Chapter 9 #2
“No, I just…” She laughs harder now. “I fully thought that was something very few people knew about. I had a phase in seventh grade where it was all I cared about. I begged my dad to bring me to Ohio. He told me I was being crazy and to let it go,” she pauses, her smile dropping.
“He has never taken much interest in anything I do, but he cares that I’m successful, I guess.
Anyways, I can’t believe you know about it. ”
“Well, it is a legitimate regional cryptid case study,” I say, in an attempt to validate her curiosity. How the tables have turned.
“You just said ‘legitimate cryptid case study’ with your whole chest.”
“Keep it in your pants, Bennett.”
She’s fully grinning now, sunlight catching her face through the trees. Then I remember I’ve been rambling.
And worse, she’s been listening.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck.
“I’m talking too much,” I say abruptly.
“You always say that right after saying something interesting.”
“Nobody thinks this stuff is interesting.”
“Well…I do.”
The words hit harder than they should.
Our pace slows, the trail narrowing as it climbs higher into the trees.
“Did you ever question why I came here?” she asks, eyes wide and honest.
“Well, yes. You’re wildly successful. So why the pivot?”
“I don’t know. It got tired. I missed the part of myself that got to be weird and talk about the things that are actually on my mind, not just whatever is trending.
I want to be more than sex tips and celeb interviews.
I kept finding myself pulled towards things people consider fringe, like what we’re doing here.
I think people are resistant to it because it seems fake or like it’s all just confirmation bias, but the thing is, I don’t know that there are any answers out there and I don’t think I care.
I’m just so curious about anything bigger than—” she shakes her head and looks up—“this.”
I stay quiet, letting her talk. I always let her talk, but this feels different. More than just narrating her own life. More like sharing with me.
“Marissa—my producer I’m always talking to—she caught me reading a Bigfoot article while interviewing this country artist. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. And, well, my listenership reflects that. The network I built is doing great, just not The DL with Daisy.”
The way Daisy says her podcast’s name is dripping with annoyance, and she even uses air quotes when she says it. But beneath the annoyance and disdain, I hear hurt and confusion. A slight quiver in her voice she tries so hard to hide.
She plays with one of her rings, sliding one on and off. “I thought I needed something different. My career, too. Needed a new pond—a lot like Frogman,” she says, attempting yet again to deflect with humor. But I get what she means.
“So how did all of this happen?” Daisy asks. “The crew, I mean.”
I glance toward her, picking up on her quick change of subject and tone. She's always more comfortable when she's the one asking the questions.
“You all fit together so well,” she notes.
I snort softly. “That’s generous. We’re a disaster.”
“But you’re a connected disaster.”
The truth is, nobody’s ever really asked me that before.
Most people stop listening once they hear “paranormal investigator.” And the folks who do seem interested, I don’t trust their intentions. I don’t want us to be made into characters like Grant Ridgefield and his crew of idiots.
But Daisy keeps looking at me like the answer matters.
So I answer with the truth.
“Taylor found us first,” I say. “She was doing off-road recovery work and basically bullied her way into staying after helping us out of a canyon in Oklahoma.”
“Is ‘us’ you and your brother?”
I know she knows Owen exists, but not much else.
We’ve had a more distant relationship since our parents died, both of us trying to heal in our own ways.
I’d rather not talk about them, and he tries to keep them alive.
His way of coping eventually included getting way too involved in an extraterrestrial-related missing-person case.
He buried himself so deep into it that when the Air Force called, he was already packing before he hung up.
I had always been the lead with the crew, and with him being so withdrawn and focused on investigative work, it was just kind of like he ghosted.
I don’t want to go there right now with Daisy, so instead, I nod and move on.
“Yep, Taylor ran into us in Oklahoma. She believes everything. Aliens, spirits, cryptids, weird desert energy. Doesn’t matter.”
“Her weird desert energy is growing on me.”
“She grows on everyone,” I admit. “Like glitter. Or mold.”
Daisy laughs beside me.
“Jax came later,” I continue. “He was filming extreme sports stuff and started following paranormal sightings because he thought it would make good footage.”
“And now?”
“Now he’s probably the best field videographer I’ve ever seen,” I answer honestly. Jax notices things most people miss. Angles. Movement. Tiny environmental shifts. He acts chaotic, but underneath it he’s sharp as hell.