by Ella Fields
“I’m not scared. You and me … like the moon and the stars, we’re permanent.”
Her breath stuttered out of her. “You’re a real smooth talker, booger breath.”
I tucked some of her hair behind her ear, smirking. Then, as fast as lightning, her lips were on mine. One second, I was staring at her, and the next, she’d dived on my mouth as if she just realized she could.
My eyes closed as her soft lips pressed firmly to mine, and her small hands gripped the sides of my face. I’d never kissed anyone before, but being with Daisy, everything felt instinctual. Like it was second nature for my lips to part hers, a known fact that my tongue should skim the inside of her lips and that she would always meet me, touch for touch.
“Guys! Hey, whoa.” Alexis’s voice had our mouths pulling away and Daisy flying off my lap so fast, she almost fell smack on the dirt-covered floor. My hand flew out, catching her wrist to steady her before I looked over at the entry to the barn where Alexis was staring at me, something foreign crawling over her face.
“Happy Birthday.” She cleared her throat when her voice caught and fixed her attention on Daisy, who was busy looking at the ground. “Want to give him your present yet? It’s starting to get hard to … contain. If you know what I mean.” Alexis turned and left, leaving us alone again.
Daisy smiled shyly at me as I stood and grabbed her hand. I kissed it, and she fluttered those damn lashes as she watched me. Tugging her to my chest, I was about to kiss her again when she planted a hand on my stomach and said, “She’s right. I really do need to give you your present.”
As we walked back over to the house, I reluctantly dragged my feet, but as we got closer, I heard it.
An unmistakable sound of a whimper.
Looking around, eyes scanning the dark, I tried to find the source when Daisy grabbed my hand in both of hers. “Come on.” She laughed, walking backward up the steps and tugging me along. The door flew open and out ran a golden ball of fluff, heading straight for us.
“Holy shit.”
“Quinton Benjamin Burnell,” my mom scolded. “Birthday or not, fifteen or not, I’ll still wash that mouth out if you’re not careful.”
Picking up the puppy trying to scratch the hell out of our legs, I gave her a sheepish smile. Mom shook her head, her eyes softening when my dad wrapped an arm around her waist.
“A puppy?” I asked as it licked my face. “You got me a puppy?”
Daisy bit her lip, reaching over to pat its head. It turned its attention on her, trying to lick her hand off. “Mom and Dad, too. It’s a golden retriever.”
“Unbelievable,” I breathed, not caring if I looked like I was five instead of fifteen. They got me a puppy. I’d wanted a dog for years. Ever since our old cattle dog passed away when I was eight.
“He’s a boy,” Daisy informed me. “And he’s given me hell for the past two days while trying to keep him happy at our house.”
“Ate my good pair of running shoes,” Joseph, Daisy’s dad, said with a scowl.
Her mom, Henrietta, elbowed him. “You haven’t been running in years.”
He huffed, and my mom laughed with Henrietta.
“Your parents said it was okay. I checked first.” Daisy righted her glasses when the puppy tried to lick them off her face.
“You’re cleaning up after it, and your mother’s already enrolled it in puppy school at the town vet. Lord knows that thing’s gonna need it,” my dad grumbled but with mirth in his voice. He loved dogs, too. And I knew the reason we hadn’t gotten another one until now was because of how attached he was to Donny, our old one.
I didn’t answer him, though. I just stared at Daisy, barely registering all the eyes of the guests who were filing out onto the porch or the puppy licking my earlobe. “Thank you,” I said quietly, hugging the dog closer to me. Daisy’s face turned pink after a moment, and I tore my eyes away.
“Where’s Alexis?” Daisy asked later as we watched the puppy run through the barn, kicking up hay and bits of dirt while he raced in circles.
“No idea, think she went home.”
Daisy yawned. “So what are you going to name him?”
Pulling her to my side, I fiddled with a long strand of her hair as we watched the ball of energy try to dig its nose into a sack of potatoes.
“Spud,” I blurted.
“Spud.” Daisy’s voice was curiously soft, as though testing the name. “Spud!” she called, but the puppy kept working that bag as if he didn’t even know we existed.
I chuckled. “Guess it’ll have to grow on him.” She rested her head on my shoulder, and I turned my own to press a kiss to her forehead. “Best birthday ever.”
Present
Fissuring. My heart was fissuring, and I couldn’t breathe. I swallowed. Swallowed again and again as my stomach rolled and my heart slammed into my ribcage repeatedly.
“Daisy,” Pippa whispered, tugging on my arm.
But I couldn’t move my eyes from Quinn’s. They were stuck. As if something was keeping them there and forcing me to see this moment. To face the surprise, wariness, and sadness that filled those hazel depths in quick flashes.
“I …” I started, my lips trembling. I clamped them together and finally looked away once the shock started to wear off and made way for the stinging of tears.
Quinn’s voice hit my ears. “What are you—?”
“Quinn.” I saw Alexis place her hand on his arm, and the burn intensified, spreading everywhere.
“Nice to meet you, I guess,” Pippa said dryly, taking my hand and tugging me down the sidewalk.
My feet dragged, my head swinging over my shoulder to look at Quinn, who was talking hurriedly with Alexis. And then he was following us.
“Stop,” I croaked.
Pippa stopped. As he jogged over to us, she asked, “Want me to stay or go?”
“I don’t know.” My words were a shadow of my voice.
She squeezed my arm. “I’ll just wait down there on the bench, okay?”
I think I nodded, but then Quinn was in front of me, swallowing up my complete attention and making my hands itch to touch him.
Except I couldn’t.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, raking a hand through his hair and narrowing his eyes on mine. When I didn’t answer, he tried again, his voice softer this time. “Daisy?”
“College. I applied, got in. I’m here.” Something about his question had me feeling defensive. Or maybe it was the continuous rupturing of the vital organ in my chest as I stared at his finely chiseled jaw, his eyes, that straight nose, and the dusting of his blond brows, lowering over his brown lashes.
He didn’t respond for a long-drawn-out minute. Just stared at me. His face a tense mask of disbelief. “I didn’t think …”
“That I’d come here?” I offered when he trailed off.
He nodded, then sighed. “How are you?”
How am I? I found it insane that he’d asked such a thing when it felt like the blunt force trauma I just experienced, was still experiencing, was evident for the whole world to see.
When we hadn’t seen each other in years.
When I came here for him, and he was with my old best friend.
“What’s going on?” I shook my head, sick of trying to ignore the craziness of the situation.
“What do you mean?” He stepped out of the way for someone to walk past.
“You and Alexis?”
He openly winced, then wiped a hand down his face before looking over his shoulder at where she was standing outside the ice-cream parlor, watching us. His broad shoulders loosened with a long exhale. “Daisy …”
“It’s obvious,” I laughed out. “Really. You don’t need to sugarcoat it.”
His eyes blazed golden and green, his jaw clenching. I tensed, not used to seeing him angry, and feeling like I should be the angry one here, not him. “You left.”
“I know,” I whispered.
We stared. Voices of passersby drifte
d around us as we continued to stare, and when his eyes finally disconnected from mine, a piece of myself slithered into the shadows surrounding us.
“This was a mistake. I’m not doing this,” he finally said. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Quinn, wait.”
He wouldn’t look at me. “No, Daisy. Look.” He drew in a sharp breath, releasing it with his next words. “We were young, and it was a long time ago. I’m happy to see you, but”—he looked at me then, resolve filling out any soft edges of his handsome face—“I think we should maybe steer clear of each other.”
Despite agreeing that would probably be a good idea after what I’d just discovered, I couldn’t let go quite that quickly. “Why?”
“Things just … change.” He stepped backward, away from me, toward Alexis. “Take care, okay?”
Take care?
Pippa was there again, hooking her arm around mine. “Come on.”
I didn’t realize I’d been watching Alexis and Quinn walk off in the opposite direction until she tried to drag me away. Quinn looked back over his shoulder just before they rounded the corner at the end of the street, but he was too far away for me to see his expression.
Then he was gone.
Back inside our dorm, Pippa closed the door and led me to my bed, sitting down beside me as I kicked my shoes off.
“That was him, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“But now, he’s with her.”
“Apparently.”
Her hand made circular motions on my back. “Well, fuck.”
That night, we laid in silence, me glaring at the ceiling with tears brimming my eyes. Everything felt different now. I felt no excitement as I laid on this bed, in this room. No, now I saw it for what it was. Old and outdated.
Much like I was.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Pippa asked when the silence started screaming.
I didn’t. I did, but I didn’t. “I think I’m still in shock.”
“She was your best friend?” Her voice was tentative, hesitant.
“Was, yes.”
More silence, followed by the howling of my heart and thoughts. How could he? He’d moved on. With her. He’d been kissing her, touching her, loving her, having sex with …
I jumped out of bed and raced out into the hall, careening into the wall outside the bathroom and shoving a hand over my mouth as I stumbled inside, almost slipping in my fuzzy socks.
I retched into the first toilet I saw, hurling until tonight’s pizza was a gory mess staring back at me, and my stomach started to convulse again.
“Ew, you okay?” someone asked.
“She’s fine,” I heard Pippa inform them. “Ate some bad pizza for dinner.”
Laughter. “Oh, totally. Stay away from the Chinese place on Waymen Drive. Hilary, my roommate, spent like two days puking everywhere.”
Standing on shaky legs, I flushed the toilet and grabbed some toilet paper to wipe my chin.
“Thanks, noted,” Pippa said, then helped me out of the stall and to the sinks. “Here.” She passed me my toiletry bag, and I gave her a grateful smile.
“What a waste of twenty dollars, huh?” I tried to laugh it off, but then the tears well and truly came. Thankfully, we were alone by that point.
“Shh, come on. Let’s get your teeth brushed, then you can cry all you want back in the room.” She squirted some toothpaste onto my toothbrush, ran it under the tap, and passed it to me. Somehow, I managed to keep the tears to a slow trickle as I rinsed, brushed, rinsed again, and then walked back to the room.
Once back on my bed, lying on my stomach, the tears became a torrential downpour that seemed to never end.
Take care.
His departing words felt like knives, piercing the flesh of my breastbone and plunging beneath, causing my heart to bleed instantly.
Pippa sat beside me for a while, passing me tissue after tissue until I finally suggested she should get some sleep.
“Only if you try to do the same.”
I reluctantly agreed, and her weight disappeared from the bed. The sound of her sheets swishing as she got comfortable in her own bed filtered through the room, and my eyes closed.
I didn’t think I could sleep; I had no idea how I was supposed to do anything but try to wake up from this nightmare.
It was one thing for him not to want me anymore or to get sick of waiting. Both things would still destroy me, force me to crumble and reevaluate what the hell I’d been doing all this time.
Except he didn’t just do that.
He’d moved on with the only other person I’d ever considered a lifelong friend. Someone I’d known almost as long as I’d known him.
The hours that ticked by as I stared at the wall with my back to Pippa seemed to make the memories swim into each other, blending then separating, making me question everything.
Was this what he wanted all along? To be with her?
It’d make sense. Alexis was the kind of beautiful you rarely encountered. Yet I still couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d always wanted her. It had never felt that way. There’d never been any doubt he’d wanted me once we finally took that next step.
Things change.
They did. Oh, my fucking God, how they did.
Her eyes stared back at me in the dark, glowing like twin beacons of blue triumph.
I couldn’t think the same of Alexis, and it made me feel stupid. It was obvious now.
She had always wanted him. But he was all I saw; I never saw anything else.
I don’t know if I could ever exist without you.
Well, he clearly could.
I squeezed my eyes shut once more, forcing the tears to stop. Eventually, sleep slithered into my body, turning my tense limbs soft. Like iced water over a burn, I welcomed it, wanting desperately to slip away.
Turned out, it offered little respite, thanks to the dreams that insisted on tormenting me further.
Fifteen years old
Stuffing my books under my arm, I followed Alexis outside. Well, I wouldn’t say followed. People parted for her like she was the queen, but as soon as she was clear, they’d fold back in, and I was left to wait my turn.
It was fine. It didn’t bother me.
John Newman bothered me. “What’s up, brace face?” He nudged me in my side, making me wince. “What? Think just because you got Burnell wrapped around your dirty, paint-smeared finger means you’re too good, do ya?”
I didn’t say anything, knowing that if I did, it’d just get worse.
I made it outside the classroom and was halfway to my locker when he started in again. “Ya know, you used to be kinda pretty before you got all that metal put in your mouth. Kinda.”
Still ignoring him, I kept walking to my locker. “One of these days, Burnell won’t be around to protect you, gangly legs. Whatcha gonna do then, huh?”
When I still didn’t answer, he stuck his foot out to trip me. I dodged it but lost my balance, falling on my butt anyway. My books landed around me. Someone stepped on my hand, and I heard something crack, a sharp stinging pain shooting from my finger and zinging up my arm. “Oh, gosh. So sorry,” someone said, before rushing away.
“Dais?”
I was whimpering, cradling my hand to my chest when I looked up and saw Quinn shoving people back to get to me. “Daisy, what the hell happened?”
I shook my head, biting my tongue to keep from crying. The pain in my finger throbbed so badly it sent my stomach lurching. He bent down, taking my hand off my chest. I couldn’t suppress my yelp, and his expression grew even more concerned. “Are you okay? Is your wrist sprained or something?”
I looked around for Alexis, but she must’ve gone to our next class already. “I-I don’t know. I think my finger maybe.”
Putting his hands under my arms, he effortlessly lifted me from the floor while Jordan, one of his teammates, picked up my books for me. “Thank you,” I said, moving to take them from him.
He looked
at me with a tiny smile. “Nah, open your locker, and I’ll put them in for you.”
Jordan was okay, so I nodded, moving a few lockers down the hall until I reached mine and opened it. He put them inside as Quinn asked, “Dais, tell me what happened, or I’ll ask someone else.”
When I hesitated, Annie, one of the girls from the cheerleading squad, piped up, “John Newman tripped her, Quinn. He was saying some horrible stuff too.”
I knew she was just sucking up to Quinn and didn’t actually give a damn about me. Still, I was grateful for not having to spill what happened. He didn’t need any more details than what Annie had already provided.
Quinn grabbed my chin, turning me to face him. His eyes darted back and forth between mine, his jaw clenching. “That true?”
Swallowing, I nodded. “Yeah, but—”
“No buts. The dickhead has messed with you for the last damn time.”
“Quinn,” I said, but he’d already turned to Jordan, talking too quietly for me to hear. Turning back to me, he wrapped an arm around my waist and grabbed my bag from my locker. “Need anything else in here?”
“No thanks.”
He shut the door and guided me down the hall to the school nurse, who wrapped my finger and gave me an ice pack to rest my hand on. Quinn stood by the bed, his expression growing more enraged and distant by the second. “Hey,” I said, looking at him upside down. “Come here.”
“What’d he say to you this time?”
“It’s not important.” I took his hand with my uninjured one, placing it on my belly and running my fingers over the top of his hand.
His face relaxed some, but not enough. “This is bullshit, Daisy. Everyone knows we’d end up together anyway. Why not just admit we already are?”
We’d been going out for almost eight months, but I didn’t want anyone to treat me differently. I guessed they’d treat me how they wanted regardless, though. “Yeah, I’m done caring about that.”
He blinked. “You are?”
Smiling sheepishly, I said, “It won’t make much difference to people like John Newman, so who cares.”