Page 75 of Undone

If I’m going to deal with LaBlanc, I need Lily as far away from me as possible.

And yet . . .

He said I was acting like my mom.

The memory of her words makes my heart race, anxiety like I haven’t had in a while spinning my head in circles.

“Fuck it.”

It takes less than fifteen minutes with the nonexistent morning traffic to make it to the town house. I said I wouldn’t come back here, swore to myself, but it’s Wednesday morning and she didn’t show to art history.

And no matter what I’ve tried, I can’t get rid of the image of her, glassy-eyed and stagnant stuck between me and her father—age eleven, fourteen, sixteen—head ducked. I’ve seen it before, spent so much of my youth attempting to dismantle what he tried to do to her—let him do it to me instead.

Paloma’s car is gone, so I assume she’s in class or back in Bennett Reiner’s room. Still, the sound of my motorcycle outside works like a bell. I’m barely off my bike before the door opens.

Lily is half slumped against the doorframe, dressed in leggings and a small T-shirt, arms cradling her abdomen, skin paler than usual.

“Are you sick?” I ask, lip pulling down. I’ve dealt with sick Lily several times, especially when we first started at Walden Prep—the days her dad wouldn’t let her stay home, so we waited for her to get sent home from the nurse’s office. I always went with her, to take care of her. Because if I didn’t she’d be in that big house alone.

Lily shakes her head, but then nods, sliding down a little. I worry she’s going to collapse into the floor in the middle of the doorway.

“Nauseous?”

“Cramps,” she ekes out, eyebrows furrowed. “I’m on my period.”

She says it plainly, no hesitation or embarrassment. Because Lily’s never been embarrassed with me, not once in her life. We’ve been so intertwined with each other since the first day we met, nothing hasn’t been shared.

Which means I was there when Lily had her period for the first time. I was the one who rushed out to the store and got her pads and tampons and asked the old lady at the checkout counter a million anxious questions. A fourteen-year-old boy with a black eye, hood up forming a Q&A on periods and pain relief.

There are more memories with her, with this . . . and I know Lily feels it, too, by the spark of curious heat in her eyes that she doesn’t even attempt to hide.

Times I’ve helped her relieve her pain in different ways.

“How bad are they?” I ask. A war in my mind and gut has already struck. My fists clench.

Her eyes widen like I’ve made an offer.

“Lily.”

I’m snapping at her, voice unnecessarily harsh, but it’s the only way I can even attempt to keep some distance between us.

“It hurts.” She shrugs. “It feels like my stomach is trying to burst out of my stomach.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You don’t make sense,” she replies angrily, but the heat of her anger is snuffed out almost immediately by another cramp. This time she does slide completely into the floor. Her voice is small when she says, “We don’t have any pain meds.”

I do. I have some in my backpack right now. I have to keep them on me, with how much consistent pain my muscles are in—from the overexertion of practices and her father’s particularly brutal sessions.

“Let me in,” I say, voice softer now. “I’ve got some.”

Her bottom lip slips out in a pout as she looks up at me. “I don’t want to move.”

A heavy sigh leaves me as I make a decision I’m certain I can’t come back from. Stepping forward, I slip one arm under her body and hoist her up to stand, keeping my helmet in my other hand and supporting her with my right arm. Inside, I kick the door closed and lock it behind me after dropping my helmet by the door.

There’s tension threading the air, suffocating me slowly as I breathe in the fumes of her, carrying her up the stairs and into her room. It smells so intensely of her—expensive perfume and too many hair products—that I feel almost feral by the time I drop her to her feet and she turns toward me.

Leaning against the door I’ve closed and locked, I watch her.