CHAPTER 4
I’d only ever been to Lydia Johnson’s house twice in my life, and both times were for sleepovers Nellie had dragged me to.
Even though Lydia’s house was on the other side of Addison from Nellie’s, their houses were roughly the same in size, with six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, all for three people. Two of which shared a room.
It was hard not to be bitter, thinking of the house we’d been crammed into. Five and a half baths when my house had two, and one of those had a tub that didn’t drain and a toilet that clogged if the kids used too much toilet paper. So one working bathroom for six people. Ugh.
But for the party after our graduation ceremony on Sunday, a big house was a good thing—because Lydia had invited everyone.
“Chug, chug, chug!” the crowd of people chanted over whatever speaker system Lydia had gotten for the party, all eyes focused on one person.
Tyler Zigler from fourth period chugged from a can while standing on the coffee table in the center of the living room.
His feet were spread to brace himself on the wooden edge instead of the center glass, but it was still a trip to the ER waiting to happen.
Especially because he was in socks. His foot could slide off at any second.
Gosh, I really needed to turn off my big sister brain.
But then Tyler finished the can, crushing it against his forehead, and hopped off the death trap. The crowd cheered at his five-second guzzle, even as he let out a loud burp.
Ugh.
The party was supposed to be fun, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not the kids were in bed yet for school tomorrow.
It was after nine, so they should’ve been, but Mom rarely was in charge of bedtimes.
In fact, Mom, drained after her long days, sometimes even went to bed before the kids.
I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been responsible for tucking the kids in all on her own.
Maybe texting Mom wouldn’t hurt. Or Penn. Just to get some peace of mind. Just to have verification I wouldn’t be screwed over tomorrow morning when I needed to get them up for school. If they went to bed after nine, they’d be a nightmare.
“Daisy!” a voice called over the roar of the music, and I zeroed in on Raelynn Meyer.
Her strawberry blonde hair curled around her shoulders, a few strands near her temples pulled back by cute butterfly clips.
She still had on the white dress she’d worn to graduation, a pretty little lace piece that dipped low on her chest. “Do you know where Jamie is?”
With how irritated I was with him, I very nearly directed her toward where he’d hidden away. “I think I saw him go outside.”
Raelynn wasn’t terrible. Couldn’t read the room to save her life, as evident by how hard she’d been trying to corner Jamie at every Alderton-Du Ponte party for the last few weeks, but she was okay.
Not girlfriend material for Jamie, though.
Definitely not. “If you see him, can you tell him I’m looking for him? ”
Like I said. Couldn’t read the room to save her life. “Yeah, will do!”
I understood her determination, though. In her eyes, this was her last summer to catch Jamie’s attention before they both went off to college. She’d go from seeing him every day at school to potentially never seeing him again, so desperation drove her.
At least, that was what I assumed drove her. It’d been what drove me last year, clinging to Dalton through his senior year like he’d been a life raft.
At the same time Raelynn left me alone, my phone buzzed.
Jamie
Did you get lost on the way to the kitchen?
be nice, or i’ll make you come out and get your own soda
Jamie
Oh, my sweetest companion, come hither with all due haste, but do not insist that I myself brave the simple-minded fray.
…
and you call ME weird???
Jamie
Indeed
I sent an emoji with its tongue sticking out.
“Hey, Daisy!” a girl from school, Isabelle, greeted me when I walked into the kitchen. She leaned against the kitchen counter with Collin from fourth period at her side, his hand on her hip. “Where’s your other half?”
Panic blew through me before I realized she didn’t mean Dalton.
Of course she didn’t mean Dalton. “Nellie? She’s running late.
” Almost the entire side of Lydia’s kitchen counter was filled with 2-liter sodas, and I picked up one, grabbed a cup—then two—and began pouring.
“She had something to do before. But she’ll be here soon. ”
Something to do, like finish bleaching her boyfriend’s head of hair. A part of me wanted to text and check in, but the other part of me wasn’t sure she hadn’t fried his hair off, and maybe it was best to not interrupt.
“Not Eleanor.” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Jamie.”
I snorted as I poured pop into the second cup. “Jamie’s my other half?”
“C’mon,” Collin said. “When are you going to drop the act? Everyone knows you’re together.”
I blinked, and then blinked again. “How does everyone know something that’s not true?”
“You hang out all the time.”
“Because we’re friends.” I finished pouring into the cups and capped the two-liter. “I hang out with Nellie all the time, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m harboring secret feelings for her.”
“Guys and girls can’t be friends,” Isabelle declared. “Not without someone crushing on the other.” She and Collin shared a smirk.
“You’ve got a skewed worldview,” I told the weirdos at the kitchen counter, picking up both of my cups. “But I’ll tell the twins about your theory. I’m sure they’ll get a good laugh out of it.”
And with that, I walked out of the kitchen. I had to bob and weave around bodies as I made my way to the staircase on the far side of the house, leaving the pulsing beat of the music on the first floor while I climbed to the second.
Everyone knows you’re together. Ew. Well—I mean, not ew, because Jamie wasn’t gross, but…
still. I’d never imagined Jamie romantically.
Ever. I’d been crushing on Dalton since middle school, and we’d started going out the summer before sophomore year.
There was no time to daydream about Jamie, who’d moved to town at the start of freshman year.
And I mean, sure, Jamie and I were close, but he acted with me the exact same way he acted with Nellie, just with fewer twin telepathic conversations. Why were people just assuming we were together?
Misogyny, I decided.
I got to the first door on the landing and, with the toe of my shoe, I lightly kicked the door three times, paused, then twice more. I’d been careful not to spill the cups, but the one in my left hand was dangerously close, so I sipped the edge of it. The Sprite zinged on my tongue.
A second later, Jamie unlocked and opened the guest bedroom door.
His light blue hoodie was loose on his frame, with the hood drawn up over his head, and his eyes were narrowed behind his glasses.
“You got the secret knock wrong,” he said, immediately accusatory.
“It’s two knocks first, a pause, and then three knocks. ”
“We made it up on the drive over; give me a break.” I brushed past him and into the small room.
There was a queen-sized bed near the window with a desk on the opposite wall, but otherwise it was pretty empty.
The stereo downstairs was loud as it reverberated through the house.
“I’m surprised it’s quiet enough for you to read. ”
“I’m used to zoning everything out.” Jamie took the cup of soda from my left hand, leaving me with one on the right. His gaze roamed me. “No snacks?”
“Sheesh, ungrateful, are we?”
“No, this is good.” It wasn’t until Jamie brought it to his lips for a drink that I realized he’d taken the one I’d sipped from. Oops. “Thanks.”
“You’re lucky it was your birthday yesterday,” I told him, not wanting to head back out just yet. “Or else my cold shoulder would’ve lasted a lot longer.”
“Cold shoulder over what?” Jamie sat on the edge of the bed, setting his Sprite on the nightstand beside him. “Telling Nell about Dalton? I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”
“It’s not a secret. I just don’t like the idea of you talking about my love life behind my back.”
Jamie paused as he reached for his book. “I didn’t realize he still classified as being in your love life.”
I pressed my lips together and looked away. “He doesn’t.”
“Daisy.”
It was just my name, but he’d spoken it like he was trying to lure the truth out of me.
“He doesn’t,” I insisted. “I just don’t want you two talking about him without me.
Because talking about him leads to Nellie’s idea of fake dating someone to make him leave me alone, because we both know no one pities the person who moves on first—”
“But not me,” Jamie muttered under his breath. “Because I’m not good enough.”
“Oh, quit acting like it hurt your feelings.” Despite my stern tone, I did feel bad that he had heard that part of our conversation. I sat on the edge of the bed by his legs. “The whole point of fake dating someone is that you have to be convincing. Would you kiss me to convince him?”
Now Jamie looked away, down at his book, fingers tightening on the cover. “Gross.”
“Exactly.” Something twinged in my chest, and my grip on my cup loosened. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been clenching it. “I don’t like talking about him with you two. It makes me feel… pathetic.”
“You are not pathetic. He’s the pathetic one. Coming up to us the other day, looking at you, poking for a reaction. Bringing up NYU.” Jamie swallowed, nudging his glasses up with his finger. “He’s just trying to prove he still has power over you, Daze, and that’s pathetic.”
You’re off to NYU in the fall, right? “There’s no way he’d know that I hadn’t gotten in.”
“He never believed you would.”
The way Dalton had always viewed my art had never been a secret. He’d hated my sketches. He’d thought they were twisted and unsettling, and never looked at them for longer than two seconds.