Becca Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

“As long as we want it to,” I tell her. “I’d fucking fight for you, Dais. You just have to let me.” She can’t be worried about hurt feelings. We’re going to upset people eventually, but if they love us, if they want us to be happy, they’ll accept this.

“Even your brother?” she whispers, her eyes closing as she dozes off.

“Even him,” I breathe, watching her begin to fall asleep. How long it’ll last, I’m not sure. I sit up and turn off the flashlight. I zip open one flap that faces the woods, the moon bathing our tent in a serene glow. I lie back, not closing my eyes. She eases into a peaceful slumber.

And I stay up and recount what I have with her and how much more I want.

One day can change everything.

So I keep hope that one day we’ll finally be there.

* * *

An hour must pass before she wakes up, unable to sleep. She notices that I’m already awake, and she rolls onto my body and traces the outline of my tattoo again, grazing her finger over the dark ink. I hear the faint sound of crickets outside our tent.

Her finger trails the inked chain on my side that’s bound around the feet of a phoenix.

“Am I the anchor?” she asks, skimming the tattoo on my waist.

My eyes darken. “Why would you think that?”

“You never told me what the tattoo meant when you got it.”

She was with me almost every time I went to the tattoo parlor to have more of the design filled in. She asked only a couple times what it meant. I would give her a look, and she’d drop it. I didn’t think she’d draw this conclusion. Not back then, and definitely not now.

“I’ve weighed you down the past couple of years,” she elaborates off my dark gaze. “I just thought—”

“I’m the fucking anchor,” I tell her suddenly.

“What?” Her brows furrow.

I know I need to give her the whole explanation. I can barely meet her eyes as I do. “When I was seventeen, my dad came to one of my track meets. He tried to watch as many of my competitions as he could.”

I stare at the top of the tent, remembering the heat of the summer in May. Jonathan Hale in the bleachers, wearing a suit and nodding at me as I met his sharp gaze. He smiled. Genuine pride.

“My mom was there. She wouldn’t look at him,” I say. “And when a lady leaned in to ask my father who he was there for, I heard his answer.” A bitter taste fills my mouth. “He said, ‘my friend’s kid. That one.’ He motioned towards me.”

I remember flipping him off, and that pride vanished from his eyes.

I didn’t care anymore.

Daisy places her hands on my abs. “What happened?” she asks with a frown.

“I still had to run, and I had two fucking choices. I could reach the finish line or just walk away. I took my fucking mark, and right when I started the race, I began to slow down. And then I fucking stopped on the track, took a couple deep breaths and walked off.” My heart beats faster at the memory. “My coach pulled me aside and he told me something…” I shake my head. “It’s stayed with me for so many fucking years. It changed me.”

I meet her eyes that are filled with my pain, sensing the hurt that travels through my body, thinning the air.

I can practically hear my coach in my ear, see him standing on the sidelines, one hand on my shoulder. “He said that I could be anything and do anything, and no one can stop me but me.” I say what he did, “You are your own anchor, Ryke. When you fail, you hurt yourself more than anyone else. Do you want to keep burning or are you going to let yourself rise?”

My brother—I don’t think he ever had someone to tell him this. He just kept failing until there was no way he could ever succeed.

I reach out to Daisy and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “So I’m the anchor and the phoenix, and it was around this time that I learned to run for me. I stopped winning for my fucking mom, for my dad. Every achievement, every good grade—that was mine. I started living my dreams and I stopped living theirs.”

She smiles, tears in her eyes. “That’s beautiful, you know.”

I sit up with her and kiss her cheek. It feels good to finally share that with someone. I never thought it would matter, but I can see that it does.

“How did you know that you loved running and rock climbing?” she asks me.

I think about this for a second. Take away all of my trophies, all the success, would I still run and climb? My lips rise at the answer. “Because when you find something you love, you can’t quit. Every failure pushes you harder. It’s in your soul and in your fucking heart.”

“And what if I never find what I love?”

“You have to try some things,” I say, not worried about this as much as she probably is. She’s only eighteen. She’ll figure it out. She has time, even though her mom makes it seem like she has none. “I got lucky.” I kiss her temple. “Try to sleep with me, Dais.”

She smiles and opens her mouth to make a very fucking obvious quip.

“Real sleep,” I say, lying back down with her. I hold her to my chest, keeping her safe.

And I wait for her to start dreaming.

RYKE MEADOWS

I unzip the tent, running my hand through my hair while the birds chirp. I can tell it’s early. Probably around six, and Daisy only fell asleep an hour ago. I didn’t close my eyes at all, and honestly, my body isn’t that tired. Fucking her was the best adrenaline rush I could have. I’m still living that high.

I immediately find Connor and Rose around the campfire, both dressed in inappropriate fucking clothes for the morning. A suit and a dress. And they’re drinking coffee from Dunkin Donuts paper cups.

I outstretch my arms. “You’re a bunch of fucking cheaters.”

Rose scoffs as though I punched her in the face. “We did not cheat.”

I slouch in a chair across from them. “You can’t buy coffee while you’re camping.”

“I’ve never heard of these rules,” Connor says. He sips his store-bought coffee with a pompous grin.

“You camp and you make instant coffee with boiled water and powder packets.” I shake my head at them. “Running to the store is like excusing yourself to go to the bathroom during a test, checking answers on your phone.”

Rose’s eyes narrow at me and then she takes a larger sip of her coffee too, not backing down. Connor looks like he could fuck her right there.

Whatever.

“You’re glowing, by the way,” Connor tells me. I don’t like that knowing expression on his face.

“Fuck off, Cobalt.” I kick my boots up on the cooler.

Rose plants her fierce fucking yellow-green eyes on me. “Did you wear a condom?” she asks in a hushed but forceful voice, pretty careful not to wake up my brother.

My face hardens. There’s no way they heard us last night, but Connor puts details together to find facts, so I’m not that surprised he’s figured it out. Or that he’s been keeping Rose updated on my relationship with Daisy. “Did you wear one when you first fucked Connor?” I retort.

Her neck reddens. “That’s not the point.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay then.” I have nothing else to say. I’m not about to explain how I always wear condoms with other women, but I honestly don’t see the fucking need to with Daisy. We’re in a serious relationship. I trust her. And I trust me. The. Fucking. End.

I’m about to stand up, but Rose says something that keeps me here.

“Be careful with her, Ryke. She might be experienced, but she’s still my sister. If you hurt her, I’ll personally snip off your balls and hang them on the Christmas tree this year.”

I internally cringe. “I wouldn’t fucking hurt her, I promise you, Rose.”

She nods. “Okay then,” she repeats what I did, and I almost smile.

“I’m going to get more wood,” I tell them.

Connor follows me with his coffee in hand. “I’ll help.”

“Feel guilty for cheating?” I ask, heading towards the forest.

“No,” he says, his expensive shoes crunching the leaves. “I just thought you needed an extra pair of hands.”

I wait for the punchline. My brows rise when it doesn’t come. “No insult?” It’s weird not hearing a dog joke. Even with the constant badgering, he’s always been my friend, but like most of my relationships, it’s complicated. “You didn’t tell Rose about Daisy’s sleep issues, did you?” I stop about twenty feet from the woods, our camp still behind us.

“I thought about it,” Connor admits, “but you’re not giving me all the information, and I’d rather not spread around partial truths.” He waits for me to divulge more.

I won’t.

“She’s going to talk to her sisters,” I say. “She needs time.”

“Man’s greatest excuse to delay the inevitable.”

“Can you not fucking talk like your auditioning for the role of Confucius?”

“If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.” Of course he goes and actually quotes Confucius. Fuck me.

I shake my head. “You’re such a fucking prick.”

He doesn’t even blink, not affected by the insult. Maybe because he knows it’s true. “You know, I never really liked Confucius. I always thought his principles were a bit basic, common sense.”

“Fascinating,” I deadpan.

He continues casually. “But there is one quote I appreciate from him.” Connor looks at me and his eyes turn serious, no pretense or humor. “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

I don’t know if he meant for this to be about Daisy. But she’s immediately what comes to mind. After what happened last night, bringing up some of the past, all I want is to go full fucking throttle. No more slowing down. No more hiding. I want to believe that I control my fate, that I’m the one who chooses to stop and start.

I want everything that my friends have. Out in the open. Real.

I have to tell Lo.

The resolution lifts this weight off my chest.

And then something rustles a bush twenty feet away. I see it out of the corner of my eye. A movement that crashes the weight back down tenfold and twists a chain around my ankles.

“Connor,” I whisper, a pit in my stomach. “Nine o’clock.”

He calmly sips his coffee and turns a fraction. Into his next sip, he says, “I can see two lenses.”

They found us.

I run a hand through my hair. I promised my brother freedom from this bullshit. I’ve failed him. Then the cameraman peers out of the bush, noticeable, and I lock eyes with him, my body blazing with anger. I start to charge forward, and Connor grabs my arm and forces me back by his side.

“You can’t go to court again,” he says.

The fucking cameraman no longer cares about “candid” shots that sell big to tabloids, he’s taking a video instead.

“Fuck them,” I tell Connor. “They shouldn’t be here.”

“This is public property,” Connor says. “He can legally be in the woods.”

“I said shouldn’t. How’d they get tipped?”

“RV,” the cameraman says. “I’m friends with the two guys camping next to you. Called me last night. Flew in this morning.”

I shake my head. It’d be more of a coincidence if the paparazzi didn’t get their tips like that. But mostly it’s from fucking friends and connections.

“Fucking fantastic,” I snap. I made a mistake. We should have gone to a fucking hotel. I shouldn’t have tried this. I head back to the campsite, ready to pack up. Rose is already folding chairs and pouring a water bottle on the fire.

The cameraman follows us like a shadow, entering the campsite as though we gave him permission to come hang out with us. Oh wait, we fucking didn’t.

“How many more of you are coming?” Connor asks.

He just smiles, and that’s when I hear tires and an engine groan up the hill. And then two more photographers pop out of the bushes in addition to however many are in the car. Fuck me.

“Ryke,” the guy says, his camera pointed at me as I head to Daisy’s tent. “What were the sleeping arrangements like?”

Before I unzip it, I spin around and the camera guy almost runs straight into my chest. He rights himself while a glare sears in my eyes. My fists clench. “Back the fuck off,” I growl. “You came into our campsite and disrupted our vacation. Don’t act like this is for your fucking job.”

“I’m allowed—”

“You’re allowed to breathe because I’m letting you,” I refute. “Back up and give me ten feet before I put you in the fucking ground.”