by Ella Fields
As the weather grew even colder, the streets emptied earlier each night. Passing a couple who were laughing and cozied up on a bench, I had the fleeting thought of them being lovers, meeting out in the dark under the cover of stars. The moon and a few strangers their only witnesses.
Shaking my head, I tried not to laugh at myself. Just because I’d turned into some kind of boyfriend stealing hypocrite didn’t mean everyone else deserved my suspicion.
Would it make me feel better if I knew of all the people out there betraying and hurting one another? No, I didn’t think it would. But I could admit that it’d feel good, just a little, to have someone to empathize with.
To not feel so alone in this.
Funny how emotions and lust could blind you and make your focus narrow to only right then. Right now. Forget what could happen after.
It’d only been a few days. A few miserable days since I felt like everything slipped back into place. Like I might be able to finally breathe easily again.
But regardless of his reasons, a few days was a long time to be left abandoned after you’d risked so much. All the minutes, all the hours. Waiting, wanting, wondering. The thinking. The constant fucking thinking. Overanalyzing every damn thing.
There really were no winners when it came to games of the heart. Unless you count your miseries as victories.
Did I regret what happened? No. Though I was starting to feel like an idiot. Blindly trusting and thinking everything would work out, I couldn’t regret anything that had to do with Quinn. But I could regret the way we went about it, and how it had only seemed to make me feel worse. Like maybe I was a mistake.
Walking upstairs to our room, my head was so full of questions that I didn’t even hear the murmuring, the quiet laughter and gasps, until I’d almost reached the door. Only then did I notice them. And only then, as I saw the already open door, then glanced around, did I realize all the buzzing activity on our floor was because of me.
“Oh, my God, what a hussy.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty messed up, though.”
What was messed up? My stomach filled with dread, heavy and sickening as though I’d swallowed a cup full of cement. I pushed the door open farther, and the sight that met my eyes had my heart plummeting to the carpet. I could almost see it there, thrashing, beating on the ground, getting tangled in the coarse fibers and grit as it tried to decide if all this was really worth it.
My side of the room was trashed.
My clothes were flung all over the floor, some of them shredded with scissors that I saw lying discarded next to what looked like ripped paintings. Tears flooded my vision, and I stepped inside slowly, my blurry eyes darting over the destruction, unable to stick to any one thing.
The picture of Quinn and Spud, torn up into tiny pieces on my bed, had a sob breaking free of my mouth. My hand crept up, covering it as I saw all my art supplies. Paint, brushes, pens, trays, stencils—everything—scattered throughout the room.
Something yellow caught my eye, and I looked at the wall beside my bed. There was a clumsily painted black daisy there, with the stigma painted yellow. And beside it was three words. Is a slut.
Daisy is a slut.
The paint was still drying, tiny globs dripping down the wall.
But that wasn’t the worst part of it, I realized, as my gaze finally landed on the rest of the paper that littered my bed. My sketchpads. The covers lay strewn near my pillow, all my artwork in pieces below it.
Holy shit.
No.
Air, I needed air.
Rushing to the window, I pushed it open. It wouldn’t budge at first, but my panic and hysteria wouldn’t take no for an answer. Finally, with a creaking groan of the old wood, it went up enough for me to stick my head in the crack. My lungs were greedy. My heart was still somewhere on the floor in the chaos of the room. Tears dried on my face as the biting breeze slithered into the room, filling my mouth.
“You okay?” asked a voice I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t know how long I’d been there, but I must’ve looked pretty crazy.
Moving off the edge of the bed, I took in a short girl with red hair. “Yeah,” I whispered, feeling anything but okay.
She eyed me up and down, then looked around the room. I noticed then that Alexis was careful not to disturb Pippa’s side of the room.
I was thankful for that much at least.
“Want me to call someone for you?” she asked.
I was about to say no, but another sweep of the room had the words stuck in my throat. I swallowed. “Uh, that’s okay.” Grabbing my bag off my shoulder, I got my phone out. “I’ll just call my roommate. Ask if she’ll come home.”
Pippa was probably with Toby, which only made me feel worse, but I needed someone.
The girl nodded, looking back out the door. “They all seem to be over it. I’m down the hall, first door at the stairs, if you need anything.”
With that, she left, and I was both thankful and incredibly sad. That out of a dorm full of girls, most of them would prefer to watch someone’s world get rocked upside down instead of asking if they were okay.
Hitting call, I brought the phone to my ear. It went to voicemail, and I sniffed, calling again.
“Daisy?” Toby answered. “What’s up? Pip’s in the shower.”
Closing my eyes, I drew in a sharp breath. “Um, can you maybe ask her to come home? When she’s done.”
“Sure, is everything—”
With trembling fingers, I hung up before he could ask anything else. I was sure this news would be all over campus by morning. The last thing I wanted was Quinn finding out when it was clear he was already struggling with something that had kept him from seeing me since the weekend.
A part of me was desperate to run to him, ask him what the hell had happened, and to just have him hold me. Make all this disappear. I’d already made too many mistakes when it came to him, though. And right then, I couldn’t decide if doing so would only be another.
Closing the door, I looked around the room once again, my shoulders heaving.
Trying not to collapse, I grabbed a plastic bag and started gathering the pieces of paper off the floor. Picking up a piece that had half of Quinn’s hazel eye on it, I dropped it, gave in, and let myself curl into a ball on the floor. Tears fell from my eyes, each one gathering more speed than the one before until I couldn’t see. My chest hurt, and my breathing became labored sobs that I tried to keep quiet.
But I couldn’t.
She’d destroyed everything that mattered to me.
And rightfully deserved or not, I needed to let it hurt.
“Holy motherfucking fuck on a shit sundae of asshole dick.”
Opening my eyes, I sat up and leaned against the bed, taking off my glasses and rubbing my eyes. “Got any tissues?”
Pippa closed the door, grabbing a box from her dresser and bringing them over to where I was sitting on the floor. She squatted down in front of me, taking both my cheeks in her hands. “You didn’t see this coming, did you?”
Her raised brow made me laugh, and then cry. “No.”
“Oh, my lovely Daisy.” She sat, gathering my head to her shoulder and smoothing back the loose bits of hair that had escaped my messy bun. “This is absolute bullshit. How did she even get in here?”
She knew who did it then. “No idea,” I mumbled. “I guess you’ve only gotta sweet talk Cherry downstairs.”
“God, that damn woman needs her ass fired already.” A gasp lifted her shoulders. “Is that…?” She got up and walked over to the bed. “So not only has she vandalized our fucking wall, she’s gone and wrecked all your artwork?” Her voice rose on the end of her question, full of disbelief as she picked up the torn-out pages and crumpled pieces of paper. “I’ll kill the bitch.”
“Pippa,” I said, a small smile on my face as I looked at her angry one. “What’s the point? I slept with her boyfriend.”
“He was yours first!”
I
swiped a palm down my cheek. “God, how ridiculous. We sound like an episode of Days of Our Lives. One that wasn’t good enough to make the cut.”
She hummed the theme to the TV show, making my heart jump back into my chest and leaving me feeling a little lighter. “Stop it,” I sputtered with laughter.
She only hummed louder, shoving tubes of paint back into their case and carefully picking up my brushes. “Want me to wash these two?” She bent over, picking up the two Alexis had used to graffiti the wall.
“It’s evidence,” I joked, picking up my glasses and putting them back on.
Her eyes narrowed. “We don’t need evidence. We won’t be playing by the damn rules. Not anymore.”
She marched out of the room, and I carefully laid out all the bits of paper that made a puzzle of Quinn and Spud, as well as a few from my sketchpads and portfolios that broke my heart to see in ruins.
I was taping them together when Pippa walked back in. “You need them to air dry?”
I nodded, and she laid some tissues down on the window sill by my bed, placing the brushes on top of them. “Honey, you’re seriously doing that?”
Pausing with a string of tape over Spud’s ear, I glanced up. “What?”
Her lips pursed, her eyes filling with sympathy, and I got it. “Oh, no, no. I’m just putting them back together enough to take a photo.”
“Oh. So you can paint them again?”
“Maybe. I’d like to know the option is there at least.”
I wiped my nose on my sleeve and grabbed my phone when I was done to take a picture of them. Putting my phone away, I carefully gathered up the six hastily taped pieces of artwork from the bed and went to put them into a bag with the rest. I couldn’t do it, though. My hands shook, and my steps faltered halfway to the door.
“Here,” Pippa said softly, taking them from me. “You go clean up, and I’ll finish this.”
I was so grateful, but all I could do was nod my head robotically.
Sorting through the clothes Pippa had just folded, the ones that escaped Alexis’s wrath relatively unscathed, I found some leggings and an old t-shirt, then grabbed my toiletry kit and took a shower.
The halls and bathroom were thankfully abandoned, and I realized why when I returned to the room, putting my stuff away. It was just after midnight.
“Shit, you’ve got class at eight.”
Pippa waved a hand, picking up the last few pens and pencils off the floor and putting them in my nightstand drawer. “Don’t worry about me. I just … I can’t understand why someone would do this. She knows you. She knows how much all this meant to you.” She gestured to my ruined work. Now trashed.
That was exactly why she did it. And I couldn’t help but feel like even though Alexis had broken my heart twice now, she was the one hurting the most.
It made me sick, and a fresh wave of tears infiltrated my eyes. “She must be so upset. So mad. I wonder how she even found out.” If Alexis even felt half of what I felt for Quinn, she’d be devastated. It was kind of disturbing how you never knew just how selfish you could be until you came face to face with everything you’d ever wanted.
I grabbed a tissue, wiping my nose as I sat down on my cleared off bed.
Pippa’s dark brows tugged in. “Yeah, I get that. But this isn’t okay, Daisy. You might deserve her anger and the guilt she’s making you feel, but do not for one minute think you deserved this.”
Looking at all the bags piled up by the door, I wished I could feel that way.
I was angry, sure. But right now, the guilt outweighed the anger.
Pippa changed into her pajamas. “Get some sleep and we’ll clean the paint after class tomorrow.”
Waiting for sleep to arrive, I stared at the wall, at those cruelly painted words, and my thoughts strayed to Quinn again.
Where was he? And what had he said to her?
“Yo, Burnell,” Ed Grellerson hollered behind me on the way out of my last class for the day.
Spinning around, I flexed my fists at my sides. I had shit to do and didn’t need to be held up any longer than I already had been.
His teeth flashed as he slapped me on the arm with a large notebook. “Heard you’ve been a busy man, my friend.”
Brows crinkling, it took a second for that comment to register. My gut churned. “What?”
He continued walking outside, and I followed as he said, “The blondie? Glasses? The one Callum’s been trying to hook up with.”
“What about her?” Yeah, I was still trying to play dumb even with my heart rate accelerating faster by the second.
His guffaw had heads turning to look at us. “Don’t even, dude.” Voice lowering, he asked, “So how was it? Huh? You big player, you. Who knew you had it in you.”
“I’m done talking about this.” Shouldering past him, I jogged down the steps and kept walking.
“Come on, man! Give me something!”
I flipped him off over my head, his loud laughter following me.
Marching through campus, I tried not to keep my head down, but it felt like everyone was staring at me. If Ed knew, who else? Alexis.
Shit.
I didn’t want it to be like this. Hell, I never set out for anything to pan out as it had. But when it came to Daisy … let’s just say I should’ve known.
I’d always lost sight of anything and everything when I was around her.
I was willing to take the blame. For all of it. That was kind of hard to do, though, when Alexis had been avoiding me.
Like an asshole, I’d left Daisy alone in bed as the rain started to sprinkle onto the sidewalk. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. All I knew was when I woke up, her golden soft hair sprinkling over my chest, and her tiny hands reaching for me, I had to get out of there and figure out what the hell I was doing. I knew what I needed to do, which was to fix all of this. Leaving her was the worst test of self-control when what I longed to do was stay wrapped in the warmth our bodies had created for the rest of the day.
I’d gone home with a plan. Find Alexis, tell her everything, and, as much as it’d suck, end it.
Yet she’d remained elusively out of reach. She wouldn’t answer my calls or texts and wouldn’t even see me when I went to her dorm, begging some poor chicks to let her know I was downstairs.
She knew. She had to. The question was, how?
Daisy wasn’t the type to tell everyone about what’d gone down between us.
The questions had my head spinning, and I stopped, taking a seat on the bench seat outside the commerce building. Running my hand through my hair, I sucked in a long breath, letting it out as I glanced up.
A pair of crystal blue eyes met mine, and I shuddered at the vehemence in them. The hurt and the anger I could feel even with the distance separating us.
She said something to one of her friends, then darted down the steps.
I was up, practically jogging over the damp grass to catch her. “Lex, wait.”
She spun around, hissing, “Why? We both know what you’re going to say.”
She kept walking, and I kept following. Nearing her dorm, I grabbed her hand. “Please, just listen to me.”
Tugging her hand back, she deadpanned, “You fucked her.”
I flinched, couldn’t help it. What Daisy and I did was not fucking. Not to me. I wasn’t about to make matters worse by saying something like that, though. “How do you know?”
My eyes searched hers, noticing how they’d filled to the brim with tears, yet they wouldn’t overflow. She was refusing to let them fall. “Besides the fact that people have eyes and saw you leaving her dorm Sunday morning? It’s written all over your face.”
“Lex.”
“No,” she cried, running a hand through her hair. “I should’ve known this would happen. We haven’t been together in God knows how long, and you’ve all but shut me out ever since you laid eyes on her again.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t and wouldn’t lie to her. So I said the only
thing I could. The only thing that mattered, even if it felt redundant. “I’m sorry.”
She scoffed, a tear slipping out of her eye before she quickly scooped it up with a long nail. “You led me to believe you loved me, then you cheated on me, and you’re sorry?”
“I do love you,” I pleaded. Because even after everything, I did. She’d been a part of my life since we were kids. She knew me, and I knew her. We had a bond. Not the kind that Daisy and I shared, but it was there, and it was why I’d felt like I might be okay to move on with her in the first place.
“Yeah, just not as much as Daisy, right?” I didn’t answer that. After a minute, she sniffed and I could feel my face crumple. “Were you even in love with me? Ever?”
I wanted to take her in my arms, hug her, and try to take some of her pain away. But my head said no. I’d already made too many mistakes. And something as simple as a hug right now would only cause more drama if the curious faces of the women passing us were any indication.
“You’re one of my best friends. What we had—”
“Wasn’t good enough in the end, was it?” she spat. “God, sweet Quinn Burnell. The golden good boy. You’re finally learning how not to be so perfect, aren’t you?” My brows lowered, and I took a step back. She let out a wet laugh. “It’d be awesome. If it weren’t me you decided to hurt on your journey to asshole city.”
“You’ve gotta believe me, I had no intentions of ever doing that to you. I wouldn’t have …” I trailed off, frowning at the leaves on the sidewalk. That wasn’t right. I knew what I was doing, and I still did it. “You’re right. I’m a huge asshole.”
“Ugh, don’t. The sad thing is, I believe you. I believe you’d never want to hurt me like that. But you have, Quinn. You have, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, glancing up at her.
Our eyes stayed locked for a minute. And all the smiles she’d pulled from me over the months since Daisy left, all the laughter I thought I’d never feel rumble through me again, it all came back. The lonely nights and overwhelming days, all made more bearable with her by my side.