Krista Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

“I drove into the neighbor’s mailbox.” I have no recollection of how I arrived home. I apparently ran four red lights. I fucking knocked over a fence. I basically passed out at the wheel, and I woke up when I crashed.

I wasn’t driving home from a fucking party.

I had been drinking alone on the soccer fields of Loren’s prep school. I fucking hated Dalton Academy. I was forced to go to Maybelwood Preparatory, an hour from where I lived because my mom didn’t want me to see Loren’s face every fucking day. And because no one could know that I was her son.

So Loren had gone to the closer school, where I should have been, while I was banished and cast out.

And I fucking hated him. I fucking loathed him to the core of my fucking body. My mom helped stir this sickening wrath. She constantly said, “Your brother is full of himself, swimming in our money. You want to be surrounded by Jonathan Hale’s brat, then you’ll be headed nowhere good.”

I’d nod and think, Yeah, that fucker.

And then days would pass, and I’d begin to question everything.

Maybe I should meet him.

Maybe I should talk to him.

But he’s a spoiled rich kid.

Like me.

Not like you.

He doesn’t care about anything but himself.

Like me.

Not like you.

He’s a drunk loser.

Like me.

Yesterday, I thought about going to my mom and saying something. I thought about telling her to just get over this moronic feud, to stop ranting about Jonathan Hale’s infidelity and to quit being consumed by the life of his bastard kid.

“Loren Hale got suspended for missing too much class, did you hear that?” she’d ask me with a sick gleam in her eye. His failure was Jonathan’s failure. And to her, that equaled fucking success.

But I couldn’t say anything. Who was I to tell a woman to forget something like that? She had been cheated on. She deserved to be mad, but I had to watch that hate eat at her for almost two decades. There was no justice in her pain. There was just loneliness.

But deep in the pit of my fucking heart, I just wished she would let go, so I could too.

So yeah. My father, he fucking ruined my mom. And maybe if she was stronger, she could have moved on. Maybe if I was a better son, I could have helped her.

I’d driven past Dalton, and I was ambushed with this hot rage. Because nobody knew the real me at Maybelwood. They saw Ryke fucking Meadows, an all-American track star, an honor student, a kid who got detention for cursing almost every other day.

Loren had both my parents on paper.

He had the last name.

He had the billion-dollar legacy.

I didn’t even know how much they told him—whether he knew about me or not. I didn’t fixate on that. I couldn’t get over the fact that all this time, he stole them from me. I had nothing but the yelling and screaming of a complicated divorce. I was the real fucking child of Jonathan and Sara Hale.

So why the fuck did I have to pretend to be the bastard? Why was Loren given the life that I was meant to live?

On the field, I had chugged a bottle of whiskey. I was numb to the burn. I had broken the bottle over the goal post, hoping Loren was a soccer player, hoping it’d cut up his fucking feet, and every time he felt pain, it’d be my doing.

And then the next morning, I woke up after nearly killing myself and anyone in the wake of my swerving car, drinking too fucking much. I was cold inside. Just fucking dead. I didn’t want to be like that. I made a promise to myself. My father wasn’t going to destroy me, and neither was my half-brother. Or my mother. I was going to get my shit together.

I’d run.

I’d go to college.

And I’d find my peace.

Fuck. Them. All.

My dad relaxed. “A mailbox isn’t a big deal. Your brother has done worse things.” He shook his head at the mental images. And then his eyes flickered up to me, and I knew the question was about to come. “Do you want to meet him?”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

“Before you say no, hear me out. He’s had it much different than you—”

“I’m fucking over it.” I didn’t want to waste my energy on Loren anymore. I was done.

“It’s not easy growing up with the Hale name. Our money comes from baby products. He endures a lot of teasing—”

“I don’t give a shit,” I sneered. We were both living a lie, but mine was worse. “I was never allowed to tell people who you were. Did he have to do that? Mom used to say that people would treat me differently if they knew my dad was a billion-dollar CEO, but really, you both were trying to fucking hide me.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. For fuck’s sake, she had to keep Hale as her surname, a stipulation in the divorce settlement, while I remained a Meadows.

“Not exactly,” he said. “We were trying to cover the fact that Loren wasn’t Sara’s child. She was only pregnant once. We couldn’t justify both of you without ruining my reputation.”

That was why my mom had to keep her mouth shut about the cheating, to protect Jonathan. And every day she had to help this soulless prick, it fucking ate her up again. But she did it for the money. I didn’t think any amount of cash was worth the fucking pain of these lies.

Everything was to save face.

“Why choose him?” I asked. “Why isn’t Loren the one being hidden?” You love him more.

His face remained blank, all the hard edges not revealing anything to me. He wore a dapper suit that made him look as expensive as he was. “It’s just how things worked out. It was easier for you to take your mother’s maiden name. Loren only had one option. And that was me.”

I ground my teeth. “You know, I just tell all my friends that my dad died. Sometimes, I even find clever ways to kill you off. Oh yeah, my dad, he drowned on a fucking boat accident; perished in his golden fucking yacht while he was shitting on the toilet. ”

He became a ghost or demon I’d meet on Mondays. Nothing more.

He licked his lips and swished his scotch, not meeting my gaze. He almost laughed. He found that fucking funny. “Listen, Jonathan,” he said.

“It’s Ryke ,” I shot back. “How many fucking times do I have to tell you that?” I didn’t want his name any more than I wanted his genes. I planned to use my middle name forever.

He rolled his eyes again and then sighed. “Loren isn’t like you. He’s not good at sports. I don’t think he’s ever aced a test in his life. He’s wasting his potential by going to parties. If you’d meet him, you could help—”

“ No ,” I forced. I put my forearms on the table and leaned close. “I don’t want anything to do with your son. So stop fucking asking.”

He took out his wallet and passed me a picture, one he’d shown me a couple times before. Loren was sitting on the stairs of our father’s mansion, where he grew up. I always looked for similarities in our features and felt sickened by them.

We had the same eye color, only his were more amber than my brown. My face was harder cut, but our builds were more alike, lean not bulky. He wore a navy blue tie and a white button-down, the Dalton Academy uniform. He wasn’t staring at the camera, but his jaw was so sharp, unlike anything I’d seen before. He looked like a fucking douchebag, like he’d much rather be popping open beers with his buddies than sitting there.

“He’s your brother—”

I slid the picture back to him. “He’s no one to me.”

Jonathan downed the second glass of scotch, pocketing the photo. And he grumbled under his breath about my “bitch” of a mother. She never wanted me to meet Loren, just the same way that she refused to come into contact with him. As far as I knew, Loren thought Sara was his mom like the rest of the world. Or maybe someone finally told him the truth. That he’s the fucking bastard.