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“Cocaine is illegal.”
“It wasn’t our fucking coke,” Ryke retorts.
The burly police officer clears his throat, obviously hearing the tail end of that, and he gestures to Lily. “We were able to arrest three twenty-year-old men who fit the description that your friend gave us.” Their gazes flit to Connor and then back to Lily. “We’re here for your statements. What happened and more specifically what these men looked like.”
Lily blows out a breath, her skin flushed from the whole night’s ordeal. She also broke out from whatever else was in the powdery mixture, a rash creeping up her neck and forehead.
I kind of just want to hug her tight and make sure she’s still okay.
“They were all really ugly,” Lily begins, which lightens the mood some. Lo even cracks a smile for the first time. “The tallest one had burn marks over half his face, and one had boils over his eye—”
“We need serious statements.”
“They were zombies,” Ryke explains.
The police officers lose a bit of color and they whisper amongst each other.
“Not real zombies,” Lily says. “The fake kind.”
Ryke rubs his eyes but he actually lets out a laugh like what the fuck is going on here? This isn’t really happening.
“What is it?” Connor asks the officer.
And then the burly one says, “Our partners detained three men dressed as fraternity guys.” He checks his phone. “You’ll have to excuse us for a minute. We need to make a couple calls, and then we’ll come back in and get your statements.”
Lily nods. Ryke pinches his eyes, more out of frustration this time.
I’m not even surprised by the idea that these five guys may escape. We’re all just so used to it by now. Chasing shadows and anonymous leads. All these people just “having fun” at our expense.
I once asked Ryke when it ends—if it’ll ever end. If everything will ever be better than where we stand. These are just people. Normal people. Who come after us. Old friends and ordinary citizens. Watching us online, reading about us in magazines.
We’re not real in their eyes. Not to any degree that we need to be.
When Ryke drops his hand, he says to Lo, “This isn’t your fucking fault. Don’t sit there and think it is.”
His cheekbones sharpen like ice. “I let him go.”
“Who?” I ask.
“The boy who flour-bombed me,” Connor clarifies. “We caught him, but he was young. Ryke, Lo, and I made a choice together and let him go—”
“I made the choice,” Lo says, his voice rattling, his face twisting in pain. “I let him go. I didn’t set a precedent. This happened because of me, so don’t say anything different and try to coddle me. I don’t need to hear your lies and your stories and your goddamn sympathy. I did this.”
The bottom of my stomach drops, and I sit up, holding my bent knees. Ryke has his hand over his mouth. Everyone is upset. Every person in this room.
“I have an idea,” I suddenly say. All eyes draw to me. “Please don’t slam the door on it right away. Just let me explain.” They listen while I try to formulate it best. What everything has been like for me and for them. “I’m really tired…I’m tired of being seen as an object, as less than human, as an emotionless, soulless being. Whether you want to believe it or not, you’re all viewed that way too.” I look around at them, at the only people who could understand what this has been like.
We’ve all been paddling in the same sinking boat. Bailing water while people put holes in our ship. They’re drowning us, and I’m ready to scream as loudly as I can—until they hear me.
Hear me.
And see what you’ve done to us.
“Beyond us, how many people saw Lily afraid to leave her house for months because of the media? Because people took pictures and made comments at her? How many people know what my friends did to me?”
Ryke sets his hand on my leg, and I realize that hot, angry tears are running down my face.
“How many people know what Paris was like for us?” I look at Lo and then at Connor and Ryke. “I know it’s hard to talk about, but maybe it’s time we tell them our story. The one where people cause other people pain. The one where trauma lasts for years and never goes away.”
No one knows us. Not the human, fragile parts of us.
I don’t think they’ll ever stop unless they see.
Lily wipes her glassy eyes with the hospital sheets. “Yes,” is all she can say, choking on a sob. Lo crawls over and hugs her, but she rubs her eyes, nodding repeatedly to me like it’s the right time for us.
Now it is.
We can speak loudly, together.
Rose brushes away her tears quickly and then clears her throat that’s still a little raspy. “Do you have something in mind already or do we need to plan a platform for this?”
“Not a reality show,” Lo immediately shuts down.
“I was thinking a docu-series, but on another network, something more unfiltered like HBO.” We’ve been burned by GBA too many times to go crawling over to that network for help. We were also contractually obligated to them for a long time—if we filmed anything, they had first rights. Until Scott Van Wright went to jail. Our contracts were then terminated.
We can do what we want now.
It’s not like we need the number one television station. We just need something, anything, to air our voice.
“We produce it,” Connor chimes in, adding life to the idea. “We’ll be in complete control of the edit and our message before it airs.” Unlike before.
“We interview each other,” Rose adds. “We ask the questions and are the first to receive the answers.”
I smile, my tears falling to my knees.
“We can opt out at any fucking time,” Ryke says, his gaze landing on me. “Say no one day, say yes the next day. We do it at our own pace.”
“We can do it monthly or maybe even as little as four times a year,” Lily says with a rigorous nod. “We decide how much we put out there.”
I nod too, liking their additions, liking that it’s as much mine as it is theirs. And then we all look to Lo, his wife’s head on his chest. He hugs her like she’s a part of him.
“You think this will help?” he asks us. “Because there’s a lot here.” He motions around the room, his eyes slowing down when he passes me. “There’s a lot here, and…” He chokes up and a tear rolls down his cheek.
“You and Lily haven’t hurt us,” I say, my chin trembling. “You’ve given us so much more out of life…” I slide the heel of my palm over my wet cheeks. “It’s only about their actions, not the repercussions of your addictions. Please, please believe in that, Lo.” I know Lily already has.
It takes him a moment, but he nods a few times. “I guess it’s time, isn’t it?” He nods again, more assured that this is something we can do without poking holes into each other.
We’ve never been stronger or loved one another more than we do now.
“So,” Lo says, “what are we calling this docu-series thing?”
We all look around again, and even though we haven’t written out a contract to enact this choice yet—I feel an immense weight lift from the entire room.
And we all begin to smile.
RYKE MEADOWS
“Someone’s on your ass, bro,” Lo tells me in the backseat of my gray Toyota Land Cruiser, my Christmas present from Daisy. I sold my other car right after. Now it’s the third of February—cold as fuck and pouring. I can hardly see five feet down the road, even with the wipers.
I check my rearview, the two-lane road narrow and slick with water. Rose drives her Escalade, presumably in front of me, but only red taillights are fucking visible.
“What kind of fucking car is behind us?” I ask, unable to tell.
Daisy cranes her neck over her shoulder, sitting in the passenger seat, the leather interior brown, rust-colored. After a short
pause, she says, “It’s just Price.”
I notice Lily trying to relax beside my brother. We wouldn’t be driving in a storm like this—with the threat of paparazzi running us off the road—unless it was a fucking important day.
And today is one of those days.
My eyes flit to Daisy. “Can you call Price and tell him to give me five fucking feet?”
She puts her phone to her ear and before she can even speak, he must start talking because her lips snap closed and she listens.
“How much farther until the courthouse?” Lily asks, biting her nails.
“Two miles,” I answer. Through the rearview mirror, I see Lo grab her hand and then kiss her temple.
She smiles at him, but her anxiety tenses the fucking car. My brother keeps glancing outside, and his leg jostles while rain thrashes against the street and Land Cruiser.
I’m not going to fucking speed.
Daisy is about thirty-seven weeks pregnant, and I’m not losing her or our baby because I drove us into a fucking ditch. When Lily was pregnant, I almost made that error, just to outmaneuver paparazzi. I’m not repeating my fucking mistakes.
“Okay,” Daisy says in her phone. “I will.” She hangs up. “So he’s on our ass because two sedans are trying to cut him off and drive beside us. He’s blocking them every time they try to pass.”
Fuck. I comb my fingers through my hair and set my hand back on the steering wheel. “Does everyone have their fucking seatbelts on?” I keep my focus on the road.
“You’re about twenty minutes late with that question,” Lo says, his voice edged. “If there’s a five-car pile-up with Rose’s Escalade and we all die—”
“That’s not fucking happening,” I cut him off.
“If we all die,” he enunciates since I broke off his speech, “then my son is going to be raised by Greg and Samantha Calloway. So please, please don’t kill me.” It’s rare that he advocates for his own life out loud. “Or at least don’t kill, Lil. She’s too precious to die.” He pinches her cheek.
Lily slugs his arm, and when Lo feigns a wince, I realize I need to stop looking in the rearview mirror. “You’re not going anywhere,” Lily says adamantly.
