CHAPTER TWO
An Hour Earlier
Daisy
I tried to stand patiently in the long line stretching out of the Bursar’s Office and down the sidewalk.
I couldn’t help tapping my hand against my thigh and checking my watch off and on, though.
I didn’t want to be late for my deli delivery job.
I knew Old Man Dinardo wouldn’t fire me or anything, but the majority of the money I earned came from tips.
If I wasn’t there to wait tables, I didn’t earn any of that money.
I sighed and rubbed my temples. It was so damn hot.
Usually, the ocean breeze would somehow find its way to campus, but that wasn’t the case today.
Resigned to the fact that I was just going to have to wait, I found myself looking around.
The campus was beautiful, as usual. Spanish moss hung from the branches of the huge old water oaks that lined the sidewalks.
Groups of friends and couples holding hands were out in droves.
So were the frat boys playing frisbee on the huge open lawn in front of the massive, almost gothic styled library building.
I caught myself looking for a familiar handsome face with dimples.
A mess of dark hair hanging over his forehead.
I pictured him pushing it back as he laughed over something one of his friends said.
Then I winced as another memory of him came to mind.
I turned away from the sight of the guys and banished the thought of walking in on Myers, my boyfriend, fucking one of my former friends.
I wouldn’t go there. Never again. He still tried to talk to me at least two or three times a week, but I ignored him.
I’d blocked his number last year. But he’d used the numbers of our mutual friends to get to me, until I’d realized that all the friends we’d shared had chosen him instead of me when we’d split up.
They blamed me for dumping him. Saying it was normal to cheat in college. That he loved me, he really did, and I should consider myself lucky to be with him.
I might have been blinded once by how handsome he was, how charismatic, funny, rich, and smooth. But I wasn’t anymore. I knew that if I’d stayed with him, I’d be finding some new girl in his bed every few months for our entire married lives.
No thank you. If I ever got married and had a family, I wanted my children to have a stable, loving upbringing with two parents. Not like what I’d had. I wouldn’t be repeating my mother’s mistakes.
West Bay University had been… interesting for me.
It had started off so well. I’d gotten a full academic scholarship.
Then I’d made the dance team. I’d been good enough my sponsor even gave me a scholarship that covered some of the smaller things that weren’t covered by my main award.
I’d pledged the best sorority on campus.
Myers had picked me out of all the girls who’d wanted to date him, which was pretty much all of them.
And the first year of college had passed like a beautiful dream. It had been perfect, like a movie.
But that had all fallen apart spectacularly.
After I’d lost my scholarships, I’d had to drop down to one semester of school a year so I could work more hours.
And that money hadn’t even gone to school.
I closed my eyes, starting to panic at the amount I’d had to take out in student loans just to get my business degree.
Now I wasn’t even sure I’d earn enough to pay it back.
I had always pictured myself wearing a designer dress and heels, leading a presentation for an ad campaign in the sleek conference room of one of the tall, skyscraper-style buildings that dotted West Bay’s growing skyline.
Now? It was a foregone conclusion that I’d be working and managing my mom’s flower shop back home in Crosston.
Nothing was going as planned. Not one thing.
Now I was finally about to graduate. Just one semester left. It was August now, and I’d be done in December. Because of everything that happened, I was a couple of years older than the average senior. I didn’t care a bit about that anymore. Life had beat it out of me.
They say bad things happen in threes. For me? It had been more like twenty-threes. I tried not to feel sorry for myself, but it had been… a lot.
“Next,” a woman’s voice called.
I looked up, surprised when I realized the line had passed by quicker than I’d expected. I stepped forward. “Hello,” I started.
“Name.” She glanced at me, blinked a little, her eyes growing wide, before looking back at her computer and poising her fingers to type.
Her bubblegum pink manicure looked off when compared with the rest of her.
She had a short, old lady perm and wore a beige cardigan sweater over a plain white shirt.
Those pink nails looked to be her one rebellion, her one pop of color, in a bland world.
“Daisy Tiller.” I shifted uncomfortably. I hated to ask for anything, any help.
“Ms. Tiller,” she said, looking over the rims of her bifocals at me, “you need to make a significant payment, or you’ll be dropped from your current classes.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.” I tried to smile at her, but she was decidedly unimpressed with my friendliness. Why was this happening anyway? “There was a mistake on my financial aid form, but the woman I spoke with assured me the money would be here in time.”
“Well, it’s not here. That’s the problem.” She was looking at me expectantly.
“Could you check one more time, please…”
“Ms. Tiller,” she said in a bored voice, “I have your file pulled up in front of me. I assure you, the money is not here. There’s a chance it could come in during the semester and that you’ll be reimbursed, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
I stared at her, wondering what to do. I had a decent amount of money in my bank account, but I had it earmarked for other things. Important things.
“Um, since the financial aid check hasn’t come through, I was hoping I could get a payment plan? Last year, a friend of mine was able to pay twelve equal payments for tuition…”
“That option was discontinued. The best I can offer,” she sounded bored as she typed away, “is a quarterly plan. You’d owe four equal payments of eight hundred dollars.
” She frowned while typing away. “Oh, that won’t work.
You’re set to graduate in December. I can offer you two payments of sixteen hundred dollars each.
One is due now, and one will be due in November. ”
Damn. That was so much worse than I’d thought she was going to say. I opened my mouth to say something else, but she continued talking.
“What happened?” She stopped typing and stared between me and her screen and back to me again. “It says here you were on a full academic scholarship.”
“Well, I lost that scholarship. My mom got… sick. I had to help her out. I have five younger sisters at home. I went back home a lot that year and, well, it was a lot. I couldn’t maintain the grade point average I needed to keep that scholarship.”
“Oh.” She frowned and almost looked sorry for me. But her eyes trailed over me, and I saw a familiar look in them as a slight, satisfied smile barely showed on her lips. “That’s a shame.”
I knew what was going on. It had happened off and on all my life.
I’d always been unusually pretty, and as I’d gotten older, I’d developed the kind of toned but curvy body that men noticed.
For some reason, my looks had made other women hate me before I’d even opened my mouth. Before they even knew me at all.
It kind of pissed me off, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“But I see here that you had a dance scholarship, too. For the dance team,” her beady eyes cut over at me again. “I didn’t know they gave scholarships for that.”
“They do. It’s actually a lot of hard work.”
She got a condescending smile on her face, and I couldn’t help but wish she had to go to just one practice and see how athletic the team was then. “What happened to that scholarship?”
I didn’t want to tell her, but my mind went blank.
I suddenly couldn’t think of a good lie.
And, I realized I was tired of feeling ashamed.
I held my head high and met her gaze. “My sponsor found out I was working at one of the Salazar’s clubs to make money to send home to my mother.
She kicked me off the team.” And I’d gotten kicked out of my sorority.
I’d lost my room in the sorority house, and, when I’d gone to my boyfriend’s apartment to see if I could crash with him for a day or two…
that’s when I’d found out he was cheating.
When it rains, it pours.
“Oh,” she said, with a look of distaste on her face. She arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you not make enough there to cover your tuition and fees?”
“Not if I want to send money home, too.”
She nodded, seeming to lose some of her superiority when faced with my lack of embarrassment.
That had faded over the months, then years, I’d worked at Sugar.
“Well, I need sixteen hundred dollars by the end of the day tomorrow if you want to keep your classes.”
I sighed and plunked down my debit card.
I think I would have twenty bucks left after that.
And my triplet little sisters needed new dance uniforms. And all five of my sisters needed school supplies and new clothes.
And the rent was due on my mom’s flower shop.
And she was still having a hard time getting out of bed after her most recent divorce, even though it had been years ago now.
I was drowning, and there wasn’t a lifeline in sight. To my horror, I felt tears start to swim in my eyes. I looked at the ceiling and tried to suck them back into my face. I would not let this woman see me cry.
“Here you go,” she said as she printed a receipt and handed it to me.