Chapter 31
CHAPTER 31
THEN, 2000
A pparently there was something worse than having a crush on her best friend—meeting his girlfriend . She was actually surprised when Rafferty asked her to meet him at the corner diner after class so he could introduce her to his girlfriend. For a brief moment, Daisy imagined that he was asking her to be his girlfriend. That would never happen, obviously. For so many reasons, mostly the fact that she was thirteen to his sixteen and he still thought of her as a little kid. He thought his job was to protect her because Nonna Ames had said as much.
Besides, she didn’t know what it meant to be someone’s girlfriend. Most of the books she found in the library were about crushes, girls her age going through puberty and the weird parts of being a teenager. So few of them talked about love or romance. The first time she encountered kissing in a book it was brief, but it intrigued her. She eventually discovered a section of the school library that had books for slightly older kids. There was a lot more kissing and really elaborate descriptions of what it meant to be a girlfriend.
Of course she wanted that to be her life with Rafferty.
Except he chose the worst person in the world.
Daisy knew she should have told him how Vivian Chambers was the queen of bullies. That she was the one who teased her when she got her first period. Every time that thought popped into her mind, she’d hear her mother calling her a jealous little witch and she’d shake it off. She was jealous and he never needed to know that.
The thing that confused her was why Rafferty was letting that part of his life meet the secret part. Sure, he didn’t know that their friendship was a secret. She’d done such a good job of putting that distance between them in public. The kids at school had always been awful to her and she knew that they’d either get worse or torture him if they knew they were friends. Rafferty insisted they were best friends , but would that be the same when he found out she was keeping secrets from him? And keeping him a secret.
Let it go . She sat up straight in the booth where she was waiting to meet the she-devil herself.
Rafferty’s face split into a stupid smile. “There she is,” he said, with so much awe, she couldn’t understand how this was her life. Even if for a minute Daisy thought he was talking about her. Silly little girl , her mother’s voice so helpfully said.
She didn’t bother hiding the eye roll and didn’t get up either. Stretching her legs out and crossing them at the ankle under the table, she watched as Vivian walked over to them with the fakest smile known to mankind.
“Hi baby,” she cooed and wrapped her arms around Rafferty.
Daisy swallowed back a gag. They slid into the seat across from her. Vivian had the tightest grip on Rafferty’s jacket, like she was afraid he might leave her. If only the redhead knew that her boyfriend was absolutely and completely dedicated to her. Daisy could have paraded around naked and he wouldn’t even look or notice.
“Daisy, right? I’ve heard so much about you!” Vivian said, fake charm dialed up to eleven.
“We know each other, Vivian.”
“We do?” She batted her eyes, glancing at Rafferty in confusion. “I mean you’re younger than us, so I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“Sure.” Unbelievable, she’s going to play it like that?
Vivian bounced in place and turned to Rafferty. “What are we doing here, pookie? I thought we were going on a date.”
Blergh, pookie . Does she think we’re in a sitcom or something?
“We are, but I wanted you to meet Daisy first.”
“Why?” Now her confusion was genuine and maybe even borderline disgusted.
“Because she’s my best friend and I want both my girls to know each other.”
My girl. Swoon.
Daisy rubbed her lips together to hide her smile, head dipped down as she basked in that. Sure, she was going to ignore the fact that he lumped her in with this vapid human.
“ Your girls ?” she asked, clearly attempting to be cute and teasing, but sounding more pitchy than she probably intended to.
“Uh…milkshakes?” Rafferty asked to defuse the moment.
Vivian nodded and shoved him out of the booth. She dragged him to the counter, leaving Daisy alone to catch her breath. She wasn’t someone who treated another girl badly because they had what she wanted, but when the same person was Vivian , it was easy to hate her.
Reminder, you’re just jealous .
Lifting her head, she saw them kissing and her heart dropped. Hands were everywhere and both of them looked so into it. Daisy’s stomach turned and she looked away. When it became clear that it wasn’t going to stop or get any better, she made the decision to leave. Carefully sliding out of the booth, making sure the leather seat didn’t squeak or fart, she smoothed down her clothes and cleared her throat as she approached the couple.
“So uh…I’m going to…go,” she told them, doing her best not to make eye contact with their linked mouths. “You two have fun.”
She hurried outside, sucking in deep breaths. She knew he would follow her, but didn’t stop until Rafferty was tugging on her hand.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Don’t particularly feel like being a third wheel.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, you go have fun.”
He faked a pout, his eyes dancing with amusement. “But I wanted you to meet pookie .”
Daisy rolled her eyes and a laugh burst out of her. “Gross. Please don’t ever use that term again.”
“I might, if only to make you laugh like that.” He poked her side and she stepped away, aware that Vivian was watching them. “You’ll get home safely, yeah?”
“Obviously.” With an awkward high-five, she turned around and started for the bus stop. That was not the day she was going to tell Rafferty that the girl he liked was an evil asshole.
Maybe I’ll tell him tomorrow?
As she predicted, Vivian was insufferable the rest of the week. She’d obviously told her gang of witches who Daisy was and gave them specific roles in bullying her. Someone spilled ink on her white blouse, her locker was broken into and filled with tampons and sanitary napkins. They even stole an assignment the day she was supposed to submit it. Most of all, they spread rumors about her. Despite every effort to get to the bottom of it, she couldn’t figure out exactly what the rumors were. It was terrible enough that everyone whispered when she walked by.
When Daisy didn’t cry or react the way they predicted, the girls took it up a notch. They started leaving notes in her locker calling her ugly bitch, fat cow as well as talking about how her dark skin resembled dirt. She refused to give them the pleasure of her reaction at school, but would lock herself in her bedroom and cry afterwards.
It wasn’t the first time those terrible things were said to her, but back then she didn’t realize how harmful the words were. She was so young when her mother, Catarina, told her she was worthless. At that point, she didn’t fully understand the weight of those words. All she knew was that she was making her mother angry and unhappy, and the only way to fix that was to do everything she was told.
“Nobody likes fat people. If you’re fat, you’re ugly and you’ll die alone. Beauty is important. If you’re not perfect, you’re not worth a second look. Chocolate is not your friend. You need to eat smaller portions or starve. I will not have my daughter be the ugliest person in every room. It’s bad enough that your skin is so dark. Now I have to train you to eat less. This is why diets and fairness creams were invented.”
Now, at thirteen, she understood what those words meant and accepted them as the truth.
If everyone thought she was ugly because of her skin and her body shape, she needed to fix it, right? So she started rationing her food and being careful about how much she ate. There was no logic to what she was doing, but she knew that starvation was the right method. If her father was out of town and she was at the Ames house, she pushed food around on her plate to make it seem like she was actually eating.
She put on a brave face every single day, making sure Nonna Ames and Rafferty didn’t know what she was doing. Her mother would never see her again or appreciate how much effort Daisy was putting into being acceptable and perfect. But she could earn everyone else’s appreciation and love, right? Maybe then Vivian and her friends would stop picking on her.
A few months after the day at the diner, Daisy came home to an empty house. She stripped out of her baggy clothes and changed into one of her father’s old shirts. With the food Nonna had made for her sitting on the table, she pulled out the weighing scale in her father’s bedroom and stood on it. She believed that she could see how much weight she was putting on if she ate standing there. Especially since she was so hungry after starving herself for so long.
That’s how Rafferty found her—a piece of bread hanging out of her mouth as she cried quietly while staring at the fluctuating numbers.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
She jumped off the scale, eyes wide as he stared at her. “Eating.”
“On the weighing scale?”
“I…uh…why are you home?”
“Seriously, Daisy, what the fuck is going on?”
She shook her head, backing away as he moved closer. His expression went from confused to furious to sad with every step she took further away from him.
He went still, fists clenched as he said, “It’s those fucking girls, right? They said something.”
“No! I…I’m just being careful.”
“Why?”
“None of your business!” His eyes widened at her volume and she sighed. “I’ve been putting on weight and it’s not a good look.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“You’re biased because you’re my best friend.”
He laughed, not a funny one but an angry one. “You’re fucking perfect, Daisy. I wish you wouldn’t listen to those airheads. They don’t even eat and spend all their time popping pills to look that way. It’s not healthy. Look at you, Hero. You’re beautiful.”
Tears sprung into her eyes and she shook her head. “I’m ugly.” The words came out softly and at first she thought he didn’t hear it. A low rumble echoed in the room before the weighing scale went flying under the bed. “Raff!”
“Say that again, Daisy. Tell me that you’re ugly one more time.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think.”
“Unbelievable. Those girls are jealous and while that’s no excuse to be assholes, you shouldn’t let their empty words hurt you. You’re better than this.”
“Nobody likes me,” she admitted softly, hugging herself as she stared at her toes.
“I like you, Hero. You’re my best friend.”
“Well, your girlfriend hates me.”
“What?” Daisy realized her mistake too late and when she looked up, Rafferty was staring at her. “Oh my god, this whole time Vivian was the one?”
“You knew about the girls. Didn’t you know she was one of them?”
Dragging his hands through his hair, he shook his head. “I was supposed to protect you, Daisy. Instead, I…oh god.”
“You don’t have to protect me.”
“I should have, at least from Vivian. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Daisy.”
She shook her head, keeping the distance between them. “It’s…whatever. I’m fine.”
“You’re weighing yourself while eating. You’re not fine.”
“I will be fine. Just…go.” He frowned and took a step forward, but she backed away. “Please, Raff. I’m okay.”
He stopped and shoved his hands into his pockets, but she could tell that he didn’t believe her. However, he did mumble another apology and walked out of the room, leaving her alone with her rumbling stomach and aching heart.
A few days later, he dumped Vivian publicly.
Then told her father what he’d witnessed.