Addicted After All(26)

They f*cking exist.

And there is a hope, a chance, that he could be more than what I am. That he could be better than me.

Lily sniffs, and I wipe beneath her eyes with my thumb. I turn my head to check on my brother.

By the door, Ryke sits hunched over. A cellphone on his lap. His face buried in his hands. He’s apologized about a hundred times.

Once for my totaled car, ninety-nine times for Lily.

“It’s not your fault,” I say for the fiftieth. The car hit us. It was just a freak accident.

“I was speeding,” Ryke says, dropping his hands. His eyes are bloodshot. Mine remain dry and continue to burn, so I’m guessing they mirror his.

“Not by much.” He slowed down by that point.

His phone buzzes, and he quickly picks it up. His face contorts. “She’s getting f*cking psych evaluated.” He tried to follow Daisy to her hospital room, but a nurse told him family only and so he was shuffled to ours.

Now we know why they kicked him out. “Maybe that’s a good thing,” I tell him.

Her eyes didn’t look right. The Paris riot—it’s still with me. Ryke’s eyebrow is slit in the corner, a literal scar from that night like Daisy’s cheek. I have no external wounds to show for, but I remember the fear, the complete lack of control, and I never want to experience that again. It’s panic so deep that death feels close. Suffocating.

Inside out.

Today was a very small taste of that, and I think we all know it triggered something in Daisy that we can’t see.

Ryke runs his hands through his hair, distressed, and then he scans Lily on the hospital bed. “I’m so f*cking sorry, Lily.”

“It’s okay,” she says in a soft voice. Her chin quakes.

“Shh, love.” I lean closer to her and hold her face between two hands. “He’s okay.” My chest collapses at the pain in her eyes.

“I can’t feel him,” she cries, tears leaking.

My heart is torn to shreds. “You could never feel him,” I remind her. “It doesn’t mean he’s dead.” The moment I say the word, she bursts from a cry to a guttural sob. I can’t explain this hurt that courses through me, it’s like being submerged beneath water. “Shh, Lil,” I choke out her name. I end up stroking her head, wishing I could just crawl on the hospital bed and hold her in my arms.

The door suddenly opens, but it’s Ryke. Leaving. I catch him pinching his eyes before he disappears. After a few minutes of silence, Lily breathes out trained breaths, her eyes shut as wet trails streak her cheeks.

When Ryke enters the room again, so does the doctor, and I wonder if my brother tracked him down. I have a feeling he did.

The man with combed blond hair and blue scrubs does a small double-take, recognizing our faces from the media, probably. He snatches a chart off the wall. “I’m Dr. Adams. I’ll be taking your ultrasound.”

“You seem young,” I say.

“I’m a first year resident.”

As long as he can read the machine, I don’t really care what year he is.

Dr. Adams sits on a stool and lifts Lily’s sweater to her ribs. While he squirts gel on her stomach, his gaze pings between me and Ryke, deep in thought. “So who’s the father?”

Ryke crosses his arms, and I glower. He can’t be serious.

“Loren is,” Lily answers softly.

“I may have lost my kid and that’s what you ask me?” I say to this guy.

Dr. Adams switches on the ultrasound monitor. “If you need a paternity test—”

“She doesn’t f*cking need one,” I cut him off. My throat is too closed up to add anything else. I can’t even flash a dry smile. I just glare.

Ryke adds, “You have the worst f*cking bedside manner I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m working on it,” he says unenthusiastically. And then he presses the probe on her stomach, smoothing the gel out as he runs it across her skin. The sonogram pops up on the monitor, and Lily’s fingers tighten around mine, her collar protruding as she inhales.

And slowly, I hear the beep, beep, beep of another heart.

The relief almost buckles my legs.

He’s okay.

I rub my lips as my body asks me to exhale, to breathe, to cry. I bottle every sentiment that normal people let out. Why are you f*cking crying, Loren? I hear my dad’s voice in the pit of my ear. And I shut down any tears. Just like that.