Chapter 23 Daisy
Daisy
Ash finishes lifting me high in the air with a spin, and as soon as he drops me back on my feet, my head swirling, my eyes search the shadows.
Rowan still hasn’t returned, and my heart begins to crack. But I seal it quickly, smiling up at Ash’s bright green eyes.
“Are you having fun, Daisy?” he asks.
I nod, my head still swirling as I place my hand on my head. Damn, I’m still dizzy. It started in the last half hour. A rush to the head, and now and then, my scent will bloom like a cloud, and then I’m hit with a wave of May-blossom.
If the guys have caught on, then they’re hiding it well.
“I think I just need to go to the toilet.”
Both Alphas regard me, confused. Then they concede, showing me the way. “Okay. But we will stand guard outside,” Ash replies.
Thank goodness. The last thing I want to do is go to the bathroom alone. Not with the likes of Natalie hanging around.
We make our way to the bathroom. After I do my business, I’m washing my hands, gazing at my reflection in the mirror above the sink.
Damn. I really am dizzy. I blink for a second, but when I open my eyes, it’s not my twenty-eight-year-old self I’m gazing at.
It’s me… at seventeen. There are my train track braces as I run my tongue over my smooth teeth. Yet there they are in the mirror, catching the light of the bathroom.
My hair is a mess, too. I look as if I just stuck my hand into a power socket.
My heart thumps hard. No, no... It’s just in my head. I have no idea what is going on with me, but it must be the pressures of the evening.
Thankfully, my teenage self disappears, and there I am again: a confident, beautiful grown woman.
I am beautiful now. And no one can take that away from me…
My dress is fantastic, and it feels like a second skin as I run my palms over the curves of the bodice. The sweetheart neckline cups my breasts, and I smile, turning back to the door.
Unfortunately, I come face-to-face with the last person I wanted to see tonight.
Natalie—smoking alone in a bathroom like she’s seventeen again. She’s sitting on the trash can, and how had I not noticed her before? Was she hiding in one of the stalls? She was always insidious like that.
“Hey, D,” she greets, as if we’re the best of friends.
However, her face isn’t as poisonous anymore. That perma-smirk has vanished from her mouth. Now, she just looks… normal.
My heart is pounding. Ten years may have passed, but I still feel like a deer in the headlights whenever I am around this girl.
I gaze at the cigarette pointedly between her long, acrylic fingernails. She smiles. “What? You’re not going to snitch on me, are you?”
I raise a brow. “Did I ever?”
She stares at that remark. Then she laughs, blowing out smoke. “No. You never did.”
I regard her for a few moments, wondering why she isn’t out there playing Queen B with her friends. Then I roll my eyes, moving past her.
“Daisy…” she says next.
I freeze at the door, angling my head. I find the girl who terrorized me for three years in the corner of my eye.
She takes a few moments. Then she meets my eyes. Her baby blues shine slightly. “I was a bitch to you. A real bitch. I am sorry.”
I stare, flabbergasted. It was the last thing I expected her to say tonight.
When she hugged me earlier, it felt like a threat.
As if she were afraid that I was going to steal her spot at the top of the pyramid—literally and figuratively speaking.
Natalie always made the top of the pyramid, back in her cheerleading days.
Perhaps it had all just been for show. Ever since I stepped into the venue tonight, I’ve felt as if I’ve entered a time machine. But I suppose everyone here was just trying to reclaim a part of their old selves.
That’s how it is for the kids who peaked in high school. For people like me—the former losers, math geniuses, poets, and theatre brats alike… we were just waiting for our time to shine.
If you ask a former school outcast like me if they miss high school, then we would have to ask you this: Does a caterpillar miss its cocoon?
Because we don’t. For most of us, it was the worst time of our lives. We were still growing, finding ourselves in the world.
But kids like Natalie left their cocoons far too early. They were just in such a rush to grow up, flying too close to the sun until their wings burned.
Natalie chuckles, smiling at me sadly. “I don’t expect you to ever forgive me. But please know that I regret everything I did to you.”
I bow my head, taking a few moments. Then I whisper, “Th-thank you, Natalie.”
She grins. “Call me Nat.”
I nod, opening the door. I bite my lip. I’m probably making a stupid mistake, but I shut the door again, looking her way. “Are you okay?”
The woman seems downtrodden, sitting here all alone, smoking, of all things.
She snorts, blowing on her cigarette. Then she sighs, “I suppose... Honestly? I was dreading tonight. Dreading Kyle… Just look at him. He still thinks he’s eighteen. What a prick.”
She shakes her head, taking another long drag.
I have no idea what to say to any of that. The last time I saw Kyle, he was cowering before Rowan. I don’t know what transpired between them, but I can imagine it wasn’t pleasant; I’m sure the room’s temperature dropped when the Alpha had Kyle up against the wall.
She puts her cigarette out in the trash can, then rises to her feet, towering over me. She smiles tightly. “He’ll never admit to it, but I’ll apologize on his behalf. Kyle is sorry, too.”
My eyes widen, and then I cross my arms. “Well… tell him I said thank you.”
She gets gum out of her purse, offering me a stick. Then she fixes her hair in the mirror. She still has that awesome shine to her strands. That much hasn’t changed about her. “He had a crush on you, by the way… Kyle, I mean… and he wasn’t the only guy, either.”
My skin prickles all over. That’s just ludicrous.
She meets my gaze in the mirror. “Our own son is bullying a little girl in his class. It’s not hard to figure out why.”
I have a strange out-of-body experience next as I keep my eyes on my former bully. She smiles. “Why are you telling me this?”
He’s her husband, right? The father of her kids.
She shrugs, applying lipstick now. “The love died out years ago. We grew apart. But we still have two sons to raise… and I won’t let them be a part of a broken marriage like I was…”
I look down at my shoes. I remember when her dad left town, leaving her and her mom on their own. Lucky for them both, though, Natalie’s mom owned her own business, so they still did okay financially. But it sure screwed with Natalie’s psyche.
It turned her into a petty bully.
She laughs ironically again. “I was jealous of you because of all the attention he gave you...”
I snort. “But I was a nerd.”
Natalie thinks about it for a moment. “I guess you were…But you were the girl he could never quite figure out. The quiet one. The only one immune to his oh-so-perfect charms…” she scoffs.
My eyebrows crumple.
She grins, putting her lipstick away. “But you were still a catch, D. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
My head spins as her words echo through my mind. She was jealous of me? Because her boyfriend secretly had a thing for me?
She sighs, draping her purse over her shoulder. “Time to put on the mask again. Fuck, this is exhausting.”
Natalie moves to the door, gripping the handle. When I don’t follow her, she turns. “Daisy?”
My vision blurs. What kind of alternate reality have I entered? Natalie is nice, and Kyle secretly has a thing for me...
The floor flies up before my eyes.
“Daisy!”
Someone catches me, and then I look up to find Natalie Fox’s baby blue eyes. A cramp seizes me, and I black out momentarily.
“Shit! Help!” my former bully cries out. She whispers, brushing my hair aside, “It will be okay. Your guys are coming…”
They are?
She laughs. “I was always rooting for the four of you. I’m so happy for you, Daisy. Truly. You deserve it. The crown is yours. You earned it.”
The crown?
Am I now officially the coolest girl at school?
Those are the last thoughts that run through my head. The darkness seizes hold of me again, and then I close my eyes, succumbing at last.
I have gone into heat at my high school reunion.
Could there have been a better time?