Chapter 48

forty-eight

Lily

Sunday Morning

"You want to go, don't you?" Nessa whispers in the early morning hours.

"So fucking badly," I admit.

"Too many lights, noises, people?" she pokes.

"It's fun," I try to deflect and the stare could be used by the CIA interrogation team.

I audibly harumph so she softens, gets a bit serious. "Permission to put my professional hat on?"

"Fine," I groan, nervous about what she's going to say.

"Okay, first of all, you've been running from your problems for as long as I can remember. You always take off when it's scary, Lil. Do you remember the big argument between Landan and Delia in eighth grade?"

"No?" I'm confused.

"Of course not, because you didn't like confrontation then either, so you magically needed to help River study for a test in the library instead of coming to lunch. We all knew they were about to get into it, but you skipped standing behind her. "

"Can we not, please?" Delia moans from her side of the room where she's already packing things up.

"Moving on. Second, you were always trying to come across as perfectly put together. I'm guessing the external pressure kept you on task? Belinda isn't exactly the warm and fuzzy type, so angling to please her added a level of stress you needed to stay motivated. Focusing your school work on tutoring River externalized it… these are all classic ways that women I talk to in adulthood mention their ADHD was missed." Nessa then shrugs.

Changing her tune from her house a month ago, Delia adds, "Dude, you know we don't care about the label right? We just care about you."

"What?" I'm shaken. "Really? You told me I was making excuses not too long ago…"

"Yeah, I mean I've been thinking about it all and you can't sit still for long, you overthink, over-share, orat least it seemed like you did. It was a version of sharing everything with everyone." Delia shrugs.

"I kind of was the one who pushed River to not let it go when you were getting along so well in September. It seemed like if you'd let anyone catch you while you ran, he had the best chance."

Nessa adds, "I've been worried for a while that you were hiding something, and now it all adds up. Now that you are learning how your brain is wired, does it feel easier to be around everyone?"

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no," I admit.

"Keys," she holds open her palm to me "and you," she glares at Delia, "you gotta rest too. I'll drive us, I've been taking it slow all weekend. I had a feeling someone was going to need to be able to handle whatever came out of this all."

Delia glares back. "You might be the oldest with your siblings, but we're your friends. You get a night off too sometimes."

"I promise to relax the wedding weekend, okay?"

Leaning my head against the passenger side window of my car, the car that I've held onto since I ran from Peacock Springs, Belinda, Grant, Landan, and everything that told me I wasn't good enough, I'm flooded with that familiar urge. The urge to curl into a little ball and sleep under a weighted blanket or seven. The urge to disappear into the darkness by turning off all of my socials, my cell phone, or even just throw it in the fucking river.

River. Goddamnit, River. I don't want to think about him.

It's not like he set out to deceive me or hurt me. His guilt and anguish over the story was written all over his face. The darting glances, the haunted look in his eyes, and the way he was unable to still his frantic movements. Then finally, his body practically crumpled against itself as his shoulders turned inward towards his chest. The look of disbelief as he realized that his mouth betrayed him, yet also a bit of relief too. His head tucked forward, and how you could tell that holding onto this alone for so long hurt him.

I wished so badly in that moment there was something I could feel. Anger knowing River kept this from me, concern for how burdened he's been by this secret, resentment that Grant went through with our marriage. Knowing it was all a sham, I wanted to muster up a wave of disgust. Fury with everyone who blamed me. This revelation turned the cheating into something inevitable; no matter what I had done or will ever do I will always be me.

Instead, it became too much scrutiny and too many eyes on me. Truly, Nessa was the only person not watching. It felt like they were taking a bit of pleasure in my suffering. Meanwhile I went fully numb.

Delia and I must have drifted off because we wake up in Philadelphia instead of home. I'm staring at a large set of bright violet letters and a cartoon crown on the front of a building called Condom Kingdom.

Nessa puffs out her chest with a self-satisfied look. "Listen, I had to pick up a few things on the way home. Plus, my college roommate always said the cheesesteaks over there," she points to a black and chrome building catty corner to us, "are the best in the city. I figured the grease is good for the hangovers, the stuff here," she points a thumb over her shoulder like a cartoon hitchhiker, "is literally ready for pick up, so it'll take no time at all, unless you want to look around." She wiggles her eyebrows at us suggestively.

Delia playfully shoves Nessa towards the door and squeezes my hand once quietly. We walk in and the ceiling is covered in plastic pink and blue sperm figurines. It's completely ridiculous. Delia and I keep giggling and whispering like school girls while Nessa strolls over to the employee to collect her order.

Swinging a pair of hot pink fuzzy cuffs, Delia narrows her eyes on me and says, "You're still getting that bullshit over with when we get home by the way. I'm not prepared for the emotional fall out of you running again."

Deflecting, I pick up a large bundle of corded black bondage ropes and cock an eyebrow. "Planning to hog tie me and deliver me personally?"

"Don't be silly," Delia quips in reply, waving a rainbow dildo and adding a pair of socks with pot leaves and the words best buds printed on them, over the silicone cock and hands them to me.

"You'll swallow your pride and go talk to your best bud, Jim, yourself," she confirms.

Turning around, I pick up a mesh bodystocking and a pair of hot pink leopard pasties and up the ante, "While wearing this lovely fishnet catsuit, but of course." We dissolve into a fit of laughter.

Just then, the door opens and the sound of high school boys fills the room. A stuffed animal shaped like a mushroom is being tossed between them nailing one of them hard enough for him to audibly complain. Turning to look at the commotion, Nessa and one of the boys lock eyes. Why does he look familiar?

"Joshua Rabin, what the hell are you doing here?" Nessa growls, maternally, at her youngest sibling.

"I was, I was just at a camp friend's house for a sleepover and we were going to get cheesesteaks, and saw the sign and it was funny, and…" he sputters.

Seeing her brother further stirs the messy emotional soup inside me.

"Shua!" I shout, opening up my arms for a hug and stepping towards her brother using his nickname .

I hope he'll realize who I am since—so far it seems he hasn't noticed Delia and I—he's too shaken by his eldest sister's presence.

"Silly?" The last time I saw him, he was five. Now he's fifteen, and nearly six feet tall. He's growing in that pubescent sort of way, gangly and uneven but showing signs of how much more he's going to look like his dad soon.

I start leading the boys towards the door and point, "Your sister said this place has the best cheesesteaks and I'm buying if I just so happen to have bumped into you getting food and not here. So," I listen to the bells to the store's door chime as I open the door and shove them outside, "see you for food in ten?"

Peering back at Nessa who looks like an actress trying not to break, I add, "If the tables are clean, I can throw in a soda. Bye!"

I pull the door shut in their faces and watch the three women behind me howling with amusement.

I take a little curtsey and hold a nearby personal massaging wand as a microphone to announce, "It has come to my attention that I have allowed others to dick-tate," I laugh, picking up a dropped stuffed "mushroom" and placing it back in its bin. "Ha, dick, get it." I scoop the supplies back up from Delia and start to return them to their places. "I've allowed others to dictate things for me for too long. I have to get Pete from the vet clinic, anyway so yes. I'm going to go talk to Jim."

Shaking my head I mumble, "Because of course, the mayor is also the vet! But not with the peace offering you chose, sorry Deals. I, Lily Jayne Long, will not let us be separated because of any other dicks, I promise."

I'm grandstanding now. "So, my dears. That kindergartner is now a teen, another reminder that I've let a lot of time pass. He is going to eat a grease ball with me because when we get back to Peacock Springs, New Jersey I need to see a man about a weird town requirement."