passed out cold.

I could be in rehab. Away from her.

I have the chance to be by her side through all of this.

So go, you stupid bastard.

That’s what it takes. I’m out the door.





PART THREE

“One day, you're going to have to make a choice. You have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be. Whoever that man is, good character or bad, is going to change the world.”

– Jonathan Kent, Man of Steel





{ 33 }

LOREN HALE



No one speaks in the car, from the tarmac to our house in Princeton, New Jersey. Melissa calls a taxi to bring her back to Penn, so at least we don’t have to deal with that.

Connor’s black limo gives us all plenty of room. Lily rests her head in my lap, trying to play cat’s cradle with my shoelace. She stopped crying sometime between our fifth game of Go Fish and when the plane landed.

I want her to call Allison, but she keeps saying she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. And I guess I have no right to force her to speak to her therapist when I’ve been avoiding mine. Regardless, I plan on calling Allison tonight whether Lily does or not. I have to ask about medication for Lil.

No one understands lows like an addict. And I fear the one she’s about to hit when she confronts her parents.

She holds up the intertwined shoelace in her fingers. “Your turn,” she tells me. “Go under my hands and grab it.”

“I’m going to mess it up.”

“No you won’t,” she says. “Just make sure to grab the right ones.”

Problem is, I don’t know which are the right ones.

Rose sits stiffly beside Connor, her cell clutched in her steel-grip. Lily told me that Rose has been in “damage control mode”—she even yelled at a reputable news producer for an hour before Connor pried the phone from her fingers. She’s been texting and emailing gossip magazines and lawyers since we landed.

Rose isn’t taking the leak very well. She keeps fixing her hair and smoothing her dress. Connor has to grab her hands to stop her. And as I look between the three Calloway girls—Rose in a frazzled state, Daisy drifting far away, and Lil with a sad, soft voice—I get it. I get what Ryke sees and what he feels. I have this insane wish to just make things right again, to plug all the cracks in our lives—just for the small, sliver of hope that these girls will be able to stand up on their own for one more day.