48. Daisy
48
DAISY
A t the end of the week, Harrison drives me to the airport.
He parks and walks me all the way to security. I’m sick to my stomach as he holds me against him to say goodbye. I’ll see him next weekend. It’s ridiculous that I’m so sad.
“It’s only six days,” he says.
“Six days,” I repeat.
It’s still too long, and we both know it.
Late that afternoon, I land at Reagan. It’s ninety-nine degrees and a hundred percent humidity. Traffic is snarled the whole way into the city. I don’t know why the hell I’m here.
I get to my apartment at last, struggling with my suitcases. Claudia, my roommate, helps me get everything inside and then lowers the boom.
“We’ve got a bit of a problem,” she says. “Helen’s still here.”
Helen is the girl I sublet my room to in June. She was supposed to have moved out earlier this week, but apparently the house she was renting with friends just got condemned. “She’s a nice girl. I told her you and I could share a room until she finds something else since I’ve got a king-size bed. ”
“Which you usually share with your boyfriend.”
She shrugs. “I’ll tell him he can’t sleep over.”
“I’m not sure I want to sleep in a bed he’s been in for any reason,” I suggest. “Especially if he wasn’t here to sleep.”
She laughs. “We’ll go to his place. It’s only for a few weeks.”
So I give in, while thinking that going from Harrison’s house to this is quite the descent.
I already miss his deck. I already miss his bed. I’ll miss surfing with him in the morning and the sounds of the ocean as we fall asleep, and thinking about it makes me want to cry because what I really miss is Harrison. The rest…it wasn’t even the icing on the cake. He was the whole thing.
I take his call in the stairwell that night because it’s the only place I’ve got any privacy. The ocean roars in the background on his side of the line. “You’re sitting on the deck, aren’t you?”
“I am. It’s surprisingly dull without a scantily clad girl in a beige bra out here attracting attention.”
“I miss it.”
“I miss you,” he replies. Ice crackles in my ear. He’s drinking bourbon and probably didn’t eat. I hate that, but I’m not much better. I didn’t bother to make dinner because I just…hate it here. I hate being away from him. I hate that Helen blasts music whenever she’s home. I hate that I’m going to sleep alone tonight, and that it’s too muggy to open the windows, and if I did sleep with them open, I’d only hear cars honking and drunk guys getting into fights.
I want to go home, and home is California and the ocean, but mostly it’s the outdoors and it’s him and for the next four months, I’ll have none of those things.
“This is making me sad,” I whisper. “Tell me about your trip here. Tell me the first thing we’ll do.”
“I was trying really hard not to turn this conversation sexual, hon. ”
I laugh. “For once in my life I wasn’t trying to turn the conversation sexual since I’m calling you from the stairwell.”
“Why the fuck are you in the stairwell?” he demands.
“There’s a situation and I don’t have a bedroom for the next week or so.”
“Go to a hotel,” he says. “What’s near you? I’ll book it right now.”
I laugh but I want to cry at the same time as I tell him he doesn’t need to fix all my problems, that I’ll be fine sleeping on the couch for a while.
We haven’t even been apart for one full day, and I’m already not sure how I’m going to survive without him.
The first day of school feels endless by the time it’s halfway through. I’m running from seven in the morning until lunch, with several classes to come in the afternoon so I rush home, planning to eat something and collapse on the couch for an hour.
But the relief I expected to feel when I near my building never comes.
Christian is here.
Standing on the sidewalk with his arm folded, obviously waiting for me…so someone gave him my schedule.
I stumble to a halt, more shocked than scared. I assumed he wouldn’t stay in DC during his leave of absence—a leave of absence I set into motion.
He holds out a hand as if I’m the one who needs to be warded off. “I just want to talk.”
I have no reason to be scared of him—it’s not as if he was ever violent. But I also never thought he’d become a guy who’d wait outside my building to confront me. I grip the strap of my backpack as I look around. We’re on a busy street, but that doesn’t mean much. I’ve seen women getting harassed here and not a single person intervened.
“The time for talking was last fall,” I tell him.
“Do you have no remorse whatsoever, Daisy?” he snaps. “Do you realize how bad you made me look?”
Christian is skilled at controlling the narrative—it’s what he does for a living. And when he lashed out at me last winter—accusing me of being a gold digger, of being useless and low rent , I took every word he said as if it were canon.
But now I listen to him the way Harrison would. And Harrison would be fucking livid that Christian has the gall to demand remorse from me. That he has the gall to demand anything . “So…it made you look bad when I told the school that you, a professor , slept with his student and lied about his girlfriend? That part? Or the part where you found out I was pregnant and called me a gold digger?”
“It was consensual,” he says. “I didn’t have to talk you into a goddamn thing.”
“I never said it wasn’t.” I look around me again. I can’t reach my building without passing him. If I just went back to campus, would he follow? I’m shaking so badly I don’t even trust that I can get the keycard out of my backpack to open the door anyway.
“So, if we’re in agreement, why the fuck would you file a complaint?” he asks. “I seriously doubt they’re even going to let me come back. My fiancée left me over this bullshit! Do you not care about that at all?”
I fold my arms across my chest and tuck my shaking hands beneath each elbow to control the motion. “Christian, did she leave you because I told, or did she leave you because you cheated?”
“They’re the same thing.”
“They’re really not.” I’m proud of the steel in my voice. Someone listening in might not realize I’m absolutely shitting myself here. “One of us lied to two different women—one of whom he had a great deal of power over—and cheated on both of them. That was you. One of us simply came forward and told the truth. Spin it however you want, but you’re never going to convince me that I’m the guilty party.”
“You stupid little bitch,” he says. “I should have known you were too fucking dumb for an adult relationship.”
I’ve heard enough. He’s lashing out because yes, he’s unlikely to get rehired, and his books don’t sell enough to support him, and his fiancée left. But I didn’t make those choices—he did.
I pull out my phone. “You need to leave. Now .”
“Or what, Daisy? You’ll tell on me? You’ll ruin my career? You’ll destroy my relationship? You already did all of that.”
“I’ll call my lawyer,” I reply, my voice trembling. “He wanted me to sue for damages. And the first thing he’ll do is tell me to call the cops, which will then become part of the university’s record. Is that what you’d like?”
“Are you serious right now?” Christian shouts. “I’m not threatening you! I just wanted to have a conversation.”
“You had your conversation, asshole,” I reply. “Now start walking or I call.”
“Fucking bitch,” he mutters as he walks away. If the incident wasn’t so upsetting, I’d probably love that I got to see him suffering his comeuppance firsthand.
I wait until he’s gone before I turn toward the building. I’m so shaken that my hands won’t work right, that my arms are barely capable of opening the door or hitting the elevator button.
I walk straight to the couch, unable to eat. And just as I stretch out, my phone buzzes.
Harrison is calling over video. I don’t want him to see me the way I currently am, but he’ll worry if I don’t answer.
“Hey, hon,” he says, crossing his office to shut the door, tugging at his tie. “Is this a good time? You said you had a break between…wait, what’s wrong?”
I force a smile. “Nothing.”
I search for a joke I can make, a question I can ask.
But I burst into tears instead. “Christian was waiting outside when I walked up to the building. I don’t even know why I’m crying. It just freaked me out.”
“Call the cops, Daisy,” he hisses.
I shake my head, brushing the tears away. “He wasn’t threatening me. He just wanted to talk.”
“He’s under investigation in a case you brought forward, and showing up at your home is blatant intimidation. You need it documented.”
I press a hand to my face, wishing I hadn’t told him. Is he right? Undoubtedly. But it’s all too much right now. With the course load I’m taking and the current living situation, it’s just too much. And I’d planned to study late at the library but I’m going to be too scared to walk back alone in the dark after what happened. “Harrison, I see your point. I do. But I’ve got three more classes today and a ton of reading for tomorrow, and there just isn’t even time right now, okay? I threatened to call my lawyer, so he walked away. I don’t have time today. I really don’t.” I burst into tears again. What’s really getting to me is being here, away from all the things I love. Mostly, it’s being away from him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m just exhausted. Not having my own room is a mess and I don’t know how I’m going to study and…” I swallow to keep myself from saying “ I miss you .”
His jaw grinds. He’s going to argue, and I’ll end up missing all my classes while I talk to the police.
He runs a hand over his weary face. “Okay.”
I’m so surprised that I laugh, though it comes as a sob. “Wow, that was incredibly easy.”
“I’m still going to push you on this, but we’ll discuss it later, okay?” he says, his voice gentle. “Right now, you need to eat something and get back to class.”
“I find it suspicious that you’ve suddenly become so reasonable.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’m only being reasonable because I want you home by December,” he replies. “Go eat. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
We hang up, and I force myself to down some crackers and head back to campus, looking over my shoulder the whole time. It’s not that I think Christian will do something to me. I’m just not ready to weather another round of accusations.
I somehow get through my next three classes and return to the apartment determined to get through my reading, though all I want to do is sleep. Except Helen is blasting death metal while she does some cardio workout on the TV and Claudia’s got a scrunchie on the door, which means she’s in there with her boyfriend so I can’t study and I can’t sleep. I’m too fucking nervous to even go for a walk. The only reason I don’t call Harrison is because if he sees how despondent I am he’ll probably try to come solve this for me. I don’t want him to start feeling as if he’s my parent rather than my boyfriend.
Eventually Helen goes to her room, but Claudia shows no sign of emerging from ours. I do my best to study and wonder why the hell Harrison hasn’t called like he said he would.
Hey, you’ve been quiet. Are you still at work?
Harrison
I’m going to call you. Give me thirty?
By ten, I’m exhausted. Harrison hasn’t called, and Claudia and her boyfriend haven’t opened the bedroom door, which means that I can’t even pee or brush my teeth. I give up and shut out the lights, using my sweatshirt as a pillow .
Months after I went to Harrison’s house intending to sleep on his deck, I’m back to feeling homeless.
Harrison
Are you still up?
Yes. Are you home?
Instead of texting me, he calls. “Hey,” I whisper.
“Please tell me you’re not sleeping on the couch,” he growls.
If he realized that the alternative was sleeping in a bed my roommate just had sex in, he probably wouldn’t be so appalled. Unless he was even more appalled. “The situation is a little fucked up at the moment. I’ll figure it out.”
“ We’ll figure it out,” he says. “I’m outside. Let me up.”
It takes me a very long second to understand what he’s saying. And then I shriek so loudly that Claudia finally rouses and opens our door. I ignore her as I run out of the apartment, taking the stairs when the elevator doesn’t arrive fast enough. I burst out the building’s front door and leap at him, whole for the first time since I left California.
He laughs at my enthusiasm. And then he kisses me hard, and thoroughly, so it’s a full minute before I can even ask him how this unfolded.
“You flew all the way out here to discuss this?” I finally manage to ask. “That’s insane, even for you.”
“No,” he says, setting me down. “I flew all the way out here because I don’t want to be where you’re not.”
Huh? “But…you’re supposed to be coming over the weekend. Are you going to be able to take time off until—”
“I’m not going back,” he says. “It’s just not going to work, being away from you, even if it means living in DC for the next five months. But I’m not sleeping on a fucking couch.”
I press my face to his chest. “You can’t do that. What about your job? ”
His hand runs over my back, and his laughter is quiet against my ear. “I must have forgotten to mention this, Daisy, but I’m pretty fucking rich. Artisanal honey rich, even.”
“But—”
“I hated that job, and more importantly, I hated being away from you,” he says. “You spent the whole summer taking care of me. Now it’s my turn.”
I throw my arms around him, and he’s once again forced to support my weight while I press my lips to his neck, tears running freely down my face the entire time. It’s not that he’s going to take care of me. It’s that he wants to. And there’s no one I want to entrust that role to more than him.
We go upstairs. He has me pack an overnight bag, though Claudia sheepishly offers to let us have the room since her boyfriend is now leaving. The look on Harrison’s face is exactly what you’d expect when a very wealthy adult is told he can sleep in a filthy bed someone just had sex in.
“We’re staying in a hotel, thanks,” he says, making no attempt to hide his disdain.
He ushers me into an Uber. “I’m going to talk to the police in the morning,” he says, “and then I’m going to find us an apartment. Is that okay?”
I nod. It’s better than okay. I nestle against his chest and breathe him in, grateful to be home at last.