Krista Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

“Boys are like pillars,” Rose tells me. “Ryke is something to lean on. But they don’t make you move. You have to do that for yourself.”

“I want to be stronger,” I whisper. “I just don’t know how.”

“One step at a time,” Lily says.

“And you’ve already taken the biggest one.” Rose kisses me on the head and Lily tackles me with her hug. I smile into these tears, this sadness that is ready to leave.

I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much.

But it feels good.

I feel light. Airy. Like I can breathe.

RYKE MEADOWS

We don’t rush the living room. I walk back and forth in the kitchen a couple times, and then I see Daisy curled on the couch and Rose tucking a flannel blanket around her. Her black dress rises to her thighs as she sits beside Daisy, stroking her hair. Normally Rose would pull down the hem of her dress, but she’s too concentrated on her sister to notice. She whispers to Daisy, who tries to sleep.

Lily pads into the kitchen first, dried tear marks all the way down her cheeks. Lo pulls her into his chest, leaning against the cabinets while she wipes her face.

I’ve spent the last ten minutes explaining what happened with Daisy’s friends to both Lo and Connor. She asked me to do that part, so it would be less awkward. I would have told everyone months ago, but it wasn’t my place. That story is too fucked up and personal and she needed to talk about it with other people. I couldn’t do that for her.

When Rose’s heels clap into the kitchen, the tension breaks. Her blazing yellow-green eyes are on me, and my back straightens, on the fucking defensive. “I’ve tried to get her to talk—”

“Thank you,” she cuts me off. Surprise coats my face. I can’t hide it, but she continues anyway. “You were there for her, and if you weren’t, I don’t think she could have managed… So thank you.”

My throat squeezes, and I nod in reply.

Connor sidles behind his wife, and his arms slip around her waist. I notice how his palm rests on her stomach for a brief moment or two. His head lowers, and he whispers in her ear.

The silence strings through the kitchen, and there’s this unspoken feeling of regret, of wishing we could have been there to fucking stop it from happening. The most I could do was protect her afterwards, but it was hard while she was still living with her parents. She had to walk down the hallways and find an inner-strength that I couldn’t give her. I don’t think anyone could.

Rose is the first to disrupt the quiet. “I can’t believe it was her own friends.”

Friends aren’t forever. Daisy used to tell me that a lot. One of her fucking theories. I wish I could disprove it, but we’ve all had shit luck with friends since the fame. Small price to pay, most people would claim.

“I never fucking liked her friends,” I say, stuffing my hands in my leather bike jacket. “They were fake.”

“I’m not surprised,” Connor adds. “Teenagers can be crueler than most. They feel above the law, especially the ones who come from our kind of lifestyle.”

Lo nods like he understands that. In prep school, he was known to be a fucking bully and be bullied. But he was also verbally abused as a kid—not an excuse, just a fucking fact.

Lo stares down at Lily as she starts drifting off into space. “You okay, love?” he asks.

“I wish that had been me,” she says softly.

He kisses her temple and holds her closer. The room blankets in a velvet silence. No one saying much of anything. But I think everyone’s heads are at the same place. The kitchen is barren, with boxes and boxes piled high. We’re all moving, separating, but it seems like we’re not at the place we should be.

Any of us.

Splitting apart—it feels fucking weird, not right.

“Does your offer still stand?” Lo asks, his eyes on Connor.

“Which offer?”

“The one where we move in with you guys,” Lo says. “I was thinking that we could buy a house with a lot of security. More than this place. And Daisy could live with all of us. I think she might feel safer than living alone with Ryke. And then when the babies are born, we’ll just…we’ll figure it out then.”

It’s probably the most selfless suggestion my brother has ever made. Because I know how much he hates to be moving back in with Connor and Rose. How much he feels like a little kid on a leash, even though it’s probably saved his ass on numerous occasions. But I also know how much Daisy will love this.

How much it will help her.

It’s why no one says anything else about it.

It’s just understood.

RYKE MEADOWS

My phone vibrates in my pocket as I walk down the carpeted staircase. I simultaneously check my text and follow Lo out of the heavy double doors. Our new house sits in this rich neighborhood in Philly, not the same one our parents live in—but fucking close. At least it’s gated.

At least we can fucking run down the street without fearing a swarm of paparazzi.

I open my phone.

I love you. Maybe we can meet up, if that’s alright. Anywhere you want. – Mom

I stop on the stone steps outside, the birds singing. 6 a.m. My favorite time of day. The sun hasn’t risen, but the sky is lighter and the air is fucking cooler.

My mom.

She hurt me more than my father ever could have. Because I loved her unconditionally. Because I sided with her against Jonathan out of blind loyalty. Because she destroyed Lily and her family, and there’s no going back from that.

But she’s still my mom.

She’s still the same woman who went to my track meets, hugged me tight Christmas morning and signed me up for any hobby that I asked, for any sport that caught my eye. She gave me the fucking world—I was just a little fucking lost inside of it.

I’ll always have those good memories. I just need to hold onto them.

“You coming?!” Lo calls, already at our mailbox, stretching his legs.

“Yeah! Hang on.” My fingers move quickly across the screen.

I’d like that.

I press send and slip the phone back in my pocket. It’s the first text in two years that I’ve replied to, the first hand I’ve extended. Time to start over.

I walk to Lo, and I stretch beside him in the yard, not saying anything at first. But then he speaks up. “So…I watched the interview.”

I don’t look at him. I just sit on the fucking grass and reach out to my shoe, my muscles pulling in taut strands. “Yeah?”

“Was it hard?” he asks.

I stare off, my gaze on the dewy blades of grass, the ground cold in the December morning. A couple weeks ago, I sat down with a reporter.

I tell Lo the honest truth, no lies. “It was one of the hardest days of my fucking life.”

It had been more difficult than climbing three rock faces back to back. More difficult than sitting in a jail cell. More difficult than having a civil lunch with my father.

“You didn’t stutter or anything during it,” Lo says. “Connor was worried you were going to forget your name.”

I laugh lightly. “Yeah…” It’s all I can really say. The reporter, a woman in a sleek gray suit, a microphone attached to her blouse, asked me pointblank what the nation has always wanted to know.

“Did Jonathan Hale ever inappropriately touch Loren?”

I denied every allegation, every claim that painted my dad in a bad light and caused my brother pain.

Lo’s Nike sole knocks into mine as he stretches on the ground too. “You said the hardest things are usually the right things, right?” His brows furrow. I think he’s worried that I’ll regret making a statement to the press.