Chapter 2 #5
I shook my head, irritated, then closed my eyes, like Daisy had.
I forced myself to think about Billy. He was only a head taller than me, not two.
He had an average, somewhat athletic build, his calves muscular from all the running.
He had bright green eyes set off by his black buzz cut, a narrow face with a nose that seemed out of place, thick lips, healthy teeth…
And he smelled nice, even though he was a teenager.
Billy would be hot when he grew up. And successful. But I wouldn’t fit into the life he pictured for himself. He would go to huge, crazy parties, where people were constantly high-fiving each other—and girls would trail after him, asking for autographs.
When I pictured him, I saw him with a girl who would laugh at all the lame jokes he made. She would call him Bunny and give him everything he asks for and more. But that girl wouldn’t be me. But… what if fame didn’t poison him? Could he live a normal life with cameras following him everywhere?
I pinched my arm. I was overthinking this again. Maybe it was time to switch my brain off. I put my headphones on.
A week after my conversation with Daisy, Jamie woke me from my sleep.
“Grace! Grace! Wake up,” he said gently, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me.
“What is it?” I asked, half-asleep, my voice still rough. I had to blink continuously to keep my eyes open.
Mom and Dad were at their high school reunion. Nikky had taken advantage of the opportunity and disappeared, so only Jamie and I were home.
“You have to help me!” he begged.
“What’s wrong, Jamie?” I asked. He said something, but his reply floated somewhere in the darkness—my eyes had closed on their own. By the time I opened them again, it felt like minutes had passed.
“Daisy…”
“Daisy? What’s up with Daisy?”
“Just come with me, please,” he insisted gently.
I growled, kicked the blanket off, and stumbled after Jamie, blinking. I rubbed my eyes over and over, trying to adjust to the light.
When I entered Jamie’s room, however, my sleepiness vanished in an instant. Daisy was sitting on the edge of Jamie’s bed, wrapped in a blanket. Behind her, there was a red spot on the bedsheet. Daisy seemed to be fine.
I ran to her.
“What happened?” I asked her, worried.
“We had sex, but when he turned the light on, the blood made him sick. I told him I was fine and that this was normal, but he insisted on asking you to check me out.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief. Daisy was so nonchalant about losing her virginity, as if it meant nothing for her.
I cast my eyes down, trying to process what had just happened. The sight of the used condom, tossed next to the bed—its outside bright red with blood, its inside filled with my brother’s semen—made me sick.
My heart was racing. I stepped away from my friend, leaned against the cool wall, and closed my eyes.
“How could this happen?”
“My parents think we’re having a sleepover. And I think it’s best if I go to your room after showering before your parents get home.”
I looked at her, fuming. Daisy stood up, grabbed her bag, and left for the bathroom.
I was furious with them both—my brother and my best friend. A heavy anger boiled up in me like a thick sludge.
“Jamie.” I pursed my lips so that I wouldn’t start yelling, clenched a fist and punched the wall. My brother looked down in shame.
I cracked my knuckles loudly. They hurt.
“Daisy is only fifteen!” I fumed. I was so stressed out that my nervousness—combined with the helpless look on my brother’s face—almost made me cry.
“I know,” he said, nervously raking his long fingers through his medium-length hair. “She wanted to lose it with someone older. She’d been planning it for a long time. She brought it up whenever you left us alone. And she said she had a crush on me and thought having an older boyfriend was cool.”
“Cool?” I asked, my mouth agape. How could he be such an idiot? “Are you serious? You are an idiot! If something doesn’t work out the way she’d like it to, you can get into so much trouble!” I hissed at him through clenched teeth. I wanted to shout at him to vent my anger.
“You cannot have sex with girls her age! Didn’t you think about the consequences at all?”
“What should I do now?”
“We’ll clean up your room while she’s showering and forget this night forever.
Anything after this is on you,” I said, rubbing my brow.
“I’ll try to talk to her and tell her this is a very bad idea.
But if she doesn’t back off, you’ll have to figure out how to avoid getting her hurt. You are the grown-up, Jamie.”
“Thanks, Grace.”
“I’m not touching that,” I said with venom, looking at the condom.
Then I grabbed the bedsheet and started peeling it off the bed.
We were lucky that Mom always put a thicker blanket under the sheet, so the blood hadn’t reached the mattress.
She would definitely look for it later, but changing the sheets wasn’t due for another week—and by then, we’d come up with something.
I folded the dirty white fabric and started walking downstairs, holding it away from my body, when Jamie’s voice stopped me.
“Grace.”
“Hmm?”
“What if… what if I like her company, too?”
I spun around and gave him a disapproving look. Daisy definitely hadn’t held a gun to his head to sleep with her—but still, this wasn’t right.
“There are a lot of nice girls your age, Jamie. Daisy…,” I said.
Then I lowered my voice and didn’t finish the sentence because she had just stepped out of the bathroom, walked past me, and threw herself at Jamie.
My jaw dropped. For a while, I was just standing there dumbfounded, watching them kiss.
Move, Grace!
I turned around and ran down the stairs. I stuffed the sheet into a garbage bag and threw it into the container outside.
When I got back upstairs, Daisy was still in Jamie’s room. The door was closed, so I had no idea what they were doing—not that I wanted to know. I dragged out the shaky folding bed from the wardrobe. It was a nightmare to set up, but at least I could take my anger out on it.
When I finished making her bed, I knocked—then burst in without asking for permission.
Daisy was sitting in Jamie’s lap, as if she were riding him.
Jamie’s underwear was bulging, making me feel awkward.
Their lips were moving furiously, and their hands were busy as well. I looked away and cleared my throat.
“Your bed is ready. You should come over,” I said, then walked back to my room, leaving both doors open on purpose. Daisy followed me soon after and lay down.
I stared at the ceiling, trying to calm down. I was full of adrenaline.
“I know you’re mad at me, Grace, but I’ll still have sex with your brother. You can’t stop me.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanna get some experience before I have sex with other boys. Boys are supposed to like it when girls are confident and know what they want.”
“You don’t love Jamie.”
“I like him. He’s hot. And reliable.”
“You can’t use my brother just to get some experience. You could both get hurt. And we both know who it would backfire on. Why don’t you find a boy our age and get some experience with him?” I suggested.
“A boy our age?” she laughed. “Grace, most boys our age have never even kissed a girl. They wouldn’t even know where to stick their junk.”
I blinked in the darkness, aghast, confused by her blunt wording. I didn’t understand why she was acting like this.
“What happened to you, Daisy?”
“We’re growing up, Grace. You can’t stay this na?ve for long, either.”
In that moment, I didn’t want to be near her—in fact, I felt like throwing her out of my room. Out of our house.
Daisy seemed to have no idea how much trouble she had caused for Jamie.
And Jamie… I closed my eyes and pursed my lips, trying to get a hold of my feelings—still, a tear ran down my face.
My idiot brother. He thought he didn’t have a chance with girls his age, so he got himself into this cat-and-mouse game.
And he was the mouse—the one the cat plays with before growing bored and tearing it into pieces.
I couldn’t understand how I’d missed the signs. I loved Daisy—but she’d crossed a line, and I was furious with her.
While she slept peacefully, the cogs in my brain worked tirelessly.
I tried to make sense of my friend and why she’d done this.
Then I wondered if maybe I was in the wrong.
Maybe I was too uptight. Maybe I should have been more understanding.
I had a different approach than her: I wanted to grow into a woman step by step, not kick the door in.
It was past midnight when the phone rang in the living room. I had a bad feeling and instantly jumped out of bed. I ran downstairs and yanked the phone to my ear so quickly that my ear started ringing from the impact.
“Yes?” I asked, panting.
“Grace.” The slurry voice of my sister seeped into my mind like hot honey.
“Nikky,” I sighed, exhaling slowly, then slumped against the arm of the flower-patterned sofa. For a second, I’d thought something had happened to my parents.
“Grace…” she repeated. “I need some clothes and money.”
“What clothes? Come home, Nikky. Mom and Dad will be home soon.”
“No, they won’t. You know they rarely go out. And when they do, they stay out all night.”
“Borrow from someone,” I suggested.
“Please, please, please!”
I stared into the distance, listening to the annoying tick-tock of the clock, and felt like I needed to get some air after everything that had happened that day. I didn’t want to be in the same room with Daisy—I was still fuming.
“Okay. Where are you?” I relented.
“We’re in the park. In half an hour, I’ll walk out to its edge. Can you get here by then?”
“Yeah.”