Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Danika
Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, I leave my bedroom a total of four times.
It’s lucky that I have a bathroom attached to my room or it would have been double that.
The only times I left were to grab something to eat and a drink before going right back upstairs.
I always waited until I knew both of my parents were either out of the house or in their room before I made any moves and I was working out pretty well, until it wasn’t.
“Danika.” My mother is waiting for me outside my bedroom door when I go to grab a snack from the fridge.
“Mother.”
I go to move around her but she blocks my path again. “We need to talk.” She sounds serious and that’s the only reason I agree. I hate feeling like a spoiled brat but I can’t stand to spend another day in this house, least of all this day.
I’m holding out hope that my mother is just putting on a show to lure me downstairs because she has a gift for me. Today being my birthday and all.
Margot remembered. She texted me one hundred heart emojis at seven this morning.
Sydney, too, sent her birthday wishes way too early in the day.
Usually I relish my birthday, making it a big deal for everyone in attendance but this year, my workload and my fake dating-load overtook anything else and I didn’t get a chance to plan anything.
I had texted the girls back in our group chat, thanking them and promising to plan a get together soon to celebrate.
When I had checked my phone throughout the day, I had multiple birthday texts from various friends from college and beyond. Gemma sent me a virtual coffee gift card and promised to get wine drunk with me when we returned to school.
One message was noticeably absent, however. Not a single message from Arden. I know we technically aren’t speaking but fights are secondary to birthdays, everyone knows that.
I follow my mom downstairs, expecting a cake or at the very least, a card but instead I’m greeted with my father sitting at the dining room table. There’s a half-eaten pizza in front of him that my mom offers to me but I ignore her.
“Sit,” Kevin says, his eyes boring into mine.
I stare at him for a few long moments, not even blinking. This is what I’m getting as a birthday gift from my parents? A lecture? A scolding? I’m twenty-two years old. There is no fucking way.
“No.”
“Danika, please.” My mom sounds so sad but I can’t bring myself to do anything this man wants. Not even for her. Not anymore.
“No, Mom. I’m not going to sit down and have the two of you scold me like I’m a child. Because, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a child.”
“Could’ve fooled me, Danika, the way you act. Sit down now.”
“Hey, Dad.” I lean my forearms on the top of the chair across from him.
“Do you know what day it is?” Kevin looks over at Lara, who visibly thinks for a moment before gasping quietly.
“That’s right. It’s my fucking birthday and it would’ve been nice if either of my parents acknowledged that but no, instead, I’m being told to sit quietly in a chair and take the ass-whopping I deserve. ”
My mother says my name at the same time my father says, “I’ll give you a fucking ass whopping.
” Kevin stands and I take two steps back on instinct.
He walks around the table and comes nose to nose with me.
I don’t want to cower. God, do I not want to cower but I’m afraid.
I’m afraid that I’ve pushed him too far this time.
“If you can’t show me an ounce of respect, why the hell would I pay for you to do anything.”
I clench my teeth, wanting to fight back, wanting to show him I can’t be bullied, but I’m too afraid. “Sit your ass down, Danika, or you can kiss that school of yours goodbye.”
I look around him at my mom for help, for anything really, but she’s looking down at her hands like they’re the most interesting things on the planet right now.
I take two very very deep breaths before I say the final thing I have to say.
“There is absolutely nothing that I want from you. From this moment on, you have no daughter.”
My mom lets out a cry and my father’s face turns an ugly shade of red.
“Get the hell out of my house.”
“Gladly.”
Without a second glance, I turn on my heels and run up to my room. There’s no way I’m leaving my stuff here so I quickly pack my suitcase with everything I brought and anything else in my childhood home that I might want to keep and then I head back downstairs.
My mom is waiting at the end of the staircase, tears pouring down her face. “Danika, please.”
I don’t acknowledge her as I walk past her and out the door. I really hope it’s not for the last time but at this point, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a chance we come back from this. Not unless there are some very big changes that are made.
As I drag my suitcase down the pathway, I don’t even need to think about where to go. My feet take me there instinctually, as if they’ve been waiting all this time to bring me back.
Five minutes later, I’m sitting on the edge of the platform, legs dangling over the tracks of the abandoned train.
I can’t help but think about the last time I was here.
My sixteenth birthday. After another similar fight with my father, I found myself here.
My safe place. My refuge. And another thing that made it special was the fact that Arden found me.
He gave me my first kiss. And whether he knew it or not, he jumpstarted my affection for him.
I knew I didn’t love him when we were kids, it was more infatuation but now, being with him the way we were, showing him all sides of myself and seeing him.
I know now that I definitely feel something real for him. Something very very close to love.
If only I could talk to him.
“You know, it’s dangerous to sit by the train tracks.” His voice hits me, catching me completely by surprise, and I jump almost entirely out of my skin. My jolt enough that Arden feels the need to reach out and grab my arm to steady me, making sure I don’t fall onto the track.
While I catch my breath, Arden sits down next to me. “Well, this is familiar,” he comments so casually that I let out a loud laugh in response. “Hi, brat.”
“Hi.”
“I would ask what you’re doing here but I went to your house first so I knew.”
“I’m sorry you did that.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” I look over at him. “And I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Late?”
Arden hands me a package that I didn’t realize he was holding. It’s a bag with white tissue paper inside. A birthday gift.
“You think I would miss your birthday?”
When I look back at him, he’s grinning like a goddamn fool and I’ve never wanted to kiss someone more in my life. But I’m not sure where we are right now and so I hold myself back, even though it physically pains me.
Looking back at the bag, I waste no time ripping the paper out and pulling out the gift. It’s in a box that says “fragile” across the top so I move a little bit more delicately as I open it.
My breath catches in my throat. It’s the picture of my grandma and I that I kept on my dresser. But it’s in a beautiful ornate frame made of thousands of little rocks and pebbles. My collection.
I’m absolutely speechless. Not only had he paid attention to the stories I told him about my grandma, he took something important to me and made it sacred. Tears form in my eyes but I blink them away, not allowing myself to miss a moment of this beauty.
“Arden, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
I blink the tears away and put the frame gently back into the box and bag. “Actually, I do. I have a lot of things to say. I’m so sorry about the way I reacted last week. I completely misunderstood the situation and I overreacted.”
“Dani—”
“No, please,” I grip his hand. “Let me get this out. I should’ve listened to you. I should’ve let you explain but I just get so headstrong when something bothers me, I can’t see past it.”
“I understand. Trust me, I do the same thing. Even more so. Which is why I’m in therapy.”
It’s the first time he’s said those words to me. And I can tell now it’s time for him to take the floor so I sit back and give him the space he needs.
“I should’ve told you what was going on.
But I know your father and I know how you feel about him and I didn’t want you to think that I would ever behave anything like what he does.
So I wanted to be perfect before I asked you to be mine.
Because you’re perfect. And you deserve nothing less than perfect. ”
“I’m far from perfect and so are you but that’s what I love about us. We are messy and chaotic. We fight and we make up in explosive ways. But that’s us and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’m working hard, Danika. I’m working on myself so that I can deserve you.”
I reach now and grab both his hands now.
“You are deserving. You are so incredibly deserving.” I can’t stop myself from reaching out and kissing him.
He lets me, sinking into our embraces easily.
Arden’s arms wind around my waist and he scoots back enough to pull me on top of his lap.
My legs squeeze either side of his thighs and our tongues mesh together.
We are a mess of passion, as we usually are, but this time is so different.
Something has changed between us. There’s still so much to talk about, specifics to work out but this moment right now, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
“Arden,” I moan as he pulls his mouth from mine and his lips find their way to my neck. He laps my neck with kisses and it takes everything I have in me not to tear his clothes off right here and now.
“Arden,” I groan this time as he tortures me. “Wait, we need to—” He cuts me off with his mouth on mine. He kisses the protest right out of my mouth and I let him. I can’t wait until we’re alone to finish what we’ve started here but until then…
“Arden,” I say breathlessly and he pulls back to look between my eyes. “As much as I want to continue what we’ve started here, we’re in the middle of a very public location where anyone could walk by at any moment.”
Arden looks around and notices that I’m telling the truth. He groans and rubs his forehead against mine.
“I don’t want to let you go.” He clutches me tighter and I don’t want him to let me go either.
“What’s the probability that this works out?”
“What? Us?”
I nod, giving him one more chaste kiss on his lips.
“Statistically speaking, I’d say the chances are really fucking high.”
I laugh and he looks at me like I hung the moon and stars and I look at him like he gave them to me to hang. And then I realize one thing.
We are far from perfect but we are perfect for each other.