18. Daisy
18
DAISY
I ’m alone on Friday and making dinner when my mom calls.
I used to love talking to my mom, but for the last year, I’ve lied so much that I cringe every time her name lights up my phone. This summer, of course, it’s only gotten worse. If I tell her I’m working in Santa Cruz, she’ll ask if I’ve seen Harrison and then she’ll probably call Harrison and ask him to check on me. I’ve resorted to a very childish stance of “it’s none of your business” solely to keep this house of cards from caving in.
“Hi, baby!” she cries, clearly excited I’m actually answering. “How are things? What are you doing?”
“Trying to get super greens into a protein shake without it tasting like ass. Oh, and attempting to make tartiflette—I saw it on a cooking show and it looked amazing.”
“You shouldn’t be messing around in the kitchen,” she scolds. “You should be studying for the LSAT.”
I sigh. She’d have been the perfect mom for someone like Harrison, someone driven. Instead, she wound up with me. “I enjoy messing around in the kitchen. ”
“Daisy, this matters. I wish you’d just come home. You could study full-time.”
“Mom.” My voice takes on a hard edge, the one that warns her to drop it. “I’m happy with the way things are.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” she says, but there’s despair in her voice rather than irritation. “I’m just trying to help, but I feel like I can’t say the right thing anymore.”
My heart squeezes. She wants so much for me, more than I’ve ever wanted for myself, and I don’t know how to tell her to stop wanting it. “I’m sorry,” I reply. “I just…don’t need the pressure right now, okay?”
“You’re right.” She forces a laugh. “What would I know about law school? Everything I’ve ever heard is secondhand. Anyway, I miss you. Can we get dinner?”
I wonder when Harrison’s leaving for LA. I don’t want to voluntarily give up a single hour by his side before I return to DC.
“Sure, let me check my schedule at work, okay?”
“I can make that pasta you like, with the feta and tomatoes?” she asks. “Or maybe chicken Kiev?”
I stiffen. “I sort of thought we’d meet at a restaurant.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer a home-cooked meal?”
“What I’d prefer is to not eat dinner with Scott,” I snap. Why is it so fucking hard for her to understand this? Is there any possible way I could have made it more clear? Doubtful.
She’s still scrambling to get her fairy tale ending—the loving husband, the accomplished daughter—while I’m here with Harrison pretending I’ve already got mine.
And we’re both going to wind up empty-handed.
It’s barely dawn when Harrison knocks on my door. “Let’s go, Daisy,” he calls. “Tide’s coming in. ”
I rush out of bed, brush my teeth, and race down to the garage while trying to tie my bikini on. He’s already in his wetsuit by the time I reach him. I tug on mine while he waxes our boards.
As much as I loved surfing with him and Liam and their friends as a kid, this is better. I always felt like the fifth wheel back then, but here, when it’s just the two of us…it’s like being a vital part of a team. I love my uncle and I love his friends, but it wouldn’t be the same if any of them were here.
We get to the water and dive in. It’s a bit calmer than normal, which makes it easier to paddle out, but we have to wait a while for a decent set.
“How was work last night?” I ask, straddling my board. I’m surprised he woke before me—he got in late, long after I’d gone to bed.
He leans forward, resting on his palms. “As scintillating as ever.” The sarcasm in his voice would be impossible to miss. I know he had a few interesting clients before he left for London, clients who made up for what was otherwise a tedious job. But he transferred them. So why is he still there?
I throw out my hands. “Why are you torturing yourself at a job that makes you miserable when we both know you’re rich as hell? Take a year off. Find the job of your dreams. Everything’s online now anyway. I bet some law firm would let you do the work you want from here if you refuse to move.”
“I’m not rich, Daisy—I’m comfortable. My father has money. I just have a decent job.”
I laugh. “Yes, I see the way you’re barely scraping by here.”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I make a good living and yeah, I started off with some money I inherited, but that still doesn’t make me rich.”
Which sounds exactly like the kind of thing a rich person would say .
“Speaking of work ,” he adds with a brow raised, “Liam said you’re spending the summer studying for the LSAT, yet I haven’t seen you do anything vaguely academic even once.”
Shit . “I was studying all week. Didn’t you see me reading?”
He gives me a lopsided grin. “Funny, I don’t recall reading Diary of a Rock Star Groupie before law school myself.”
“The heroine has to sign a nondisclosure agreement, so it’s legal in nature,” I reply, but I can tell he’s still waiting for a real answer, dammit. I sigh heavily. “I’m not actually sure about law school. It’s another of my mom’s plans.”
“You can’t get an expensive three-year degree just to make your mom happy.”
Oh, can’t I? Because I just undertook an expensive four-year degree to make her happy—not that it has.
“I know. This professor told me I was a good writer last year and suggested I consider an MFA, and I was excited simply because it seemed like a way out of law school.”
“Are you interested in getting an MFA?”
“No. Not at all.” I’ve been grasping at straws just as recklessly as my mother has, trying to find a way to make her proud. I wanted to become someone for her more than I wanted to actually grow into a better version of myself.
The board rolls beneath me as a small wave approaches. “I just don’t know how to tell her. Because if I’m not going to law school, she’s just going to come up with a different plan, some new way for me to be special when I need her to understand that I’m just…not. I’m not special.”
“Of course you’re special,” he insists, sounding almost angry on my behalf.
I laugh, but it’s a sad sound. “You had to say that. But I’m really not. My mother was a great student, and she loved school. I’m just okay at everything, at best, and I hate school.” I tip my head toward the wave ahead of us, but he ignores it .
“There are other ways to be special—”
I shake my head as I start to turn my board. “Not ways that matter. Not to her. And I’m not really sure what to do with myself in the meantime.”
“I think you start by considering that maybe you don’t have to do anything with yourself,” he says as we paddle, and once again he sounds angry, as if he’s defending me from myself. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”
I smile, unwillingly.
There are a hundred people in the world who could detail my failures. It’s hard to care when Harrison, the best of them, likes me regardless.
When we get home, I take an extra-long, extra-hot shower, and then open all the doors and blast music while I make us acai bowls. He playfully carps about the mess I’ve made and eats every bite.
We both sit out on the deck together afterward. He reads the paper and does some work. I finish reading Diary of a Rock Star Groupie and am disappointed to discover there’s only one sex scene between the main character and the rest of the band.
In the evening, he grills us steaks while I make potatoes and salad. I hum as I cook, and it hits me that I’m happy, just like this. That if I really didn’t have to make something of myself, if I could simply exist , this is the precise existence I’d choose. I’d cook, and I’d surf, and I’d take care of someone, and it would be more than enough, as long as he was the one I was caring for.
It would be everything .
“You want to watch a movie?” I ask as we clean up dinner.
He hesitates. Most nights he goes to his room and watches something on his laptop, and it’s pretty clear he’d prefer to do that tonight too .
“Not if it’s some Teen Disney bullshit,” he finally says. “The two times I babysat you, you made me watch both of the Camp Rock movies.”
I groan. “Harrison, I was what…seven? What did you want to watch when you were seven, and do you still want to watch it?”
“ Star Wars ,” he replies. “And yes. But I see your point.”
We pick an older movie, one that has a little something for both of us—violence for him, Ryan Gosling for me.
He positions himself on one end of the couch and I curl up on the other, though soon I’m stretched out, taking up most of the space. My toes brush his thigh, and he scrapes a nail along the sole of my foot, which makes me laugh.
The movie is slightly too violent for my liking and slightly too romantic for Harrison’s. Every time Ryan Gosling starts flirting with the heroine, Harrison mutters, “Give me a break,” which I ignore because it’s the best part of the movie.
No matter how committed I am to remaining single, I want what Ryan Gosling and that girl on screen have, though it’s clearly not going to turn out well for either of them. When Ryan Gosling kisses her, I release a wistful sigh. I want that too.
Harrison smirks. “He just bludgeoned someone to death, yet you’re still swooning over him.”
“I’m not swooning over him . I’m swooning over the way he kissed her. It’s romantic—the way he did it. The way he grabbed her face and held it.”
“You just made the case for him to be tried for assault,” Harrison says. “I’ve never kissed a woman like that in my life.”
I shoot him a pointed look, a single brow arched. “Maybe that explains some things. Do not ruin this for me.”
He’s silent. He’s probably creating a list of felonies he’d like to charge Ryan Gosling with.
Or maybe he’s hurt.
Did I go too far with my maybe that explains some things bullshit? Of course I did. The man just got dumped and is probably still looking for an explanation, which I just provided with my big fucking mouth. “I’m—”
“What makes it romantic?” he asks before I can even get an apology out. His voice is quieter, slightly uncertain. He hits pause .
I curl up, tucking my feet beneath me as I face him. “It’s…possessive. It’s like he’d die before he’d let anyone come between them. You place your hand on a woman’s hip when you kiss her and it’s sort of like you’re just trying something out. You don’t know how it will go; you might change your mind; you’re not sure about what you want. That kiss? With his hands cradling her face? It’s committed. He wants her, and he doesn’t give a damn if the whole world knows.”
“So, is that what you’re holding out for?” He nods toward the screen. “Someone who basically assaults you, but it’s okay because it shows he cares?”
I snatch the remote and turn back toward the TV. “I’m not holding out for anything. I’m done with men.”
He raises a brow.
“Before you get all excited, I’m not saying I’m a lesbian either.”
He does, in fact, look a bit disappointed.
I shrug. “It’s all not worth the effort. Love isn’t and sex definitely isn’t. Why should I risk pregnancy and disease so some idiot who can’t even find my clit gets off? I can find it myself in way less time.”
His exhale is audible, as if I’ve punched the air out of him. “Ostensibly,” he says, crossing the room to the liquor cabinet, “there’s a little more to it than that. And you choose a man who knows what he’s doing.”
He’s nursed one bourbon through the whole movie but now fills his glass to the brim and remains there while he slams it. When he finally returns, he’s carrying the whole bottle with him.
Apparently, I’ve driven him to drink.