Addicted for Now (45 page)

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LILY CALLOWAY

“Oh my God! I found your porn!” I walk out of
Ryke’s closest with a shoebox. I can only imagine it holds incriminating
evidence, verifying that I’m not the only porn-lover of our friends. My glee is
all too apparent.

Lo and Ryke glance up from the floor, spread out with bubble
wrap and boxes. We’re packing up some things from his old room at his mother’s
house. He’s moving from his flat in Philly to a new apartment—same city, just a
place with more guest bedrooms and less paparazzi lurking outside.

Instead of buying all new things for the extra space, he’s
trying to consolidate what he has here. Ryke planned the packing party during
Sara Hale’s book club, so she’s not home. Lo doesn’t really want to meet her
face-to-face, considering he’s the result of her failed marriage.
 

“Open it,” Ryke tells me, motioning towards the shoebox in
my hands.

I flip the top and my spirits pop. Baseball cards. Hundreds
of them. One of the guys looks kind of hunky…maybe…

I hold up a card with the hot young player. “You totally
jerked off to this.”

Lo grins, even as he struggles wrapping an odd shaped lamp.

Ryke gives me a look. “
You
would,” he refutes. “And maybe I would too if I was attracted to men. But no, I
traded those with kids from grade school, I didn’t jizz on them.” He turns to
Lo. “Does she do this to you?”

“What?” he asks in amusement. “Try to find my porn?”

I freeze, eyes wide. “You have porn?” Oh my God, there may
be porn at our house. Right now. I gasp. “Where?”

“At my dad’s place,” he explains. “From my teenage years.”
Oh. That makes sense. He wouldn’t keep porn around me—even if I’ve done really
well these past few weeks.

“So I’m the only one you like to embarrass?” Ryke asks me.

“You can’t get embarrassed,” I remind him, “and you told me
to be comfortable talking about sex, so it’s your fault.” It’s true I’ve opened
up around Ryke, and I think we can even call each other friends now.

“Fucking fantastic.” He grabs a roll of tape and tries to
roll it over a box, but the dispenser shrieks in revolt. He grumbles a few
curse words and throws it on the ground. “Lily, can you go find me another roll
of tape? There should be one in the kitchen cabinet.”

“I’m on it.” I exit the bedroom and journey through the
large house that has more unnecessary bedrooms than necessary ones. I find the
kitchen and start opening as many cabinets as I can, avoiding the dishware and
pots. A few drawers later, I find the miscellaneous area. I squat and discover
tape behind a tub of bulbs.

Success.

I spin around, about to head back to Ryke’s room but
something stops me. Something situated on the tea cart by the breakfast table.
A small box is wedged in an overflowing basket of mail.
 

It’s brown, like any normal package, but this one is
different. My heart lurches to my throat. Swallowing a lump, I approach the
box, confirming my suspicion. Tiny X’s are typed all across the packaging.

My hands shake as I set the tape on the cart and inspect the
label.

From: Kinkyme.net

It’s the same site that sent me the dildo, but I assumed the
leak just mailed the package directly to my parent’s house. Wait. That’s not
right. A note accompanied the sex toy, so the leak had to mail the box to their
house first, place the message inside, and
then
send it to me.

This is Ryke’s house. We never come here. He knows this. He
knows more about us than almost anyone. We let him in.

Lo was right from the beginning, wasn’t he?

Tears well. Ryke made this elaborate plot, infiltrating our
lives, just to cause Lo more pain—to ruin his life because he destroyed his
just by simply existing.
 

Why is it that the people you come to love are the ones that
seem to hurt you the most?

I continue reading the box.

To: William Crane

A fake name to cover his tracks. I grip the box, hating
everything and then nothing at all. A horrible pain shreds my chest. Lo won’t
just be hurt by the news. He’ll be devastated. How can he handle another
disappointment, another betrayal? Even imagining his reaction brings a flood of
tears, dripping down my cheeks.

I have a sudden urge to rip open the box and see what’s
inside. Before I search for a knife, the patter of shoes echoes, the sound
growing towards me. And then the noise silences by the doorway—the
kitchen
doorway.

Sara Hale sets her purse and her book club’s hardback on the
counter. Her golden-brown hair compliments her flower sundress. As soon as she
makes eye contact with me, her glowing face tightens. And then her gaze drops
to the box in my hands.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, not peeling from the
box. “What is that?” Her lip spasms. “You need to leave right now.”

Each time she speaks, I can barely register the words. They
zip right into my ear and out the other.

“Did you not hear me?” Her eyes sear with hate. I don’t know
where it’s coming from. I don’t know what I did to her. “Get out of my house!”

“Mom, what the hell?” Ryke rushes down the stairs and into
the kitchen, Lo right behind him. I’m too stunned to do much of anything.

“You brought her here!” Sara shrieks, and then her eyes ping
to Lo who hurries to my side. “And
him?
”

Lo touches my shoulder, and he glances at the box in my
hands. “Lo,” I say softly. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m so confused.

Ryke follows my gaze, and before Lo or I can do a thing, his
brown eyes light with fire. He faces his mother. “What the fuck did you do?”
His voice is hollow and cold.

“Get them out, Ryke,” she retorts, pointing towards the
front door.

“What the fuck did you do?!” he screams, his hands on his
head. His chest rises and falls.

“Sweetie, let’s talk about this later.” She reaches out to
touch his arm, but Ryke jerks back, throwing his hands in the air.

“What the fuck is going on?” he says. “What the fuck did you
do?” He shakes his head repeatedly, and it’s then, that I know for certain, who
the real leak is.

 
Ryke had nothing to
do with the scandal. Lo’s brother is just as innocent as the rest of us.

“I don’t want to talk in front of them,” Sara says.

“Did you tell the press that Lily’s a sex addict?” Ryke
asks, his eyes reddening as he suppresses more volatile emotions. He’s about to
explode.

I always wanted to see Ryke Meadows flinch, but not from
something like this.
 

“Ryke—”

“Did you fucking tell them?!” he yells, clutching the
granite counter.

“Yes,” she suddenly says, touching her chest as though a
weight has been lifted off. All this time, we assumed that the blackmailer was
a man. Yet, here
she
stands.

Lo is rigid beside me, and if the perpetrator was anyone
else, he’d most likely be sending the person to hell with his words. I think
we’re both more concerned for Ryke in this moment.

The painful silence stretches. Ryke stands still, unmoving,
and his tears gather and threaten to fall.

“Ryke, honey,” Sara says, “you have to understand that
Jonathan—”

 
“Stop,” Ryke says,
his voice breaking. “I get why you did it. You ruined a girl’s life because you
wanted to be free of him. You wanted people to know that you were cheated on.
You couldn’t say a word about his infidelity because of the divorce contract.
But if the media found out inadvertently, you’d still keep Jonathan’s money and
everyone would know about Loren’s real mother. Tell me I’m wrong.”

She doesn’t say a thing.

Ryke shakes his head again, his voice shaking even more. “So
you
tormented
Lily to hurt Loren, to
retaliate against Jonathan fucking Hale, to stick it to his son, and I guess
you strung Lily along for a while because Jonathan was squirming. You liked
that. You took pleasure in his stress. And then when you leaked the news to the
press, your book club friends and everyone else realized that you were cheated
on. Right? You weren’t the gold digger after all. That’s great, Mom.
Congratulations. You succeeded.”

“Ryke—”

“You know what else you did?” He blinks and tears fall. “You
lost your only son.” He goes to turn around, and Sara grabs his arm.

“Wait, honey—”

Ryke untangles from her hold but stops and faces her again.
“What? What could you possibly say that could justify terrorizing a girl for
months?
”

“You were never supposed to meet him,” she says under her
breath, her cheeks slick with her own tears. She points at Lo. “He’s not your
family.”

“He’s my brother!” Ryke yells. “He would never hurt me the
way you just have.” He takes a staggered breath, tugs at his shirt and holds
back a scream. “You don’t get what you did, Mom. Do you even know what you did
to
me?
Do you fucking understand?”

Sara’s chin quivers as she cries. “Please, stop. Don’t go.”
She touches his arm.

“You’ve made me choose between you and Dad my whole fucking
life. You can’t stop me from having a relationship with Lo. You can’t make that
decision for me.”

“I’m your mom.”

“And you lied to me!” Ryke shouts, pain enveloping his face.
“You ruined someone’s life for a fucking feud, and you were willing to
sacrifice
me
doing it.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “If I thought you’d react
like this, I would have never—”

“I don’t believe you,” he says flatly. “If you knew me at
all, you’d realize that I’d hate you for what you’ve done. I can forgive you
for a lot of things. But this…” He lets out a weak laugh like he’s stuck inside
a nightmare. “What the fuck, Mom?” He takes a deep breath. “I’m gone in an
hour. I have a few more boxes.”

She can’t stop crying. Sara hugs the counter, expecting Ryke
to come into her arms, to comfort her and say everything’s okay.

But he can barely look at her without his breath shortening.

“Just answer me one thing,” Ryke says. “How did you find out
that she was a sex addict? I never told you that.” He didn’t? I thought maybe
that’s how she learned.

Sara sniffs and gestures to his pocket. “Your cell…your
texts…”

Oh God.

Ryke pinches his eyes.

She read his texts. I’m sure there are many mentioning my
addiction, or hinting about it. Ryke always asked how therapy went. He was the
first person to tell Lo and me that aversion therapy is sadistic and to stop
seeing Dr. Evans. And before that, he most likely texted back and forth with Lo
about my progress with Allison.

Lo kisses my hand a couple times, and he wipes my tears with
his thumb. I let go of his palm because I think we both know that I’m not the
one crumbling right now. I don’t even need to nudge Lo. He’s beside his brother
within the second.

“So you found their numbers from my cell?” Ryke asks, trying
to suppress more tears, his eyes bloodshot.

“I just…” She cries into her hand.

“You what?” Ryke says. “You wanted me to stop hanging out
with Lo? You wanted Jonathan’s son to suffer because Lo took me from you?
That’s…fucked up, Mom. That’s real fucked up.”

“Please…it sounds worse than it is.”

“I assure you, it’s that bad.” Ryke tries to take a deep
breath, but he can’t quite let it out. “Well, you got what you wanted. I hope
you’re happy with that.” Ryke turns to Lo. “Can you help me finish my room? And
then we can get out of here.”

“Sure.”

We leave his mother bawling in the corner of the kitchen. I
almost feel bad. Almost. But when I see Ryke, that pity for her transforms into
hate again. Because she hurt her son more than she could hurt me. This was
personal, and even though she was going after Jonathan, she hit Ryke directly
in the heart.

The door closes, and Ryke just shatters completely.

He squats in the middle of the room, his hands on his head,
not able to take a full breath. “What the fuck?” he keeps repeating. “What the
fuck?” He laughs painfully into a broken sob.

Lo bends beside him and sets a hand on his back. “Hey,
you’re all right. It’s okay.”

Ryke covers his face in his hands and he screams, all the
pent-up rage coming. He suddenly shoots to his feet, his reddened eyes pinging
around the room, crazed and tear-streaked. He finds a baseball bat.

“Whoa, whoa,” Lo says, prying the weapon from Ryke’s hand.

“I need to hit something,” Ryke says, restless.

“Just sit down.”

“I can’t!” Ryke screams. “My mother fucking ruined your
life! None of this would have happened if it weren’t for—”

And then Lo pulls him to his chest, for a hug. Ryke
hesitates for a second, and I wonder if he’s going to release his aggression on
Lo by punching him. Instead, he fists the back of Lo’s shirt, and they stay
like that, with Ryke choking, with his body vibrating in agony and guilt, and
Lo clutching tightly, not letting go.

“It’s not your fault,” Lo says, holding onto his older
brother.

Many months ago, the roles were reversed. Lo would have
never been strong enough to be a support for someone else, especially someone
that hardly ever breaks down.

I wipe a few silent tears. I know the kind of remorse that
puts deep pain on your chest, the kind that feels as weighted as Atlas bearing
the world. It’s soul-crushing.

“Listen to me,” Lo breathes in his ear. “Meeting you was the
best thing that’s ever happened to us. I’m sober and Lily’s in recovery. None
of that would have been possible if it wasn’t for you.” He shakes Ryke, and a
tear slips out of Lo’s eye. “You are the fucking reason I’m with the girl I
love; you’re my
brother
, so don’t you
ever feel guilty for what’s happened now. That’s not on you.” He holds up
Ryke’s face to look him in the eyes. “Hey, you hear me?”