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It’s the same thing I said to her last semester, when I punched her abusive figure skating coach in the face. I look away, her gray eyes too intense as they shoot to my abusive coach like a threat.
LaBlanc waits until Sadie and Liam have disappeared down the hall before he looks at Lily, avoiding my eyes.
“We’re leaving, Lillian. Get your things.”
Lily doesn’t move. Her body is tight, arms crossed as she sticks close to me.
“No.”
“Lillian,” he snaps. “I can’t do this right now. Stop being childish and get in the car. You’re not playing this little game anymore. It’s over.”
I wonder if he knows how ridiculous he sounds, telling a twenty-two-year-old adult to get in the car like a child, in the same breath as warning her not to act like a child.
“She said no,” I say, and then with the burst of confidence having her beside me brings, I add, “And besides, we have a date tonight.”
“Really?” LaBlanc spits. There’s a shift then, one I know well because I’ve been on the receiving end of it for years, where whatever he’s about to say is going to hurt. Only this time it’s not directed at me. “After everything I’ve done for you, Lillian?”
I feel her, more than see her, go rigid next to me. Something in her sinks low, like watching her wilt in front of me. It makes my stomach swoop even as I try to stay focused.
“Don’t fucking talk to her,” I snap.
“Lillian?” he presses, leaning closer.
“Don’t.” She barely whispers it, sinking. Her hand releases mine and for a moment I feel so goddamn young, stifled and still in that burning massive mansion on the hill. “Dad, please—”
“Hey,” I say, mildly desperate as I spin toward her, hands cupping her face to pull her gaze to me. “Ignore him. It’s fine.”
“If you won’t tell him,” LaBlanc says, “I will.”
“What’s he talking about, Lil? Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Lillian is here, under my rules because she can’t be on her own.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Yeah? You think you know best? You’ve thought you knew best for Lily from the time you were twelve years old, Toren. And I’m the one who had to find her.”
Lily’s frozen, entirely, unmoving. And my chest feels so tight I’m breathing through a straw.
“What— What do you mean?” I turn toward her again, the girl I’ve protected since that day in the garden. “What’s he talking about, Lily?”
Her dad waits for her to speak, and when she doesn’t, he blows out a breath and shakes his head, before his blue eyes so much like hers, and yet not, find mine.
“Last year, Lillian took a bunch of my sleeping pills.”
My stomach drops, body going numb.
“I’m the one who found her, got her to the hospital. Kept her alive.” He stresses the last word. He turns his gaze back to his daughter, piercing despite the words he’s spewed. “And you’re ‘all better now,’ huh?” He’s talking to her now. I should stop it. I should push him back, step in front of her. Only . . .
I can’t. Fucking. Move.
“This is how you repay me? For everything I’ve done for you?”
Lily flinches, backing away from us both, until her shoulders hit the corner wall and she sinks to sit on her heels, shaking her head.
“Hey,” I snap toward LaBlanc. “Leave her alone.” Then, stepping to her, I grab her wrists from where her hands have started to cover her ears and try to smile softly at her. “It’s okay, Lil. Don’t do that, come here.”
I manage to get her up, standing beside me again, before grabbing her bag from where she must’ve set it down. “Let’s get out of here—”
