Chapter 11 August - The Fuzzy Leaf
Itold Daisy to use me.
I looked her dead in the face and offered myself to her. I fully thought she’d take me up on it too, seeing as I’m more than aware I can deliver in that department.
That was almost two weeks ago, and besides pulling me aside to “shoot content”—fancy way of saying take way too many pictures and videos of me doing boring shit—I haven’t heard from her.
No arguing, no lame remarks, definitely no comments about a good old fashioned friends with benefits situation. Only complete and total professionalism.
I fucking hate it. I’m going out of my damn mind trying to figure out what changed, how it did, and if there’s a chance of switching things back.
Not back. I don’t really think I want to do the sworn enemies thing anymore. Things have…shifted.
I’m confused, okay?
Margot has a doctor’s appointment, so Sawyer and I finish up work a little early so he can head out with her. I ask Beth if there is anything else that could be done to keep my hands busy, but she waves me off.
So now I’m home, showered, and planted on my couch with fuck all else to do.
I find myself on the riverside’s Instagram page to pass the time. After checking out everything there, I realize Daisy must have her own account. She pops up easily with a quick name search, and now I’m poking around her page and through her posts.
It’s weird. Normally you see everyone’s travels, big smiles, holiday pictures, family photo shoots, all of the selfies.
There’s no sign of Daisy in this entire feed.
Sure, there’s her hand holding the ceramic handle of a coffee mug.
And yeah, I spot the back of her head, covered by one of her crocheted bandanas in a few snaps.
But swipe after swipe, it’s all objects and scenery.
It looks nice. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s fake, better off staged for a magazine or something.
Time goes by, couldn’t tell you how long, and I’m still scrolling. I get all the way back until the pictures start looking grainy with some heavy-ass filters on them. When I look at the dates, I realize I’ve made it to when we were in high school.
One single square stops me dead in my tracks.
It might be the only picture that shows Daisy’s face on the whole fucking internet for all I know.
And me. I’m sitting right next to her. My arm’s around her shoulders while she leans into my side.
And I wish I could see her eyes, but I can’t because they’re not focused on whoever had the camera.
No, those blue eyes that always held way too much pain for anyone to carry by themselves are looking right up at me. And I don’t even notice, a goofy fucking grin on my face.
We’re sitting against the wall of Merrymount High’s gym.
Daisy has her hair tied up in a high ponytail, letting her dark curls fall over one shoulder.
She’s wearing one of those white frilly dresses.
God, has she always had a different one for every occasion?
I’m in a pair of dress pants and a white button up Beth picked out for me the day before this.
Daisy’s barefoot, her heels sitting in a pile next to me.
I remember I carried them for her when she said her feet started to hurt.
Suddenly I’m transported back to a time I’ve never cared to revisit. Sitting here alone, clutching my phone, I can admit it’s because the few times I did think back, it hurt.
It hurt like hell to know I had someone, a friend—maybe more than that—like Daisy Stiles next to me, and then I lost it all.
So I forgot about it. Just like I do with most of my heavy thoughts and feelings. I clung to our mutual disdain for each other based on one night of mistakes and left the past in the past.
But now a memory comes flooding through my brain, and I can carry a lot of shit, but I’m not strong enough to hold this back.
“I can’t believe I agreed to show up to this thing,” Daisy giggles, hopping down, out of my truck. She never waits for me to come around and open the door for her. I tell her it pisses me off every time, but she waves me off like it’d be a bother or something for me to help her.
“You’re getting an award, Daze. None of us were going to let you miss it,” I remind her.
“Yeah, but it’s family night. And as you can see”—Daisy twirls, letting the dress float up her thighs, her arms raised in the air—“I’m arriving family-less.” She tries to play it off like it isn’t a big deal.
“Fix your scowl, August. Your face is going to get stuck like that,” Daisy jokes, tapping a finger on my forehead.
My acting skills aren’t on par with hers.
“What am I then?” I ask her.
There’s a bounce with every step she takes.
It’s been like this the whole week. I think because with every day, we get closer and closer to graduation.
For Daisy, it’s the means for a way out.
There’s a lightness to her that I usually only get to see in small bursts.
In the quiet, when it’s just me and her.
She turns around, impatiently waiting for me to catch up when she sees I’m still standing on the passenger side of my truck.
A smile breaks out across her face, and she answers me like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You’re August Burton, and I’m Daisy Stiles.
It’s just as simple as that. Always will be. ”
She’s not wrong, I think to myself.
I make sure I’m the loudest to cheer when they call her name for her art award. Sawyer, Beth, Red, and even Katie, yell right alongside me. I’m so fucking proud of Daisy.
Her eyes find mine, because they always do, and I fist pump, making sure she knows I’m here for her and her alone.
We meet up after the ceremony with our friends behind the gym. When we’re sitting against the chipping paint of a mural former Merrymount High kids worked on however many years ago, Beth finds us. Daisy holds out her phone, asking Beth to take a picture.
Beth’s never been good with technology, so I know we have one shot to get this right. I plaster a giant smile on my face, pulling Daisy tight into my side when the flash goes off.
I never see how the photo comes out. We graduate the following day, and I forget what it feels like to be so sure that there’s a world with August Burton and Daisy Stiles.
I stare at that picture, replaying that memory until I fall asleep on the couch.
My phone wakes me up when it slips from my hand and smacks me in the face.
After shaking off the sting, I lift my phone back up in actual fucking horror, because my big ass nose apparently liked the goddamn picture.
From twelve years ago. Daisy’s going to think I’m cyber stalking her…
on account of the fact that I basically have been.
You know what? Not an issue. I tap the little red heart and the like disappears.
Crisis averted.
I sigh at my own stupidity and lift myself up. I’m not gonna be able to focus on shit unless I lay it all out on the table for Daisy. Maybe she took my offering of “use me” to mean just like, strictly riverside bullshit.
I’m still fine with that, but she should know I also meant that I’m available at any given time to fix her…frustrations. I lost the privilege to any other part of Daisy a long time ago. But this…I can assist with this.
Pocketing my phone and grabbing my keys on the rack beside my front door, I march off to my truck. I’m on a mission to clear the air, or whatever. My truck beats down the backroads that lead to Main Street, and I try to go over how I’m going to approach this in my head.
“Hey, Daze. I know you can’t stand the sight of me, but if you’re ever looking to get dicked down—”
No.
“What’s up, Daisy? Why am I here at your parents’ flower shop? Oh, no reason. Just offering sexual services—”
Good God, nope.
“Daisy. You. Me. Sex?”
Yeah, I’m screwed. And not in the way I’m trying to be.
I’m no closer to nailing a good opening line by the time I throw the truck into park outside of The Fuzzy Leaf.
I haven’t paid a visit to this building in over a decade.
Never really thought I’d see the inside of it again.
No reason to, when the entire family turns their noses up in disgust when they see me.
I brush off lingering nerves as I enter through the door, the jingle announcing my arrival.
My shoulders hit huge leaves jutting out on either side of me, and I turn slightly to avoid wrecking anything.
The place could’ve been cool if the owners (a.k.a.
Daisy’s mother and father) weren’t such dickheads.
The back wall is made entirely of greenery, and the arrangements you see throughout the store are so different from what you’d find anywhere else.
I’m sure it’s all thanks to the girl lost in thought in front of me.
Daisy lifts her head from the notebook she’s writing in while standing behind the counter.
It’s an image that transports me back in time.
Buckets of about thirteen different flowers are crowded around her, and she has half of her hair tied into a bun on the top of her head, fastened with what looks like a pencil or a chopstick.
Her mouth falls open and stays slightly ajar like that for well over a minute.
“Hey.” I don’t move towards her. I keep my feet firmly planted where they are, assuming I’m going to be thrown out of here in the next second.
“Gus?” Daisy finally asks after another drawn out pause.
“It’s weird I’m here, right?” I ask, exhaling with an attempt at a laugh.
“That’s an understatement,” Daisy mumbles. “Is everything…Are you okay?”
I decide it’s safe to commit to walking up at least to the counter. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m fine.”
Daisy breathes a sigh that almost sounds…relieved? “Cool. Cool, cool. So…”
“Is anyone else here?” I quickly try to confirm.
“Jeez, do you plan on murdering me?” Daisy jokes. I hope she’s joking.
“What?” I balk. “No, I just—I wanted to run something by you.”
“Is this because you accidentally liked my picture on Instagram?”
“What?” I practically shout. How does she know? I took the like back, damn it.
“Unliking the post doesn’t take back the notification, August,” she informs me while shaking her head.
“Daisy? Are you out front?” a barking voice from the back calls. “Ugh, that Burton boy parked his nasty truck right—Oh.” Mary Jane Stiles walks through the back doorway and stops dead in her tracks when she sees me.
“Hi, Mrs. Stiles,” I greet her through gritted teeth.
I fucking hate this woman, always have, always will. Which is perfectly fine, since she feels the exact same about me.
Mary Jane doesn’t bother with niceties, she never deemed me on a level deserving of her hoity-toity act. Again, more than fine with me. Keeping up appearances is nothing I’ve ever practiced anyway. “What’re you doing here?”
“The door was unlocked, and the sign says open, Mrs. Stiles. This is still a business, correct? Or did you run it into the ground before Daisy could clean up your mess?” I adjust my footing and cross my arms over my chest.
“Gus,” Daisy whispers. Her voice never reaches much higher than that when either of her pathetic parents are around. I hate to see that hasn’t changed.
“Get out,” Mary Jane seethes. She snaps her head in Daisy’s direction, and I already know I won’t be leaving unless it’s with Daisy in tow. “Why would you let that trash in here?”
Daisy opens her mouth to respond, but I cut her off. “I let myself in. Daisy had nothing to do with this.”
Daisy’s mother scoffs, and I clench my jaw at the dismissive sound. “I don’t want to hear it. Just get out. I don’t need you around my business or my daughter.”
I really should go. I really do not need to be arguing with some middle-aged drunk woman in a flower shop on a Wednesday afternoon.
Mary Jane’s eyes are sunken in, and her skin is pale despite the fact that we just wrapped up our best weathered summer Merrymount has seen in years.
She resembles a Tim Burton character more than an actual human being at this point.
“You care who’s around your daughter now?
That’s rich.” I stop myself before I take it any further.
I know if I go down this road, I’ll end up behind bars.
Again. “Daze, come on.” I tilt my head in the direction of the front door.
Silently praying to fucking God she doesn’t argue with me right now.
Or worse—stand beside Mary Jane. I find a discarded kernel of hope that even if she despises me, she still despises her parents more.
Daisy looks at me with big doe eyes, filled with so much confusion and anger and…
maybe, just maybe a little appreciation.
She nods once before reaching below the counter, grabbing her tote bag, stuffing her notebook inside, and crossing the room.
She stops at the door. “I’m going. Orders are set for the rest of the week.
Slips are in the register. Books are updated.
Hunter and Chase are home, schoolwork finished and fed.
You’ll probably find them already sequestered in their room by the time you make it back to the house. ”
“Daisy Daf—”
“Don’t use my middle name,” Daisy growls. “I’m. Going.” She whips the door open and leaves without another word. Mary Jane doesn’t move from where she stands. I decide it’s not worth the risk of me saying anything more, and I follow Daisy out.
She’s doing deep breaths in the passenger seat by the time I make it back to the truck.
“What the hell just happened?” she asks when I enter the driver’s side.
“I gotta be real with you, none of that was my intention when I showed up,” I admit. I run a hand through my hair.
“No shit, Gus. You didn’t plan on going to The Fuzzy Leaf for the first time in probably a decade to square off with my mother in my defense? Another thing you haven’t done in over ten years? Crazy. Wild. Color me shocked.”
It’s best I say nothing. Key in the ignition, I start up the truck, and reverse onto Main Street.
“Wait, where are we going?” Daisy asks, snapping her head to face out of her window as I drive down the street.
“Oh. Right. Do you wanna come back to my place? I still need to talk to you. Unless you want me to drive you home—”
“No,” she interrupts me. “The very last place on the planet I want to be is my house.”
“So, mine’s okay?” I double-check.
Daisy leans against the seat, head tipped back, and closes her eyes. She pulls her legs up to wrap her arms around them, just like she used to. “Yeah. Your place is fine, Gus.”