Hothouse Flower

< 54 >

RYKE MEADOWS

“Man, I wish I could’ve been there,” Sully says, my cell pressed to my ear while I walk into the private airport with my brother, Lily, Connor, Rose, and of course Daisy. “The pictures online are insane. Those photographers caught some awesome shots of you on the Northwest Face of Half Dome.”

“I haven’t seen them yet,” I admit.

“Not like you need to. You lived it, man,” Sully says.

I lived it. I didn’t beat any fucking records. I just set my own, and I completed a challenge that seemed impossible in my teens. I can’t adequately express what this feels like. When I dropped on the ground, I was so fucking exhausted but so fucking overwhelmed with joy.

I did it. I free-solo climbed the Yosemite Triple Crown. 19 hours. A goal for me. Not for anyone else.

“How’s Venezuela?” I ask him.

“Hot and humid,” he says. “But the routes on Mount Roraima are incredible, and the whole place feels spiritual—hard to explain in words. You’d love it here though. I’d ask you to come join me, but…you know.” I hear him smiling on the other end.

“Sorry, Sul. Can’t read your fucking mind.” But I have a feeling he’s talking about Daisy. I hold her hand as we walk through the quiet airport, heading to our gate where our private plane is supposed to be waiting to fly us to Philly.

“You’re probably sore as hell.”

I am. My muscles fucking scream even as I keep stride with Lily and Lo’s leisurely pace. “That’s not what you were about to fucking say.”

“Please, please invite me to the wedding.” I picture his smile reaching the ends of his scraggily red hair.

I roll my eyes. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“I just want you to know that I called it. I’m like a relationship whisperer.” He laughs at his own joke, which makes me fucking smile. “Anyway, that picture of you two outside of Devils Tower is seriously becoming iconic. It’s everywhere. Even in a Venezuelan newspaper.”

“Yeah, someone else told me the picture is pretty popular.” A friend from college texted me the photo, which landed on the cover of Time magazine. It’s famous because they’re pairing it with the Paris riot, even though it was taken a while after that. But after the press learned that’s how she got hurt, Daisy’s scar has become a symbol of what happened that night. People like to hold onto the good in the wake of the bad. And in the photo, she’s on my shoulders, kissing me, smiling, my fingers stained with colors. It looks like a fairytale, something setup. But it was completely candid—captured by a hiker’s cellphone who recognized us.

I care less about being an international icon and more that the coverage may help Daisy accept this new, jarring change in her features. She has barely looked in any mirrors since the hospital, and I think confronting the permanent reality of what’s happened may be hard on her. She’s been avoiding those feelings like she usually does.

“Is she around?” Sul asks. “Let me talk to the girl. She probably misses me.”

“She’s right here.” I pass the phone to Daisy. “Sully wants to talk your fucking ear off.”

She brightens, taking my cell.

“Fucking cut him off if he starts any story with when we were twelve.” He loves to talk about how I streaked at night during summer camp and did a backflip into the lake off a rock. I don’t find the story as entertaining because I snuck in a flask of cheap vodka that year. I was wasted. And a fucking idiot.

But I’d still do all of that stuff now, minus the booze.

Daisy puts the phone to her ear. “Hey, Sully.” She smiles wider. “I did massage his ass, thanks for asking.”

I snatch the phone back from her, and Sully is cracking up laughing on the other end. “Please have children,” he tells me, not able to stop cackling. “I have to see if they’d be as fun as her or as moody as you.”

“Fuck off,” I tell him lightly.

“Hugs and kisses from Venezuela. See you in a few months? Keep in touch.”

“Yeah,” I say. We hang up at the same time, and I watch Lo carry Lily on his back. It’s early this morning, so I’m not surprised, but she has been more tired recently. She presses her head on his shoulder, sleeping.

“What happened when you were twelve?” Daisy asks, lacing her fingers with mine.

Rose and Connor lead the pack with a flight attendant, opening the door to our gate. They walk down the stairs to the runway, where the private plane waits for us. Daisy and I let Lo catch up so we’ll be last out.

“I fucking streaked around my summer camp at night,” I tell her.

She laughs. “No way. I did the same thing when I was fourteen.” She gasps. “It’s like we were always meant to be.”

I run my hand through her hair and then kiss her forehead. If we are supposed to be together, then why does going home seem like returning to a black fucking storm?

Lo passes us and whispers, so as not to wake Lily, “Hey, you two, your PDA is scaring the little children.”

“You mean you?” I retort, following him close behind as he heads down the stairs to outside.

“I mean anyone who was once a child,” Lo says like a smartass. He smiles bitterly, and then I almost bump into Connor’s back who’s standing still on the cement.

“What’s the fucking hold up?” I ask. The plane is here, but it’s not Connor’s private jet parked ahead of us, a thick layer of smog clouding the sky.

My face falls.

I recognize the massive white Boeing 787, ostentatious, in your fucking face.

Just like my father.

He emerges down the stairs of the plane, buttoning his black suit jacket, his dark brown hair starting to gray on the sides.

The flight attendant says, “Mr. Hale’s plane arrived an hour ago. Once the gas tanks are filled, we’ll be off.”

Rose is texting like crazy, and Connor has his hand on the small of her back. He gives the flight attendant a genial smile. “Will Mr. Hale be flying to Philadelphia with us then?”

She nods. “They came to pick you up.”

They?

And right behind Jonathan, another man descends the stairs, tall and confident and entitled. It’s my father’s best friend, his hair lighter brown, in his fifties, a less hard and severe face than my dad’s.

It’s Daisy’s father. My stomach sinks. Fuck me. I’ve never seen Greg Calloway do anything other than smile and shake hands, but worry blankets his face, looking more paternal and more protective than I’ve known him to be. It’s the look that Connor says he wears frequently. I just haven’t been around him long enough to see it.

Greg’s gaze lands on Daisy immediately, but he stays beside the plane, waiting for us to approach like my dad.

I didn’t think it could get worse, but one more fucking person appears through the doorway, heading down the stairs in heels, a strand of pearls around her neck, her brown hair in a bun.

Samantha Calloway.

Her eyes are tight with concern like Greg’s, and her gaze fixes to her youngest daughter. Samantha places one palm to her chest, as though swept up in emotion upon seeing Daisy. Knowing she’s safe. But then her eyes focus on me.

And she glares.

“Shit,” Lo says under his breath.

We’re about to be stuck on a plane for five hours with our father and the girls’ parents.

With no way to escape.

This is going to be a fucking nightmare.