Chapter 20
chapter
twenty
DAISY
The rain stops sometime around late afternoon.
I know this because the silence wakes me. I had drifted off sometime after snuggling up next to Miles, my head in his lap.
One second there’s a tinny tapping overhead and Miles breathing above me.
Then next, heavy silence.
It appears the cold medicine has decided to stage a hostile takeover of my nervous system. Everything feels syrupy. Blurred around the edges.
My laptop is still open across my stomach, screen glowing with comment notifications and half-finished notes. At some point, I must’ve slumped sideways against the couch cushion because my neck protests immediately.
A blanket covers me. That feels suspicious. I glance over. Miles is asleep beside me. Still. Deep asleep.
One of his arms folds awkwardly across his middle, and the other drapes across my hip. His glasses are crooked, a blanket tangled around his waist like he lost a fight with it. His hair is worse now.
He’s sick. Pale. Half-dead from swamp plague. But something about seeing him asleep makes him softer instead of messier. Like exhaustion finally forced all the carefulness out of him.
His hand twitches on my hip and my chest squeezes. Annoyingly. I look away because apparently feelings are contagious now.
The laptop screen flashes alive again. Comments. More comments. I blink at the numbers. Then blink harder. Because there are significantly more numbers.
The first episode is live, and it has exploded.
Not viral-viral. But enough.
Enough that the dopamine part of my brain perks up despite the cold meds.
Enough that the career part of me—the part that hasn’t felt fully alive in months—sits up straighter.
I scroll.
Okay wait why am I invested in cryptid people now?!
It’s giving modern day X-Files and I’m so here for it
Never thought the girl who taught me how to give a great blow job would be reporting on Bigfoot, but here we are and I couldn’t be happier.
I’d laugh if it didn’t hurt.
But shit, this might actually work.
My inbox is filled with repost notifications. People sharing their theories. Getting inspired to do their own research. Someone else made a theory thread.
Three outdoors creators reposted, which is new for me.
I’m halfway through a comment thread debating where we are when my phone lights up with Marissa calling.
I silence the call and slowly slip out of his lap. Just as I’m shifting off the couch, he moves, brows pinching. Coughing once. Still asleep. I glance at him. Then back at the phone.
And she’s already calling again.
Marissa is calling, not texting, and she’s called twice. That means this is work. Urgent work. My stomach twists. I grab my flannel and tiptoe toward the door.
Outside, the world smells scrubbed clean. Wet pine. Mud. Cool air and damp earth.
The sky is clearing in slow patches, clouds thinning into streaks of gray-blue above the trees. Water drips lazily from branches. It feels like the forest itself is exhaling.
I answer on the second ring.
“Hey.”
“Daisy Anne Bennett.”
Uh-oh.
That tone. That tone means chaos.
“What happened?”
“What happened?” Marissa nearly screeches. “YOU happened.”
I wince and step farther from the RV.
“Can you lower your volume to something less alarming?”
“No.”
“Cool.”
“Daisy, listen to me,” she says. “The board is obsessed.”
I stop walking.
“What?”
“The execs.”
My stomach drops.
“What do you mean obsessed?”
“I mean they listened to the first episode and immediately asked for the next three. And also asked if this is going to become some kind of new series where each season you find new unique characters all over the country.”
My pulse kicks hard.
“Oh.”
She laughs. “Oh my God, Daisy. This is huge.”
I lean against the side of the RV.
The metal feels cold through my sweatshirt.
Wind moves softly through the trees.
Inside, somewhere beyond the wall, Miles coughs.
The sound tethers me to reality.
“They think it feels different,” Marissa keeps going. “Authentic. Emotional. Expanding your world and bringing in new energy. Weird in the best way.”
“Weird is good?”
“Weird is great.”
She pauses dramatically.
“Also?”
I already hate this.
“There are sponsor conversations.”
I close my eyes.
“Oh no.”
“Oh YES.”
“Marissa.”
“No, seriously.”
Paper rustles on her end.
“They want integrations.”
My brain stalls.
“What kind of integrations?”
“Wellness brands.”
“Bigfoot wellness?”
“Outdoor gear.”
“Okay.”
“The board is getting excited. One of the investors literally said—and I quote—‘This could be bigger than My Favorite Murder.’”
I stare into the trees.
What the actual fuck?
“You still there?” Marissa asks.
“Yes.”
“You should be screaming.”
“I think the cold meds stole my emotions.”
She laughs again.
But underneath it there’s something sharper.
Excitement. Pressure. Momentum.
I feel it too. That familiar hum. The one I used to love.
The one that ruined sleep and relationships and weekends and made me forget to eat lunch because maybe this next thing mattered.
Career energy. Success energy. The intoxicating, terrifying feeling of this might actually happen. But now I’m feeling torn between protecting this little family and telling this story—or ones like it. My grip tightens around the phone.
“What do they want?” I ask quietly.
Marissa exhales.
There it is—the shift.
“Well.”
I know that “well.” That “well” means complication.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“The ending.”
The word lands uncomfortably.
Ending.
As if this thing already has one. As if I’m already building toward a story instead of living inside it.
I glance back toward the RV windows.
Toward the warm twinkle lights glowing faintly through the glass.
Toward Miles asleep on the couch.
Something twists.
“What about the ending?” I ask.
“The execs are already thinking positioning. Longevity.”
My stomach sinks.
“They want… options,” Marissa says carefully.
“Meaning?”
“Well…” Paper shuffles again. “They’re not totally sold on an ending where Bigfoot is ‘real.’”
I can hear the air quotes she put around “real,” and I frown.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning they don’t want this to become too ‘true crime’. They don’t want to attract the wrong kind of audience.”
Would someone like me be considered the wrong audience? Because I was eating up any and all Bigfoot content I could get my manicured hands on before landing here? What exactly do they mean?
“Marissa, I’m on, like, ten different kinds of cold medicine right now. What do they want to see here?”
Her silence is heavy and uncomfortable.
“Ultimately, they want you to give the audience nuggets of hope, but more so, make it campy and funny. You laid down the groundwork in episode one; now they want to see the team’s quirks amped up.
Characterize them like those other dudes the media loves.
But younger and hotter and, you know, actually likable. ”
Something in me stills.
The forest feels quieter and farther away.
“You mean…” I say slowly. “Making fun of them?”
“Not aggressively.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Well, Daisy—”
“No.”
I swallow. Just then, the 4Runner and Jax on his dirt bike roll up to the campsite. The noise is so loud that I can’t hear Marissa’s protests on the other line.
“Hang on a sec,” I say to Marissa, nose sniffling.
Maya and Taylor hop out, each grabbing a bag from the backseat before heading in. They spot me as Jax hops off his bike and starts putting his gear back in its spot in the RV's outer storage.
“How are you feeling, girl?” Taylor asks.
I shrug. “Hanging in there! I want to see what you got. I’m on the phone, though. I’ll be in in a sec. I think Miles is still asleep in there.”
Taylor and Maya nod, and Jax follows them up into the RV.
“Okay, I’m back. You know I love you, but I can’t do that. I tried with the first episode and had to restart. That’s not me.”
“I know, but what comes after this?”
I pause, hearing the crew stepping inside.
“I don’t know, Riss. I don’t know what I want anymore.”
I stare toward the trees. Toward mist still lingering between the trunks. Toward the place that feels dangerous, impossible, and alive. Toward the place where I heard something I still can’t explain. Where I saw the look on Miles’s face as he knelt over that track.
Marissa’s quiet for a beat. “What do you mean, babe? Like, for this podcast, or in life?”
“I… I don’t know,” I admit quietly.
“You don’t know what?”
“What I believe yet.”