Daisies & Devin

by Kelsey Kingsley

  “Brooke tried man,” he hissed. “The fucking door is locked. She already told you that.”

  “And you’re built like a fucking house! Break the goddamn door down.”

  Trent groaned, and I’d bet money that he rolled his eyes too. “I’m not breaking down the fucking door because your girlfriend decided to have a mental breakdown.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Trenton.”

  He was silent. His full name had that effect on him. “Okay. I’m sorry. Do you seriously want me to break the door down?”

  “I don’t know what I want you to do,” I answered honestly, roughly scrubbing a hand over my chin. “I don’t want her hurting herself,” I admitted, not knowing that she actually would. Not trusting that she wouldn’t.

  Trent was quiet again. There was movement, and I listened as I hurried down the road. I was speeding, just a little above the limit. I wanted to get there, and I wanted to get there fast, but I didn’t want to get pulled over. That would waste precious time and hold me up.

  “I could try and pick the lock, okay?” He was whispering.

  “Y-yeah, do that,” I said, nodding to myself and releasing an exhale that left me breathless and open to the ache of my concern. Why did I have to live a half hour away?

  A series of clicks, jiggles and curse words paraded through the phone until Trent finally said, “I got it,” and I heard the door open quietly. No words were spoken, and the door closed. “Fuck, man … Shit …”

  “What?” I asked urgently.

  “Devin, man … does she do drugs?”

  ♪

  Brooke opened the door for me when I got there. Her and Trent were in the living room, surrounded by boxes to be moved after graduation.

  I walked past them, not saying a word. They looked terrified—of her or for her, I didn’t care to ask. I didn’t bother to knock as I normally would’ve, and I opened the door unceremoniously, closing it behind me before I could take in the sight of her bedroom.

  When I turned around, my eyes opened to the boxes, all opened and tipped over. Picture frames were shattered on the floor, clothes strewn about. It was as though an animal had rampaged through the place, but all there was, was Kylie. She was sitting in the middle of a shattered vase, the shards strewn about like confetti. The dry, dead daisies scattered around like straw. Her legs were wet from the dirty water in the vase. Her hands were clutched over her face and blood dripped from between two of her fingers. She was crying audibly, taking in deep, gasping sobs.

  My first instinct was to walk forward, to pick her up and get her out of there. But then, my eyes landed on the bed, and I saw them: the little plastic bags of a white powdered substance. They littered the blanket, there were tons of them and I didn’t need to have any experience with cocaine to know that’s what it was.

  “Kylie,” I said, my voice sharp and strained under the weight of my shock, disappointment and fear. “Kylie, what the fuck is this?”

  “D-Devin,” she sobbed, and my heart threatened to give out at the sound of her water-logged voice. “Just … just please … please go … p-please …”

  I gasped at that. She had never asked me to leave before.

  But there was no way in hell I was leaving.

  “Kylie … how much did you do?” I asked, as if I knew anything about cocaine. “We can, um … I’ll get you help, okay? I can take you to the hospital, I’ll call your parents, I’ll—”

  Her hands dropped from her face, and I finally got a good look at her. Her puffy eyes, her tear-stained cheeks and the blood from her hand splotched against her nose and upper lip. Her face tensed angrily as she scrambled to stand up. Her hands scraped against the shards of glass and she cried in protest against the pain. All I could do was reach forward, wrap my arms around her waist, and pull her into me, away from the debris.

  “Let me go, Devin!” she screamed, kicking at my legs as I backed up into the bed, sitting down next to the bags of coke. “God, Devin, please! Please let me go and get the fuck out of here, please!”

  Her nails dug into my arms, clawing and scratching, smearing blood from the shallow cuts on her palms, but I didn’t let go.

  I didn’t let go as she screamed at me, or as my own defenses crumbled and I leaned my forehead against her shoulder. I didn’t let go as she struggled on my lap, and our unrelated tears fell together. And I didn’t let go when she slumped against my chest, her distressed wails pushing from her spent lungs as she turned on my lap, wrapped her arms and legs around me, and pressed her face to my shoulder.

  “Oh God, Devin,” she cried, clinging to my shoulders. “Oh my fucking God, I-I … I can’t … oh God, I f-fucking can’t …”

  My fingers trailed through her violet hair. My tears of despair slowed as I said, “What can’t you do, KJ? Talk to me.”

  “I-I-I-I …” She struggled, sputtering through a tremored sob.

  “Come on. Come on,” I said, and rubbed her back. “Come on, Kylie. Breathe with me, okay?”

  I inhaled, taking in a deep breath, and to my relief, she mimicked. I held the breath and released. Her exhale was broken around another sob, but she was calming down, and I inhaled again.

  Her tears were persistent, but the sobs were suppressed, now nothing more than tiny quakes interrupted by sniffles. She leaned back, still clenching my t-shirt between her shaking fingers. I looked at her face and saw that her tears had washed the blood away. I grabbed for a shirt on the bed, and wiped under her nose. I wiped at her cheeks and my eyes locked to hers, and all at once, the foundation of my soul erupted into a million scattered pieces.

  Her pain had darkened those usually vibrant blues. Her heartbreak screamed from within her, wordlessly pleading with me to do something, to make it better, and Jesus Christ, I wanted to. I needed to, if only for the sake of my own sanity. But, how was I supposed to when I didn’t even know what the hell was wrong?

  “KJ,” I said, speaking in a whisper. Afraid to unleash her despairing rage after it had finally been subdued. “Kylie, tell me what happened. What … what are you doing with this shit? What’s going on?”

  Her lips tightened, her nose flared against the pricking of her sadness. “My …” Her voice choked, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She focused on her breathing again—in and out, in and out—and then her eyes opened again. “My dad …” she swallowed. “My daddy was sick.”

  Daddy. There was something in the way she said it that made her sound like a child. Lost and afraid.

  “Sick?” I asked, frowning.

  She nodded, her lips twitching, pursing and then falling open. “He died tonight.”

  The words pushed from her mouth, carried along by a labored sigh, and the tears quickened in pace again. My hands gripped the back of her head, pushing into her hair, and I pressed my forehead to hers.

  “Fuck,” I said, hating myself for not having anything better to say. Hating myself for lacking the power to make this better. “Fuck, Kylie, I … I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head, moving her hands to my neck, up into my hair. “Don’t, Devin.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t pity me right now,” she said, fixing her gaze on mine, and I fed on her hurt. My heart ached with every beat.

  “Then tell me what to do,” I begged her.

  “You’re already doing it,” she whispered.

  I searched her eyes, begging her for an explanation. “What am I doing?”

  She closed me off from the storm in her eyes and lowered her head to my shoulder. Her hands clung to me, and she whispered, “Just be here, okay?”

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  ♪

  I left her bedroom hours later, exhausted and disheveled. Brooke and Trent weren’t there, and I assumed they must’ve gone back to the apartment he and I shared. I started the coffee maker and put some bread in the toaster before using the bathroom for the first time in hours. I splashed freezing water on my face and stared at my reflection for all of three seconds befor
e I couldn’t anymore.

  There was nothing I could do, and I couldn’t shake the despairing look of helplessness reflected in my eyes.

  Taking two cups of coffee, and the toast, I walked back to her room. We hadn’t bothered cleaning up yet. In fact, we had done nothing but lie on her bed over the bags of cocaine. Sometimes she cried, sometimes it was only silence. We had dozed off and woken back up, and we did it all with her in my arms.

  Now she was sitting on the bed, picking up each little bag and throwing it back onto the covers. Her sorrow had shifted into a sort of zombie-like numbness, and I sat down in front of her, handing her a mug.

  “Here, drink this,” I instructed softly.

  “I don’t need caffeine, Devin,” she mumbled, her voice hoarse. Talking sounded painful and exhausting. “I need something that’ll make me pass out and sleep for a very long time.”

  I shook my head. “Well, you’ll have to talk to someone else about that, ‘cause I’m not doing it. Come on, drink.”

  Begrudgingly, she took the cup from me and put it to her lips. She drank a slow uneven sip. Swallowing hard and wincing at the bitter taste. Her eyes were set on the bags of coke and I sighed, following her gaze.

  “We have to get rid of this shit, Kylie,” and I hated myself a little more. For being the reasonable adult in a situation where all I wanted to do was cry and scream with her. For being unable to protect her, and for failing tremendously at the whole heroism thing.

  She nodded. “I know.” She sniffed. “That’s why I brought it here.”

  I lifted my head. “It’s not yours?”

  “Goddammit, Devin, no!” she shouted, spitting the words at me, and for a moment, I thought she might throw the coffee.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, her eyes fell back to the bags, a scattered pile of snow and plastic, and her lips twitched. “My dad is,” she squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head, “w-was an addict. I found this shit when I went home yesterday, but I, um … I guess, I guess he had m-more …”

  I brought a hand to my eyes and pinched the space between my eyebrows. “Jesus Christ, Kylie. I’m such a fucking asshole.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said. “I am. I never told you. I … I should’ve told you, and, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked. Not wanting to make her feel worse but wanting desperately to know why she had hidden such a crucial part of her life—her pain—from me.

  She shrugged. “A few reasons.”

  “Well, I’m listening,” I said, nudging the toast toward her, and I thought I saw her attempt to smile.

  “I didn’t know how you’d react,” she said quietly, picking at the bread’s crust. She sighed and shrugged. Her shoulders sagged with the movement, as though they were too heavy to hold up. “I guess I just didn’t want you to feel sorry for me, or to look at me differently. I didn’t want you to judge my parents, because that’s what people always do. They judge my mom for staying with him, they judge him for … for being the way he is—w-was.” She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, dropping her lips open. The bottom one trembled a little bit and I reached out to rest my hand on her knee. “And I didn’t want to ruin what we have with it.”

  And selfishly, I asked, “What do we have?”

  She dropped her eyes to mine. “You’re the best thing in my life, Dev. God, you’re always there for me, and I have selfishly taken advantage of that by keeping you in the dark, and I’m so, so fucking, sorry.”

  I shook my head, and with a bold lift of my hand, I rested my palm against her cheek. To my surprise, she leaned into my touch, and my heart felt just a little lighter. “Don’t be sorry for that. I’m just sorry that you’ve been dealing with it alone.”

  She nodded as her eyes fell shut, and she whispered, “Me too.”

  ♪

  Her father had suffered a heart attack, and they weren’t sure if it was that, or the overdose alone, that had ultimately ended his life at the age of fifty-two.

  Brooke and Trent attended one of the two wakes, offering their condolences in the way friends would. Awkwardly. Unsure of what to say or what to do as they outstretched their arms to pull her into hugs. I was there at both wakes. I was also there at the church service, and at the cemetery, standing by her side, holding her hand when she wanted it. Holding her when she needed it.

  It struck me as odd that I had never once wondered, in our two years of knowing each other, why I’d never met her parents. I knew she had them, but I never stopped to wonder why I had never met them. I guess I had chalked it up to them living too far to ever meet the guy she hung out with while she was in college. But, as I stood there at the side of Mr. James’ gravesite, it was suddenly weird to me. Weird that I had never asked, weird that I’d never showed more of an interest.

  I immediately regretted so much over the past two years. I regretted not showing more of an interest in the foundation of her life. I regretted not asking her out before it was too late and like too much time had passed.

  But what I regretted most was, I would never get the opportunity to tell this man, that I was hopelessly, beyond reason, in love with his daughter.

  ♪

  I never knew I believed in fate until that day.

  Kylie and I broke away from the funeral procession. We walked wordlessly through a thicket behind the cemetery, aimlessly seeking refuge from the heavy atmosphere of tears and watery sorry’s and thank you’s.

  It had been Kylie’s idea; pulling at my hand until I followed her away from her family. I felt like an inconsiderate asshole, and I could only imagine what her family was thinking about the guy she had brought to one of the saddest occasions of their lives. But I followed her nonetheless without complaint, because I was there for her, not them.

  Past the smattering of trees was an open field, bathed in warm sunlight and clean air. The tall blades of grass swayed in the gentle breeze, and there, poking through the bright wisps of green, were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of daisies.

  The symbolism hit me immediately, and I dropped her hand to stare, startled and just a little spooked. But Kylie was too blinded by her mind-numbing grief and she kept her pace, walking into the field, while I hung back.

  My lungs froze, and it took two gasps to get them working again. All of those flowers, brushing up against her ankles and calves as she walked through. They bowed in the gentle breeze as if to say hello, and I scrubbed a hand over my chin as I watched her sit down and tip her face toward the sky.

  I walked out to meet her, and as I sat down on the grass, I silently apologized to any daisies I might have crushed under my weight.

  “It’s a nice day,” she said quietly.

  I nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

  It felt odd to talk about something like the fucking weather after the days I’d just lived through. It felt unnatural to even care if it was raining or if the sun was shining, when this girl’s father was being lowered into the ground. How could any day be considered nice after that?

  “My dad used to like going for walks on days like this,” she said. She had talked about her father more in those few days than she ever had in the two years I’d known her.

  “Oh yeah?”

  She leaned herself back, laying on the grass and flowers. “Yeah,” she said, nodding with her hands clasped over her chest. “When I was a kid, we lived by the beach. We’d go for walks and I’d chase seagulls or collect shells, while he just sat on the sand and watched me.”

  I smiled. “Sounds nice.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered, her voice wrapped tightly inside her crushing sorrow. “It was.”

  I looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her mouth in a tight straight line. With her hands folded over her chest, over her black dress, I was struck with the briefest image of her father’s body, lying in the satin-lined casket. Mahogany and white. Painted and plastic, too fake to be real, and I shuddered at the thought. At the thought of her being like that. Gone.


  I looked away, lying back with the shoulder of my suit jacket brushing against her. I listened to the rustling of grass as she turned toward me, her eyes open, and her fingers nudged my hand. I opened it to her, engulfing her palm in mine.

  “’The boundaries which divide Life and Death are at best shadowy and vague,’” she quoted in a whisper.

  I knew it was Poe. It was always Poe. The dark and beautiful poetry from the master of the macabre, I guess, brought her comfort. Though I failed to see how. His words were grim, and although they were brilliantly prolific, they also served as the cold reminder of reality, and where was the beauty in that?

  Or, maybe that’s exactly why she liked him so much. Maybe he shone a beautiful light onto something so dark and grisly. Maybe that’s how she survived.

  “Dev?” she asked, breaking the chatter in my brain.

  I blinked into the sunlight. “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  I rolled my head against the ground, looked toward her, and our eyes, our mouths, were only inches apart. I scolded myself for taking a quick glance at her lips, glossy and a modest shade of pearlescent pink. This wasn’t the time nor the place to be dwelling on feelings that weren’t going away, but fuck, I couldn’t seem to help my wandering brain. Kissing her had gone from something I wanted to do, to something I so desperately needed. So much so, I could feel the magnetic pull against my lips every time I was near her. My restraint was impressive, albeit pathetic, but I found myself wondering then, what would happen if I edged just a little closer and brushed my mouth lightly against hers.

  I shook the thought away, remembering that she had spoken, and I forced a light smile. “Of course.”

  “Do you believe in Heaven?”

  My desire to kiss her was quashed and I stared into her prismatic eyes.

  The question left me a little shaken and discomforted, yet I understood. I understood her need for clarification, for wanting the assurance that her father was still somewhere out there. Close, but now, never close enough.