15. Daisy
15
Daisy
W eston lowers the camera, blinking at me in shock. “What?”
“It is my name now ,” I say quickly. “I legally changed it, but it wasn’t my given name.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “What name were you given?”
I hesitate. I haven’t said this name aloud for seven years, but there’s something about being in this beautiful setting, with Weston’s open, curious gaze trained on me, that lets my defenses fall away.
“Dahlia.”
“Dahlia,” he echoes slowly, as if tasting the name on his tongue. He wrinkles his nose, and it’s so cute I have to laugh. “Sorry,” he adds, smiling sheepishly. “I just… I can’t see you as a Dahlia .”
I nod in agreement.
“Why did you change it?”
I look down at the daisy in my hand, gently stroking the velvety-white petals. “I changed it when I left home.”
“But… why?”
I let my breath out slowly, reluctantly. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs. I don’t dare glance up, but I know he’s watching me through the lens of the camera again. I don’t know why he took a picture of me a few moments ago, why he might want to take more, but his careful, focused attention makes me feel so… seen. It makes me feel like I could tell him anything, and he’d listen. He’d care.
It’s been a long time since it felt like anyone really cared.
I remember what he said about grief a few nights ago—that it can come out of nowhere when you least expect it. I told him I don’t think about Beth much, but I do. I think about her all the time. I’ve never had a friend, never had anyone else in my life I’ve connected with like her, before or since. I’ve become a loner over the past few years. If it wasn’t for Denise and my regulars at Joe’s, people like Violet and Kyle—and, of course, Weston—I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to. Most of the time I don’t dwell on this. I just live my life. Then I do something stupid like pick up a camera or put on a Steely Dan record, and I remember what’s missing from my life. What’s been missing since I was seventeen. It hurts a lot to be reminded; it’s much easier to work all day until I’m too tired to feel anything, then put on Netflix to drown out my thoughts.
But that’s why I’ve felt so stuck, I realize. I haven’t let myself feel things. Not for the past few years, at least. I grieved after Beth died, then I got swept up in life again, and I guess I got afraid to let those feelings back in. It was easier to numb them than feel them. But that’s the problem with numbing your feelings; you can’t just numb the bad ones, you numb them all.
Talking to Wes the other night, I felt that sharp sting of grief again, but as I gaze down at my daisy, I realize it wasn’t a bad thing. Thinking of Beth—letting myself miss her—wasn’t a bad thing at all. It felt… real.
I think of my first date with Jess, agreeing to keep things light, and how that, in a way, came to shape our entire relationship. It seems that’s how Jess lives his entire life, actually. He focuses on having fun, but he never lets himself feel anything. I didn’t realize I’d done the same, but I don’t want to live that way anymore. Not when I’ve been feeling things lately that remind me what it feels like to be alive. Even if they’re painful.
“I told you about my friend Beth,” I begin, fiddling with the flower in my hand. “But I didn’t tell you about her parents, Willow and Sebastian Walker. They were the most wonderful people I’ve ever known. I felt closer to them than I did to my own parents.”
“Why’s that?” Wes asks quietly.
I heave a deep sigh. “I was always what my mother would call a ‘problem child.’ That is, I had emotions, and a huge imagination, neither of which my parents knew what to do with. They were very closed-off, emotionally. Always have been. As a kid, I had so many feelings.” I laugh humorlessly. “I’m fairly certain I was born to the wrong parents and should have been born to the Walkers.”
“Tell me about them,” Wes prompts.
“I was seven when they moved next door, the same age as their daughter, Beth. We became best friends, and her parents treated me like one of their own from day one. They understood me in ways my parents never did.”
I frown, thinking back to when I got my first period, at age thirteen. Willow sat me down and explained the birds and the bees. Seriously, I was thirteen when I found out how everything worked, because my own mom had never bothered to explain it to me. Thank God for Willow, though. At sixteen, she took me to Planned Parenthood to go on the pill, “just in case.” That turned out to be a waste of time, obviously, but it didn’t matter. What did matter is that I had someone there for me when my parents refused to be what I needed.
I reach for another daisy, plucking it from the ground, and hear the camera snap as I do so. I glance up to find Weston watching me, the camera pressed to his eye, and quickly look away. Seeing the Nikon reminds me of all that I lost, and I wait for the lump in my throat to soften before I continue speaking.
“The Walkers were photographers. They had a darkroom in their basement, and that’s where I learned about photography. They gave me an old camera…” I lift my gaze to the Nikon in Weston’s hands. “Just like that. It was my first camera—my only camera—and I took it everywhere. I learned everything about how it worked and Willow would spend hours in the darkroom with me, showing me how to get the images to develop just right. She even encouraged me to study photography in college, and I was so excited by the idea. I never felt more like myself than I did in that darkroom.”
Weston lowers the camera now, his gaze intense as it roams my face. He says nothing, just waits for me to continue.
“They used to call me Daisy,” I say, smiling at the memory. “Willow and Sebastian and Beth—they all called me Daisy. They said I was too wild and free to be a dahlia, that dahlias are fussy, showy flowers, and I was nothing like that.” I laugh, remembering how, one afternoon, I told Willow that daisies were my favorite flower as we picked them from her yard and put them in a pretty, handmade vase on her counter. She turned to me, her wild black hair tucked under a scarf, and nodded sagely.
“Would you like to be a Daisy?” she asked me, and I grinned.
“I wish I could be.”
“But you can,” she said, pulling a daisy from the vase and placing it on each of my shoulders as if she was knighting me. “From now on, as long as you’re in this house, you shall be known as Daisy.”
I giggled, and Beth threw her arms around me.
“Daisy!” She squeezed me affectionately. “It’s perfect.”
I didn’t dare tell my parents about my new name; I knew they wouldn’t understand. They hated the Walkers, my dad especially, calling them “hippie commies.” I didn’t really know what that meant at the time, I just knew he thought it was bad.
Only, there was nothing bad about them to me. They were kind, and loving, and creative, and made me feel like I had gifts to offer the world.
Until I lost them all.
Tears prick my eyes and I blink them away, looking out at the field of daisies, their cheerful yellow centers reaching toward the sun. I can hear the ocean rolling into shore beyond the dunes, feel the heat of the sun on my skin. The sky feels so expansive and wide above us, and somehow, I know that the Walkers are with me.
“They died in a car accident,” I say quietly, gripping the daisies tighter in my hand. “All three of them. Black ice. Semi truck. Head-on collision. You know how it goes.”
“Oh, God, Daisy,” Wes whispers.
“And then my parents,” I continue, my voice shaking, “they said—” A shallow breath shudders through me as I try to rein in the anger bubbling through my veins. “They said it was for the best, and that I needed to get over it. They took my camera away, said it was making me hold on to them, distracting me from real life. Then they told me they wouldn’t pay for college unless I studied something ‘sensible.’” I blow out my breath, realizing I’m crushing the daisies in my hand, and loosen my grip. “So I left. I left home and moved to the city the minute I finished high school. I cut off contact with them and changed my name. I didn’t want to lose who I’d been around the Walkers, even though I’d lost them.”
But staring down at the crumpled daisies in my hand, I realize I lost that anyway. I might have changed my name and moved to the city, I might have tried to keep smiling through it all, but I haven’t picked up a camera since.
Not until I saw that Nikon on Wes’s shelf and found it in my hands before I could stop myself.
My chest hollows at the realization. I lost my friend and the parents I should have had, and I lost myself, too. The feeling is so overwhelming, so painful, that I instinctively push it away, tossing the daisies back into the grass and forcing a smile onto my mouth.
“Anyway—”
“Daisy,” Wes says quietly. He sets the camera down on the backpack and, without hesitating, tugs me into his arms. It’s so unexpected that I stiffen, unsure, before melting against the solid warmth of him. The tears that threatened earlier spring to my eyes, spilling over my cheeks and soaking his T-shirt.
I forget everything about Wes and Jess and the history between us. All I can focus on is the way someone holds me as pain courses through my body. The way I feel seen. The comfort of being in Wes’s arms, finally letting myself feel the ache I’ve ignored for so long.
“I’m so sorry you didn’t have anyone to be there with you as you grieved,” Wes murmurs. “I know how painful that is.”
I draw away, gazing up at him. His eyes shine with emotion, and a fist wraps around my heart.
“Jess moved out the day after Lydia’s funeral.”
The fist squeezes, hard. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. I raise a hand to his cheek, gently stroking the scruff on his jaw, needing to give him something from me so he can know I understand. So he can know how much I care.
“I’m so sorry, Wes.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing under the silvery stubble on his neck. His lips part and my gaze falls to them, watching as his breathing becomes uneven. All I want to do is step up onto my toes and press my mouth to his, to take away his pain, but I know I can’t.
He knows that too. His arms fall from my sides, my hand drops, and we step apart. Wes stares at me for what feels like an eternity, then turns to the backpack and picks up the Nikon. I take the chance to wipe my cheeks and suck in a deep breath, letting the wave of emotion pass. When I finally feel steady again, Wes holds out the camera.
“Here,” he says, his expression gentle.
I hesitate, then reach for it, its curves and edges as familiar as my own hand. He doesn’t press me, just gives an encouraging smile, then wanders off to leave me to it.
I think of what he said the other night—that I’d feel better for shooting again—and know in my heart that he’s right. My pulse ramps up as I lift the camera, letting my eye adjust to the viewfinder. My line-of-sight lands on Wes, standing at the edge of the meadow, gazing up at a large red maple tree. He’s lit perfectly by the sun, the contours of his biceps and shoulders highlighted in his T-shirt as he raises a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light. There’s something different about him today, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.
I take a second to adjust the depth of field, bringing him more sharply into focus and letting the background of trees blur slightly, then I change the aperture to suit the brightly lit setting. With a deep inhale to steady my whipping pulse, I press the shutter. The click echoes through my head as the camera captures the scene, and something in my chest eases.
I’ve missed that sound.
I press my eyes shut, meeting the onslaught of emotions head-on. The grief, the joy, the relief, the bittersweetness of it all.
When I open them again, Wes gazes at me with a smile that makes warmth pour through me from head to toe. It’s not smug or self-satisfied; it’s true, genuine happiness, for me , for what I’m experiencing. It’s a smile I haven’t seen anyone wear since the Walkers, and on instinct I raise the camera and press the shutter again, capturing it. I want to look at it every day and remind myself that I deserve to feel good, too.
Weston wades through the meadow toward me, beaming. I laugh, snapping another picture of him, and he laughs too. Then he does something so unexpected it takes my breath away. He picks me up by the waist and twirls me around in the daisies.
“I knew you could do it!” he cheers.
I giggle as he spins me, the sky and meadow little more than a blur. His touch, the beauty of our surroundings, the relief I feel from holding a camera again, all coalesce into a high more potent than anything I’ve felt before. As Wes spins me, a wide grin splitting his face, I close my eyes and savor the feeling, wishing the moment would never end.
This is what it’s like to feel , I remind myself. And it’s so good .
But the moment does end, and Wes sets me back on my feet. I’m breathless and giddy, steadying myself on his arm, smiling so hard my face hurts. It’s the simplest thing, taking a photo, and yet it feels monumental.
“Thank you,” I breathe, pushing up onto my toes to plant a kiss on his scratchy cheek. He deserves so much more for the gift he’s given me, and I realize as I draw away that I want to give it to him.
I want to give it all to him.
Wes’s smile is gone when I meet his gaze again, and my stomach drops.
Jesus Christ. What was I thinking, kissing him? Sure, it was just a friendly peck on the cheek, but that was too far. He’s my ex-boyfriend’s father, for God’s sake. Talk about getting carried away.
I open my mouth to apologize, but something in his eyes stops me. Heat swirls in their dark depths, as black swallows the familiar blue of his irises. His chest rises and falls with his erratic breathing, and my heart almost collapses in on itself.
I might not have much experience with men, but I could read that look a mile away. I’m not the only one who feels this thing between us. He feels it too.
And in the millisecond it takes to realize that, he pulls away.
“You’re welcome,” he mutters, turning for the backpack and hoisting it onto his shoulder. “We should head back.” He takes the camera from me and shoves it into the bag, then wheels away from me without meeting my gaze.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. He starts off through the meadow without waiting for me, and I scurry along behind, stealing a daisy as I leave to remember today. We walk back over the rocks in silence, keeping our distance, my chest tight with so many feelings I can’t even name. When we arrive at the house, Wes tells me he has errands to run, to help myself to the food, then he snatches his car keys off the hall table and disappears.
It’s not until he’s gone that I realize what was different about him today.
He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring.