Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
DAISY
Thursday afternoon, I’m curled up in one of the worn-out sofas on the top floor of the library, my laptop balancing precariously on my knees. The cursor mocks me, blinking in and out on the empty page like it has been for the last hour.
I’m about to give up on getting any more words done today when the cushion under my ass buzzes, cutting through the silence on the top floor. Somewhere in the last hour I’ve been sitting here, my phone must have fallen off my lap. I shift, reaching for it.
“You’re still alive,” Willa exclaims the moment I pick up.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I haven’t heard from you in ages. I was starting to worry.”
“I texted you yesterday.”
“It’s not the same,” she whines. “How’s life in the big city?”
I roll my eyes at her exaggeration. For someone who has her sights set on Hollywood she has a surprisingly loose definition of the term big city. “Freezing.”
“Tell me about it—it’s been snowing here for weeks,” she snorts, before adding, “I’m assuming this means you’re finding creative ways to keep warm?”
I groan at her suggestive tone. “You read too many romcoms.”
“Says the person writing them.” She laughs. “Your imagination is just as deep in the gutter as mine is.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Fine, now tell me again why you’re not using the hot guy down the hall to stay warm?”
“We’re just friends. There’s nothing more to it.”
“You kissed him.”
I groan. “I don’t need the reminder.”
“I’ll stop reminding you when you admit that you’re attracted to him.”
I set my laptop down next to me and curl up on the cushion, tugging my feet under me as I pick at the loose thread on my jeans.
“Fine,” I admit and she squeals on the other end of the line.
I wince at the high pitch, pulling the phone slightly away from my ear. “I knew it. I just didn’t think you would ever admit it.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“If you had a theme song it would be The Bolter—stunning chords, haunting lyrics, and over before it really began.”
I frown. “I don’t bolt.”
“Remember junior year when Wyatt asked you to prom? You called in sick for the rest of the week.”
“I caught the flu,” I say defensively. Although it had been more like a short lived stomach bug. I was fine after two days in bed but I still spent the rest of the week avoiding school.
“Sure,” she says skeptically, “How do you explain the time you walked out on that guy at Bennies last year when you realized you were on a date? Or the time you almost changed your number sophomore year because the new guy told you he thought you were cute?”
I gasp at the evidence stacked against me. “I’m so the bolter.”
“This might be good for you. You live with the guy; there’s no bolting from that.”
“Yes, but we live together.” Not to mention all of the other reasons nothing could ever happen between us.
“You know for someone who spend most of her waking hours writing about love and romance, you really suck at it in real life.”
“You’re the worst.”
“So, you keep saying.” She laughs, but I don’t join in this time. Because she’s right.
“It’s safer,” I admit, my voice sounding too quiet on the empty library floor. “Writing about it, I get to imagine all of these big romantic gestures, knowing I’ll never have to deal with the fall out of it if they go wrong. If I don’t like the direction it’s going, I can just change the story.”
Except judging by the empty page I’ve been staring at for the last hour, I can’t even do that anymore.
She’s quiet for a second, before she softly says, “You know, it’s not a bad thing to let yourself be vulnerable every once in a while.”
“I’m vulnerable,” I argue, but the words fall flat.
“Spilling all your secrets to me when you’re drunk doesn’t count.”
“What if I do it sober?” I joke.
“Oh totally,” she says, exaggerating the words, before she turns serious again, “Just promise me you’ll get out of your head and live a little.”
“I’ll try,” I promise her.
“That’s all I’m asking.”