“Can we order pizza?” I ask suddenly, catching myself by surprise. I want this. To spend time with these people. They make me feel good.
“And there’ll be pizza,” Loren says certainly, his gaze latching onto Ryke, trying harder to convince him. Guilt crests Ryke’s eyes, not wanting to crash Loren’s birthday.
“And ding-dongs,” Lily adds.
Lo tries not to smile. “And ding-dongs. And surly-faced brothers named Ryke Meadows. Yeah?”
Ryke hesitates. We’ve only been through one maze, but it was fun while it lasted, and the clown-fight might go down in history. I can’t wait to show Willow the video. Hopefully, it won’t make her miss home even more. But maybe she’ll be glad I’m here to record it for her.
I hold onto that.
With a nod, Ryke concedes. “Okay.”
I’m going to spend a night watching Poltergeist and eating pizza with Willow’s family, and I’m finally starting not to feel guilty about it. Maybe it’s because I want to be happy, even if I don’t deserve it. Just enjoy it. I think I will.
Just today.
december
48
willow hale
As soon as my plane lands on the tarmac, a text from Garrison pings my phone. Nervous, giddy butterflies invade my belly. Countdown to seeing my boyfriend: minutes away. It somehow doesn’t even feel real.
I click into my cell, the plane rumbling to a halt and the other passengers grabbing suitcases from overhead.
Garrison: Waiting at baggage for you.
He’s waiting for me. I take a deep breath, excitement trouncing nerves.
And then my phone rings.
But it’s not Garrison.
“Hey?” I answer quietly, crammed in a window seat and hugging my backpack on my lap.
“Did you land yet?” Ryke asks.
In the background, I hear Lo retort, “She already did. I’m telling you the flight tracker says so.”
Ryke growls back to him, “Let me ask our fucking sister, Lo.”
Our sister.
It still rings through me like a soft padded hammer to a bell, even after two years of knowing Ryke is also my brother.
I can feel a smile on my lips. Palm sweaty, I adjust my grip on my phone and stare out at the tarmac. “Yep, I’ve landed.”
I’m back.
“We’re waiting in the car,” Ryke tells me.
Lo chimes in, “Paparazzi won’t hound you that way. Garrison should be at baggage.”
“Yeah, he texted already.”
“Great,” Lo says. “Can’t wait to see you.” He mumbles something to Ryke about a honking asshole nearby, and after a few see you soons, we hang up.
I’m thankful there’ll be less chaos when I reach baggage claim. Lo and Ryke would definitely bring a stampede of adoring fans.
They wanted me to fly on the family private jet, but I chose commercial, wedged in the back near the growling engines.
I still have a difficult time accepting the perks of being a Hale. Garrison says it’s because I only learned that Jonathan Hale is my birth father two years ago—when I was eighteen.
It means that Lo is my full sibling. Same mom and same dad. And Ryke is my half-brother.
But my relationship with Jonathan Hale is new. Fresh. And it comes with a load of baggage.
Ryke hates Jonathan.
Lo loves Jonathan.
I’m caught in the middle. Not knowing how I should feel about a man who was rumored to have molested Loren. A rumor that was false and caused Lo to relapse years ago. What I do know: Jonathan isn’t all good, even if that rumor was wrong.
But Jonathan is kind to me. He makes an effort to get to know me and my interests. We talk on the phone sometimes about comics, and he asks how my school is going. Rob Moore, the man I grew up thinking was my birth father, never even pretended to care about me. And he was right all along—I was never his daughter.
Not really.
So maybe he had a right to hate my existence.
It’d be so easy just to put all my hate into Rob, while putting all my love and trust into Jonathan. But Ryke says our dad is manipulative.
He says to not trust him.
To not fully love him.
I don’t know what to think.
I’m paying for my first semester of college on my own, but I’m also taking some of Jonathan’s money for the rest of the tuition. That’s all I want to take.
So I don’t fly private. I budget. I’m not going to pretend that I’m wealthy because it’s not my money, and I don’t want to be so far indebted to him that I can’t find my way out.
“Thank you for flying with us,” a flight attendant tells me as I exit the plane. I shake off all thoughts of my dad, each step towards baggage claim reminding me of the man on the other side.
Garrison.
Do I even remember what he smells like? I wonder if he changed shampoos while I’ve been gone. If he will look more tired and gaunt in person, or if that was just the trick of the cellphone screen.