Krista Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

This is fucking different. This is way more intense.

Connor hands Lo a towel, and he wraps the soft purple cotton around her trembling frame.

“Lily…you can tell me anything,” Lo says.

“Not this.” She shakes her head, tears pooling down her cheeks. “Not this. ”

She fucking cheated on him? I set my hands on my head at that gut prediction. She fucking cheated on him.

But then Lo takes her hand in his, lacing their fingers slowly, as if each one is more important than the next. His eyes stay focused on their hands, as if he can’t bear to look anywhere else. And I wonder if he thinks the same thing as me.

“You have to tell me, Lil,” he murmurs. “I can’t guess.” His voice turns into a choked whisper. “Please don’t make me guess.”

She nods repeatedly as if working herself up to it. No one speaks, too frightened that she might crumble into nothing at someone else’s interjection. She opens her mouth and then something must click because her expression flips from realization to complete devastation. “Do you think…you think I cheated?”

Lo looks heartbroken. “I don’t know, Lil,” he whispers. “You’ve been acting distant, and you didn’t come with me to Paris, so you had all that time alone… I just, I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I didn’t cheat,” she says with so much fucking conviction. “You have to believe me.” She searches his eyes for it.

I let out a breath. My brother exhales a fucking bigger one than me.

“I do, Lil.” He touches her cheek. “But you have to fucking tell me what’s going on.”

“I was upset…overwhelmed. And I wanted to do things and I just thought…this would help.” Her eyes flicker to the showerhead and back to her kneecaps, closing up again.

“Just spit it out,” Lo urges. “Whatever it is. Just get it off your chest right now, love.”

It’s her turn to stare at their hands. “I didn’t know how to tell you…I thought while you were in Paris, I’d figure out a good way to say it, but I don’t…I don’t think there’s a good way. And I just kept putting it off, thinking tomorrow will be the day. ” She wipes her eyes quickly and with a deep breath, she says, “I’m eight weeks pregnant.” She barely looks at him.

My hands drop off my head. What? I wrack my brain for signs, but I can’t think of much other than Lily being anxious—like she normally is. Maybe her boobs were bigger? She’s so unassuming and comes across shy and introverted unless you really, really talk to her that it’s hard to notice these things.

Now I realize how she kept a sex addiction secret for so long.

Lo is stunned to silence. We all are…except. I look at Rose and Connor, and they carry a content expression. They’ve known. Fuck them.

“You can’t be…” Lo finally says. He lifts up her sopping shirt, and I zoom in on her belly. I think we all thought she was just gaining a healthier amount of weight, but now with this answer, I can tell the fucking pudge isn’t from eating more.

This is very fucking real.

Lo turns his head and finds Rose. “ You’re pregnant.”

“We both are,” Rose says softly.

“That’s not possible.”

“The probability is slim but it’s not impossible,” Connor answers, his hands in his slacks. “Their cycles had synced up after living together. I don’t use protection with Rose, and I’m sure you didn’t with Lily.”

“I forgot to take my birth control a few days,” Lily breathes. “I didn’t realize it…” She trails off and keeps staring at her fucking hands. I can understand why she’s kept this information to herself. My brother has been getting better since the road trip, but he was at a horrible place. And he’s been so adamant about not having kids.

I don’t want to believe it, but I think this knowledge could have sent him over—caused him to jump off the fucking deep end. No one could know for sure, but it’s clearly not a gamble Lily was willing to take. I’m not sure I would have either.

“You could have told me sooner,” Lo says quietly, but his brows furrow, trying to think back to that time. Probably realizing the same thing as me.

“I know you don’t want kids, and I didn’t want to stress you out with this…I’m sorry.” She sniffs louder, trying hard not to cry.

“Shhh.” Lo holds her tighter. “It’s okay, Lil.”

“It’s not,” Lily says, wiping her tears even faster, an attempt to control them. She pushes him back a little so she can stare up into his amber eyes. “You don’t want a baby.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore.” He lets out a long breath and touches his chest. “We’re addicts. You and me.” He motions between them like they share the same favorite color. “Maybe we shouldn’t have kids, but we have the means to raise him or her well.”

“And you have us,” Rose says. She glances at me.

And I nod at my brother. “You have us, Lo. We’re here for both of you.” Rose, Connor and I have this kind of confidence that Lo severely lacks, and we’ll support him one-hundred fucking percent. I won’t let my brother fall.

Both Lo and Lily look overwhelmed. My brother nods back at me like thanks. And then he whispers to Lily, “We did this together. It’s not your fault, love. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’ve fucked up,” she says.

“I think I’ve beat you these past few months,” he murmurs. “You’ve been there for me, and I’ve been fucking stupid.”

“No,” she says with tear-filled eyes. “You’ve been really strong.” And then they hug at the same time. Both magnetically drawn to each other, arms wrapped in such soul-deep comfort that I can’t fucking watch.

We give them privacy, but Rose purposefully leaves the door open, so maybe not that much privacy. And my head whirls as we go into the kitchen. “How did she not get pregnant when she was screwing different guys every day?” I ask in disbelief.

“She said she was much more careful. It was her only worry back then,” Rose tells me.

Now that we know Lily didn’t slit her wrists or anything, Rose leans against the kitchen counter like it’s Sunday afternoon.

“So you knew about her pregnancy the whole fucking time,” I assume. “You didn’t think to tell Lo?”

“It wasn’t my place, Ryke,” Rose says.

I look at Connor. “And you? You’ve never been known to butt out of other people’s business.”

“I think you’re confusing me with you,” he says casually, “and if you want my honest answer, no, I didn’t want to tell Lo. I didn’t think he could handle it. Be glad you didn’t have to make that decision because it was a fucking hard one.”

I’m known to lie to my brother’s face if I don’t think he can handle certain things. Like my own fucking identity when I first met him.

I don’t envy the knowledge they had. I wouldn’t have wanted it.

I scan the kitchen, the granite counters, expecting an easily excitable girl to be sitting there, swinging her legs against the cabinet. She’s not around, so I walk through the archway to the nearly empty living room, searching for Daisy, but she’s not here either.

I stop in place, realizing something…she was going to tell her sisters about what happened months ago. She was going to finally spill these harrowing details that have fucked her over for weeks.

And of course, Lily’s issues came out today, pushing Daisy to the side. I can imagine how she feels—like her problems aren’t significant, like they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. She’s going to shut down again, to crawl back into her hole where she hides her feelings and covers it with jokes and sarcasm.