Hothouse Flower

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RYKE MEADOWS

It’s been five hours. Connor has argued with the doctors for four of those, trying to persuade them to let us see Daisy, but it’s been “family only” visiting hours, so we have to wait until the morning before friends can enter her room. They won’t say if she’s brain dead. All we know is that she’s in a room and she’s breathing.

For once, Connor Cobalt can’t talk his way through a bad situation. I really fucking wish that wasn’t the case tonight. When I tried speaking to the doctor, I started yelling, and they called security out, so I’ve sat my ass on a maroon leather chair in the carpeted waiting room. Watching the clock barely move. A television is on a news channel, playing footage of the riot that continues to destroy Paris and local stores.

I can barely watch it without feeling sick.

My brother is passed out beside me, a purpled shiner on his right eye. He didn’t say much when he arrived, but he wore a similar haunted look that I had. Janet gave me a clean white T-shirt, so at least he didn’t see the blood on me.

Now I’m in a new stage of grief, my body numb, my mind starting to slow down. And I know partly it’s from being stabbed in the fucking ass with a sedative. I have to thank Janet for that too.

My phone buzzes for the seventh time. I read the caller ID: DAD. I contemplated changing the name to “Jonathan” a few times, but he’s still my father. No matter how much I wish that wasn’t the case.

He hasn’t texted at all, so I figure he’s goading me to answer with each irritating ring. It works. I’m too emotionally exhausted to reject him this time. I put the phone to my ear. “What do you want?”

He exhales in relief. “You’re successfully trying to give me a fucking heart attack, Ryke.” He mutters a few more curses under his breath before asking, “Is Loren okay? His phone just cuts off every time I call.”

“He’s fine.” I glance at my brother again, his chest falling in a heavy sleep, induced by alcohol.

This may be the worst night of my life. I failed the two people that matter most to me.

“The news has pictures of you near the riot before it started. I thought you might have gotten caught in it.” I hear the clink of a glass hitting the lip of another, as if he’s pouring a drink.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Wait for a goddamn second,” he says. “I want to know how you are.”

How am I? Numb, but my emotions try so hard to surface and pour through me. I could scream until my voice leaves me. I could run until my legs buckle beneath me. I could hit the wall until exhaustion defeats me. And my fucking father is asking me this. I swallow a rock in my throat. “You’re the last person I want to talk to right now.”

“We do need to talk, Ryke.”

“Why? Are you going to fucking accuse me of taking Lo away from you again?” When Lo went to rehab for the first time, our dad acted like I brainwashed him. Like rehab was the bad fucking choice. Like Lo wasn’t even an alcoholic.

“That was a long time ago,” he tells me. There’s a long pause, and at first, I think he’s taking a sip of his drink. But he clears his throat like he’s having trouble producing words.

“Listen, my…” I pinch my eyes. I was about to say my girlfriend. I take a deep breath. “Someone I fucking care about isn’t doing well, so I don’t have time to rehash the past with you.”

“Okay,” he says, giving up much more easily than I thought he would. “Be careful, Ryke. And if I don’t talk to you before you climb that ridiculous rock, I just want to say…” He clears his throat again. “I love you, and if you don’t believe me, then check the name on your license. Stay safe.” He hangs up.

He tells Lo that he loves him all the time. And all the bastardly things our father does—that is out of fucking love too. I’m not surprised he said I love you or that he mentioned my first name, his name, as evidence of his feelings. Part of me wants to embrace that paternal affection. The other part sees him trying to get me to speak to the media. If we become friendly, then maybe I’ll stick up for him.

It’s all a wicked game that I never asked to play.

After a couple minutes, I shelve my father, my mom, my brother—all of the family drama in the back of my head.

Connor appears around the corner of the waiting room, holding two coffees in paper cups. He fucking dodged most of the flying fists and brunt force of the riot. No bruises, just a small cut on his forehead. He hands me a cup, and I nod at him in appreciation. His expression is still morose, not unreadable like usual.

“When are the girls landing in Paris?” I ask him, taking a sip. Lo was on the phone with Lily for a while, but he didn’t tell me their conversation. I know Connor talked to Rose for an hour.

“They’re not,” Connor says tersely.

I frown, thinking I’ve heard him wrong. “What?”

“They are not coming to Paris,” he emphasizes each word.

“Their sister is in the hospital,” I say. “I don’t fucking understand. If this was Lily, Rose would be here in a fucking heartbeat.” I squeeze the coffee too hard, and the lid pops off, spilling on my jeans and burning me. “Fuck,” I curse, standing up and drinking the coffee quickly before tossing it in the trash.

Connor sidles next to me by the trashcan. “I’m just as angry as you.”

I look him over. His muscles are relaxed despite the sadness in his eyes. This is a lot of emotion for Connor to fucking show, but I highly doubt he’s feeling what I am. “I don’t think you are, Cobalt. Not even fucking close.”

“My wife is upset, and she’s too prideful and stubborn to tell me why. Rose is the type of woman who would die with a secret if it scared her to reveal it, if it contributed to any type of weakness. So my mind is fucking reeling.”

“Then go,” I tell him. “No one is keeping you here.”

“Lo just drank alcohol,” Connor says flatly. “Daisy is in the hospital. You’re a mess. I’m not leaving the three of you.”

“I’m not a fucking mess.”

He points at the hallway. “I watched two guys who probably weigh two-fifty drag you to the ground. You spit in one of their faces.”

I glare. “He tried to kick me.” It was a low fucking move. “It doesn’t matter. Stay if that’s what you want to do. Leave. If I need to, I’ll call Lily later to ask why she’s not here—”

“Lo already tried,” he says. “Lily and Rose said they’ll take a flight out tomorrow.”

I extend my arms. “Then why are we fucking arguing? They’re going to be here.”

Connor shakes his head. “I already know how this plays out. If Daisy is awake and coherent, the minute they talk to her on the phone, which they will, she’ll convince her sisters to stay back. She won’t want to ruin their day, week, not even over a serious event like this.”

He’s right. If Daisy liked to burden people with her pain, she would have told her sisters about her insomnia, about her horrible fucking prep school friends. About what happened during the ten months that she was living with her parents—when I was at my apartment. She doesn’t think her problems measure up to Lily’s addiction, but they do. They’re just as important.

I stare at the ground, my eyes burning again. I just have this mental picture of Daisy waking up in a strange place, in a foreign country, with no familiar face in the room. It’s fucking horrifying, and I want to save her from that. “Has anyone called her mom yet?”

“No,” he whispers. “Samantha doesn’t know anything, and Rose wants to let Daisy decide whether they tell their mother now or later. Especially since Daisy is going to miss the rest of Fashion Week, and we all know Samantha won’t take that well.”

“Her mom loves her though,” I say. “She’d be concerned. We should at least fucking call her.”

“Ryke,” he breathes. “She’d kick you out of the hospital. I looked online, and someone already uploaded your fight with Ian from the pub. Somehow Samantha is going to blame you for Daisy’s injuries, then cause a scene and upset Daisy even more. It’s delicate. So we need to ask her first.”

I nod. I just hope Daisy is coherent enough that she can respond to anything. What if she can’t talk? What if she’s fucking blind? We know nothing.

Connor studies my reaction for a while and then adds, “And Celebrity Crush posted a photo of Daisy thrown over your shoulder.” He pauses, and his deep blue eyes narrow at me. “Your hand is on her ass, by the way. You should care more about what her father thinks if you want to have a real relationship with her, and if you don’t, then I’m telling you now, as her brother-in-law, back off.”

This is a new side of Connor. Protective of Daisy. I do appreciate it, more than I’m going to let on. “How do you know what I want?”

“I can read people really well. I’m almost a hundred-percent positive you’ve kissed her, based on seeing her in Paris. Her lips were red. She was a little flushed. You were too.”

I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.

“Lo didn’t pick up on it. He wouldn’t. I don’t think many people can see what I can.”

“Why do you have to fucking compliment yourself when you prove a point?”

“I’m stating truths.”

I cross my arms. “Well, here’s one for you, Cobalt. It doesn’t matter if I grab her around the waist, if I kiss her chastely or if I kiss her roughly. No matter what I fucking do, her father isn’t going to like me. Her mom is going to hate me. Fuck you for thinking I need their approval to have a real relationship. What I feel is fucking real, and I don’t need her mom to verify that for me.”

Connor shakes his head like I’m an idiot.

I want to fucking hit something right now, so him standing here, being a smug prick is not helping the situation. The sedative that has kept me at ease is quickly wearing off.

“How is it real?” he asks. “If you have to hide it from your friends and family, that makes your relationship pretend, Ryke.”

“Fuck you,” I say again.

“No, fuck you,” he retorts, pretty uncharacteristically. So much so that my muscles tense. “I stuck up for you. When Lo was against you and Daisy, I was the one who tried to convince him that you’re both mature adults. I supported any idea of a relationship you two might have in the future, I still do, but after this trip, I’m reconsidering how much faith I had in you.”

I can tell this is more than just my hand on her ass in a fucking picture. It’s the “talk” he wanted to have in her hotel room after she woke up screaming. Why does he have to pick this moment to tear through me?

I miscalculated how pissed Connor is tonight. He was right. He’s truly fucking angry, and he’s on the offensive. “You should have told someone about her sleeping issues,” he says. “I thought you, out of all people, would be more concerned about her health. I thought you would have run to her sisters with the news. I thought you’d do anything to ensure Daisy’s safety and protection.”

“I fucking did!” I shout. Some people sleeping in the waiting room begin to stir.

“Then why does no one know?”

“She didn’t want to tell a fucking soul,” I say. “Rose and Lily had their own shit to deal with. She didn’t want to worry her mother or you or anyone with these problems. She wanted to fucking deal with it in private.”

Connor processes this for a second before he asks, “And how long has she been dealing with this, Ryke?”

I shake my head at him. “It wasn’t one singular event. It’s been an accumulation of things.”

“How long?”

I can’t hide it from him. “Over a year.”

His eyes begin to glass, but he nods repeatedly. “It was all the media, wasn’t it? The paparazzi that broke into her room, the guy that destroyed her bike and assaulted her—it all got to her more than she let on.”

“That was the start of it.”

“Rose is going to be so upset that she didn’t pay enough attention to her.” Connor blows out a deep breath, as though he can feel his wife’s pain from this and she still has no idea. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner, to be honest.”

I roll my eyes. “This stays between us. Daisy has to be the one to tell her sisters.”

He nods in agreement. “Has she been to a doctor?”

“Before she left for Paris, she was seeing a therapist regularly, and she’s been through her fair share of sleep studies.” I list out all the information I know he’ll ask. No one has given her much of a solution to resolve her insomnia besides medication and therapy. She just has to cross her fucking fingers that one day she’ll grow out of this.

Connor takes out his phone and starts typing. “I need the names of all her doctors and her therapist.”

“You sound like Rose.”

“I’m serious. I want to make sure you took her to the best—”

“Connor,” I cut him off, “she’s my fucking girlfriend. I’ve triple fucking checked every person she’s been seeing. I don’t need you to do my job for me. I’m more than capable of taking care of her.”

He hesitates before pocketing his phone, and then he stares at me with more respect than when this conversation started. “So you put a label on your relationship?”

I nod. “Yeah, we did.” My nose flares as I hold back emotion. She’s in a fucking hospital room, maybe fighting for her life. What wrong decisions did I make to put her there? Where did I fuck up?

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I chose to never meet my brother. If I chose to keep my head buried in the sand.

My mom would have never known about Lily’s sex addiction.

She would have never shouted it to the fucking world.

No media.

Daisy would sleep peacefully.

Lily wouldn’t feel so fucking ashamed.

Connor and Rose wouldn’t have their sex life distributed online.

And my brother—I think he’d still be drinking.

I take a deep breath, the night saddling me with more regret than I’m used to bearing. “I haven’t always done the right thing, Connor,” I say. “I’m not perfect. But I’m trying so hard to look after my brother and her. But if I’m hurting them, then you need to tell me right now.” I meet his gaze—no pretenses. No jokes. The severity in our postures makes it hard to breathe. And I tell him something from my fucking soul. “I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life by being in it. That was never my intention.”

Connor lets out an exhausted laugh, and tears actually brim his eyes. “Ryke…” He shakes his head and rubs his lips. He drops his hand. “You ran with her in your arms for over three miles. Your brother’s existence caused your parent’s divorce, and yet, you gave up most of your time and energy to help him through his sobriety. How can you possibly think you’re a pain in their life? What you’ve done for them, it’s nothing short of heroic, and if you can’t see that, then you’re blind, my friend.”

A hot tear rolls down my cheek.

I’m so fucking tired of being alone. I was scared that he’d tell me to fucking leave. Because that means going back to a life I can’t see for myself anymore. Daisy has changed that for me. She made me comfortable to share my life with someone else, to live for happiness in the company of others. My solitary future looks bleak. But my future filled with my brother, my friends, her—there’s nothing fucking brighter.

She’s the sun. I’m the dark.

If she’s gone, I can kiss that fucking light away.

Without her, I know I’ll never see it again.