Chapter 12 Let me go
Aiden stood. Headed for the door.
“Aiden?”
He stopped, hand on the doorknob, not looking back.
“I do love you,” Richard said quietly. “Everything I’m doing is because I love you and Lily more than anything. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Then let me go,” Aiden said. “Let me make my own mistakes. Let me live my own life. Even if it’s a disaster.”
“I would. If I had more time.” Richard’s voice broke. “But I don’t. And I can’t leave you alone. I can’t.”
Aiden opened the door. Walked out. Closed it behind him.
He made it halfway down the hall before he had to stop, pressing his hands against the wall, trying to breathe through the grief and rage and terror.
His father was dying.
He was being forced into a marriage with a stranger.
Everything was falling apart and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Except he says yes.
Except he marries the girl named Ariella Hayes and tries to save everyone while destroying himself in the process.
Except he became exactly what his father wanted him to be: the heir, the savior, the son who sacrificed everything for the family legacy.
Aiden slid down the wall, sitting on the expensive hardwood floor, and let himself break.
He didn’t go back to his room. Instead, he found himself in Lily’s doorway, watching his little sister sketch in her journal. She had headphones on, completely absorbed in whatever she was drawing.
She looked so young. Only fourteen. Still had years before the world would crush her the way it had crushed him.
Aiden knocked on the doorframe.
Lily looked up, pulled off her headphones. Her face brightened. “Hey! You’re home. How was the cemetery?”
“Wet.”
“It’s always wet.” She set down her pencil. “You okay? You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. You look like someone died.” She paused. “I mean…not recently. You just look really sad.”
Aiden came into the room, sat on the edge of her bed. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“But you have to promise not to freak out.”
Lily’s expression shifted from curious to worried. “Okay. Now I’m definitely going to freak out.”
“Dad’s sick,” Aiden said. “Really sick. Cancer. He’s dying.”
The color drained from Lily’s face. “What?”
“He told me an hour ago. He’s known for months. He has maybe six more months.”
“No.” Lily’s voice was small. “No, he can’t…we already lost Mom. He can’t!”
“I know.”
“Is there treatment? Can they…”
“It’s stage four. There’s nothing they can do.”
Lily started crying. Aiden moved to sit beside her, pulled her into a hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed the way only fourteen-year-olds can huge, gasping, world-ending sobs.
“I don’t want him to die,” she choked out. “I don’t want to lose him too.”
“I know. Me neither.”
They sat like that for a long time. Eventually, Lily’s sobs quieted to hiccups.
“There’s something else,” Aiden said quietly. “He wants me to get married.”
Lily pulled back, staring at him. “What?”
“There’s a clause in the company bylaws. If I’m married, I get control instead of that Winters guy. Dad thinks it’s the only way to save the company.”
“Married to who?”
“ Ariella. The one from the bakery. He found her somehow. Her family is about to lose their bakery.”
“So he’s bribing her to marry you.”
“Yeah. Basically.”
Lily was quiet for a moment, processing. “Are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know. He says if I don’t, thousands of people will lose their jobs. That girl’s family will lose everything. And I…” Aiden’s voice cracked. “I can’t carry that, Lily. I can’t be responsible for more people getting hurt.”
“It’s not your responsibility.”
“But it is. That’s what being a Frost means. Everything is our responsibility.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Lily wiped her face. “Dad’s manipulating you. Making you feel guilty so you’ll do what he wants.”
“Maybe. But it’s working.”
“So don’t let it work. Say no. Tell him to find another way.”
“There is no other way. I already asked.”
Lily looked at him for a long moment. Then, quietly “You’re going to say yes, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
“Even though you don’t want to.”
“Especially because I don’t want to. That’s how martyrdom works.” Aiden tried to smile but failed. “At least you’ll have a sister-in-law.”
“A fake sister-in-law who’s only there because Dad paid her.”
“Yeah. That.”
Lily hugged him again, tight. “I’m sorry. This is so unfair.”
“Life’s not fair.”
“No, but this is extra unfair. Like catastrophically unfair.”
Despite everything, Aiden almost laughed. “Catastrophically unfair. Yeah. That’s a good description.”
They sat together in Lily’s room, both of them processing the impossible future. Their father dies, a stranger entering their lives. Everything is changing in ways they couldn’t control.
“Are you scared?”
“Terrified.”
“Me too.” Lily squeezed his hand. “But whatever happens, we still have each other, right? You and me against the world?”
“You and me against the world,” Aiden agreed.
It was the only solid thing in a future full of questions.
That night, Aiden couldn’t sleep. He lay in his too-big bed in his too-perfect room and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the girl in the photo.
Ariella Hayes.
What was her story? What did she love? What scared her? What did she think when his father made his offer?
Would she hate Aiden immediately? See him as the spoiled rich kid trying to buy his way out of problems?
Or would she see what his father saw, two people drowning who might help each other float?