I refuse to let her hide. Push away her emotions. Not my girl. Not my Daisy. She can feel whatever she wants to feel, and I'll take it all. I'll welcome it. "Cry if you want to, Daisy. Whatever emotion you want to have, have it. I don't mind."
"That's what you told me that first night, at Summerhill. You told me I could take that low moment I was having and sink into it a little deeper." She smiles fondly at the memory. "It was so freeing to hear that. To know I could be myself, feel my feelings, and everything would be ok."
I take her hand, winding my fingers through hers. "How do you feel right now?"
"I feel...rage," she admits. "My mom is dying, and I'm stuck in this awful web I spun. It feels like I can't get out."
I wish I could tell her how deeply I empathize.
Instead, I reach for the comforter, and she lets me slide it down.
"Penn," she says, but my name is shaky. "I don't know how all this will end up, and losing you again, I..." She shakes her head, says nothing more.
"I know, Sunshine." I try not to feel the desolation, but it's there. Sour and pungent andthere, in the pit of my stomach.
Leaning forward, I claim her mouth. I kiss her like I didn't recently have her.
I kiss her like I might not ever have her again.
Chapter 48
Penn
Each day passes,and I wait for a knock on my door, for a uniformed policeman to tell me I need to come down to the station.
If Duke plans to press charges, he's taking his sweet time. Maybe Daisy was successful in putting a stop to it.
My realtor called to tell me he received a cash offer twenty percent above asking price. I told him I'd think about it. I'm not sure if I'm considering it, or if I like envisioning that grade A asshole squirming in his plush office chair, waiting to see if the big, bad wolf is going to steal his son's fiancée.
My realtor said if I don't take it, I'm a fucking lunatic. Verbatim.
I've seen Daisy twice since last weekend, both times for physical therapy. My evening schedule is packed with final preparations for the play, including dress rehearsals (mandatory, Noelle said. Doesn't matter if your grandma died, or you broke your leg.). What the kids have managed to put together in this short of a time is nothing short of incredible. I am still very opposed to the fact I am acting in the play, and when I'm not fantasizing about Daisy, I'm envisioning differentscenarios in which I tell NoelleI quit. But I have to admit, I like helping the kids, and the youth theatre program. (Take that, Duke The Twat, with your library subsidy.)
Daisy has been different at our appointments this week, and I know it has nothing to do with what happened between us. She's jittery, like she's on the edge of something in her mind. I wait until Isla's busy booking a new client over the phone to confront Daisy, but all she says is, "My brain is an unpleasant place to be right now." I offer to help, and she looks at me so long without speaking I think maybe my offer has fallen on deaf ears. Then she says, very simply, "No, thank you."
What I hear isYou've done enough.
I want to wrap her up, ferry her away from Olive Township. I want to give her the space to be Daisy from last weekend, the woman who muffled her pleasured cries by pressing a pillow to her face. The woman who laid her head on my chest, smiled down at me, kissed my cheek. Joking, laughing, sassy Daisy. I wish we could go back to that evening, stretch out the moment, live in it forever.
She's so far inside her head, keyed up and consumed, and I don't know what to do. Should I show up at her house, insist she open up to me? Would that really be what's best for her? I know the Daisy of yesteryear, but I'm still learning Daisy as an adult, and I don't know if she'd appreciate me doing that.
If only she would talk to me about what's going on in her mind. If not me, then I hope she's talking to Vivi. She needs somebody. I'm up against an asshole with far too much money, but Daisy has her mother's happiness riding on her shoulders. And the town, too.
Is it fair for Daisy to shoulder all that pressure? All these people, looking forward to her wedding, building it up to be an event bigger than what it really is.
It's not only her mother, but the people of Olive Township counting on her to marry Duke.
Collectively, the whole town will shutter to attend the St. James/Hampton wedding this weekend. Store windows bear signs announcing modified store hours. It's all anybody will talk about. As for me, dull dread and sharp panic alternates for top emotion.
The girl I love is getting married, and I can't see a way out of it. The stories, the lies, the good intentions, they're twisted and tangled into a snarl. How does one break free from it?
A bomb.
The only way to be free from it all, is to blow it up.
I refuse to be the bomb, to force the explosion on Daisy.
But there is one person I want to see.
