Daisy Haites (Magnolia Parks Universe, #2)

by Jessa Hastings

Christian doesn’t text me, he doesn’t call. He doesn’t ask to come over. We haven’t had sex in a couple of weeks now,2 and I guess that’s fine, but a wave of nausea hits me when I think of that because if he’s not having sex with me he is without a doubt doing it with someone else, and I want to throw myself through a window when I think of someone else’s mouth dragging over his body.

the jealousy

And, look, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wondered what it would be like to date someone like Tiller… someone just entirely normal. Completely regular, not wanted by any state or federal agency, just your run-of-the-mill sexy citizen. I think he thinks I’m exciting. I wonder if I am to him what he is to me—a complete escape from our realities and our everyday lives; him to me, a normal person, and me to him, a criminal.16 Just a strange kind of daydream, something that could never actually work, but might be really fun to try. Not that we ever would or could, but sometimes I think about what it’d be like to jump in his car one day and just tell him to drive. Sometimes I think he’d do it, that he’d kiss me and peel out and not look back. Other times I think he’d drive me straight to the penitentiary. Forget I mentioned anything. I don’t have feelings for Tiller, I just have feelings for being normal.

real

I feel off-kilter. I don’t completely get what happened between me and Dais—I made her sad, I know that. She hasn’t called me, she hasn’t asked me to come over. And I don’t usually care, but I’m pretty in my head about it. It’s almost like I miss her, but I couldn’t. Why would I? I think it’s because we’re friends. Weird friends, I’ll give you that— but friends, still. She’s the person I tell all my shit to, you know? And she left my office the other night, like, pretty angry, and I don’t care that she’s angry, she’s been angry at me before—she will be again because she’s got a bad temper and I think it’s pretty funny to piss her off and I like the way she works through her frustrations—what I do care about is the way her mouth went when I made her sad. Her dumb mouth has turned into a fucking pothole in my fucking head and I can’t think about anything else for more than a fucking minute without thinking about how her bottom lip went all heavy, and now that she’s not speaking to me I can’t kiss it better.

i need them to just talk to each other

“She usually does better when Rome’s around, I guess.” That makes me feel like shit and I think it shows on my face because Julian stares at me for a few seconds. “She’s done okay around you too.”

the jealousy is everything

That’s what I wanted to do. I knew it wasn’t on the cards in reality, this life we have was the only life I’d ever have, but I wanted to be the best, so that I knew for myself that if I wanted to be something else, I could have been.

i understand and feel bad for him

Kiss some pretty girls. I hook up a couple of times. It was all a bit weird, though, and I don’t have that much fun, which was strange because I normally love this shit. I’m annoyed about Tom, sure, but it’s not Parks my mind keeps wandering to—it’s Daisy. She hasn’t texted me—not at all. Didn’t even ask how my trip was. How didn’t she know I was in Prague? Does she not watch my stories? It’s weird, she’s been on my mind a lot, which Henry would read into, but I guess I just miss my friend. I was pretty happy when she told me to come over. Filled my day with a bunch of shit so I didn’t head over too soon and come off eager. I do feel a bit eager, though.

he really likes and misses daisy more than he realises

I’m thinking about all the other girls who messaged me today, all the invitations to go to houses and dinners and not one offer sounds better to me than trying to pick a fight with Daisy Haites right now.

SCREAMING

I can tell that made her feel insecure, and it’s weird because part of me instantly feels shit making her feel shit, but another part of me feels a bit glad, like it’s some sort of relief to push her away a bit because I don’t even know why she was on my mind so much anyway. I’d honestly probably be relieved if she’d fuck off out of it. “Yeah.” I nod, watching her closely. “Slept with the hottest girl…” …And thought of you the whole time. That, of course, is part of that story I don’t offer to her. I couldn’t say that to her, could I? Because what the fuck does it even mean? I have no idea. I’m not proud of it. And it’s not a fucking compliment, is it? It’s weird either way. Either way I’m fucked up. And I regret it instantly, telling her that.

ffs

I feel shit after that. Don’t like hurting her but it’s too late now. I reach for her face to push some hair behind her ears because I know she likes it when I do—I like it when I do it too, come to think of it—but

they're so confusing

I make this sound like I think she’s an idiot even though I don’t. “Why wouldn’t I?” Even though I know the answer. “We’re friends.” She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sure, but—” “And we don’t do jealous—” I remind her. “Are you jealous?” “Do you want me to be?” she asks, her hands on her hips. “No,” I lie. But yes. Shit. Why do I want her to be jealous?

AHHH

“Which boys?” She looks at me like I’m stupid and points to the door. “Get the fuck out of my room.”

i love them lmfao

And he loves her. He’d die for her, which I care about. That counts for something. But so would Christian, I reckon, though I don’t think Christian knows that yet. Then again, neither does my sister.

EXACTLY

are we fighting? We don’t fight.

exactly

annoyed that she brought it up because now that Taura’s brought up Prague, I’m thinking about Daisy in Italy, which is all I think of at the minute, which—fine, I admit, is kind of strange and definitely annoying, but it also doesn’t mean anything other than we’re probably spending too much time together.

he just needs to admit that he likes her

I just don’t know why everyone loves Italy all of the sudden. Like, it’s stupid, it’s small—historically, it’s never done anything that impressive. Name me three impressive Italians—”

he's so pissed and bitter omg

I swallow once, move in slowly towards her—feel a bit sick as I do, though, if I’m honest. Which is weird, because we have kissed before. More than kissed before, actually, and it was great. Fine. And I kiss girls all the time—haven’t in a while, I guess. Except for Prague, which was the best, except that it wasn’t, but it just wasn’t because I was stuck in my head about Daisy, and that was Henry’s fault, because he said that the girls I was tuning that night all looked like Daisy, but like that’s fucking my fault—Daisy just happens to look like women from the Czech Republic. That’s on her. And I wouldn’t have thought about her if Henry hadn’t said that, but then she’s all I thought about and it ruined it, but it’s not that it meant anything, you know? Like this, now, means nothing to me—it’s just a kiss, I just have to kiss Taura. She’s a good kiss. Great mouth, good eyes, bit greener than Daisy’s, which are more like honey than anything, if you asked me their colour—which you didn’t, I know. Good mouth too—I mean, it’s fine. Daisy’s is better. Bottom-heavy. More fun to kiss. Still, I lean in more because I’m happy to get Henry off my fucking back, and it’s like—my mouth is hovering just a couple centimetres off hers, barely that even, I can feel her breath on me. I swallow. My stomach lurches as I lean in and our mouths brush and I think about how Daisy looked at me the last time I saw her, looked at me like I was stupid—and I am—I like it when she thinks I look stupid. ...

OMG

“I like her.” “Yeah.” Henry nods. “No.” I shake my head, push my hands through my hair. “Fuck. Shit! How did this happen?”

FINALLY

“The Bambrillas went last-minute on the trip. Carms posted a photo of them on a boat—” He cringes. “They kind of look together.” I scoff and shrug all at once. “Well, they’re not. ” “Fuck, that’s shit timing.” Henry grimaces. “Yeah, but it’s not true.” I tell them, the back of my neck getting hot. “How do you know?” Taura asks unhelpfully. “Because it’s fucking not,” I growl. I hope.

i love that he's getting defensive

Romeo Bambrilla’s hands on my body feel to me like a towel coming straight out of the dryer after a hot shower on a cold day. It’s not necessary, I can survive without it, but it is one of the nicest things. We walk and he hovers closer to me than the friends I keep telling him we are, close to me how he has since we were kids—since before we were too little to know he needed to. He’s always just hovered around me. Just little kids who latched on to each other, who crawled under the tables during their father’s meetings, who hid in the cupboards so they didn’t have to say goodbye to each other, who found dead bodies in those cupboards and started to understand the nature of the family business. Every horrifying thing I think I’ve found out about the world, I found out with Romeo. It was his hand that covered my mouth when we found that body. It was my hand he squeezed when we were in his dad’s office when no one knew we were there and we heard his dad kill a man who had failed him. Romeo was the only person I spoke to besides Julian after what happened to my parents. In the end, who he was to me back then made who he became so much worse.

omg

I wonder whether we’d be like this if we’d been afforded the opportunity to just be a regular sibling duo, the kind who fight about who sits in the front seat or him holding a snack I want just beyond my reach instead of nearly dying in his arms and him raising me by himself at eighteen.

aw

There is a part of me that worries we’re on a track, loving each other in this stupid way, hating each other in the moments between and we’re just… what we are. This disfigured, maladjusted version of a committed couple, but the commitment isn’t necessarily by choice, it’s just an unbreakable habit that makes you feel better and worse in one fell swoop.

omg

His eyes fall on me over at my desk and he does this quarter smile that makes my heart gallop faster than it should from just a look from a boy who doesn’t care about me.

the angst

Missed you a lot, I don’t say. I tried my best not to think about him and the Dutch girls, tried my best not to imagine all the things he was doing in London without me, him here with Magnolia Parks and Taura Sax and Vanna Ripley and all the other girls I know he fills his time with.

i wish she knew how much he actually likes her

ignore how winded I am by how indifferent he is towards me, remind myself that I’ll always have Romeo and maybe that’s better anyway—safer, fenced in, predictable. I don’t like feeling like this about someone, this unbridled, free-falling, slippery, fragile thing that it is to love him because he—Christian, who is standing right in front of me—is never going to want me how I want him. Even if sometimes it feels like he might for a second, it’s just a trick. It’s the oxytocin talking and nothing I think I see on his face is real, because I’m looking at him through the eyes of someone who loves him and those eyes can’t be trusted. And neither can he.

oh

The truth is, I don’t think Romeo wants normal how I want normal. There’s too much about our lives that he loves. He loves the power, he loves the money, he loves the drama—and maybe he didn’t used to. Maybe he does now because I didn’t go with him before and this lifestyle can be addictive. I’ve seen it destroy so many people. Or maybe it is just him. Maybe it’s always been just him but when we were smaller we didn’t know it yet. Whatever the truth was then, the truth is now that Romeo doesn’t want normal.

she doesn't want romeo

I felt sick immediately—immediately—the minute I left her house. I felt this weird dread in me, not just that I’m a fuck-up but, like, I’ve fucked up. So, so bad, and I don’t know how to fix it.

he could fix it by just opening up about his feelings for her

She’s only like this with Henry, not even Beej. Must drive him mad, I reckon, that she’s like this with his brother but not with him. Sad, but I think she thinks it was her fault, something wrong with her or some way she fucked up that cracked opened the door for BJ to cheat on her—and I think she thinks that she has to be perfect around Beej, completely put together all the time, totally in control, and maybe if she can do that then maybe they’ll work out eventually, but they won’t because she’s not the fuck-up in their scenario. I don’t think she knows that about herself.

aw

Hate the idea of Parks knowing Daisy would rather be with someone else over me. History repeating itself and shit.

it wouldn't be like this if he just showed daisy that he cares

In another life,1 I’m an art historian. A professor of art history or maybe a conservator of artworks, but this is where I’d be. Surrounded by beautiful things, things that inspire you and move the world forward and speak to what it means to be human, and there would be nothing bad, no one would be dying, and if they were it’d be two-dimensional. There would be no blood, just red paint, and love would be straightforward because there are so many different kinds of love in the world and art captures a moment in each of them. And it’s just a moment, not a whole picture—I know that—but there’s something lovely about that, isn’t there…? About a snapshot moment for all the world to look upon frozen the way the person who painted it saw it and felt it, like that forever for us to try to see it and feel it the same way, hanging in the annals of time and it is what it will be and it will keep being that for everyone until someone like my brother steals it.

real

And so I’m happy to be here, happy to be in Paris, happy to be distracted from whatever the fuck is going on with Christian, but also, not really—because the City of Love isn’t all that good at making you not think about the person you love. So I’ve thrown a blanket over my feelings for him and now it sits there in the corner of me… This big, misshapen lump of a man I refuse to love but obviously do, and he overshadows everything now4 and I hate it, this pathetic version of myself that loving him has turned me into… How I scroll past his photos on Instagram without checking because I don’t want to know that he’s in Greece with Magnolia and all their stupid, beautiful friends.5 My heart’s mind is a little disaster, that much I know, because in the car on the way back from the airport, Romeo’s on one side and Christian isn’t on the other and that’s what I’m thinking about. And when Romeo kisses me at night in the bed that Christian isn’t in, I’m thinking about that—and, you don’t need to tell me, I know that it’s fucked up. Miguel says it a defense mechanism because Romeo hurt me too many times before and I said, “Yeah, but Christian’s hurting me now” and Miguel said, “I know, you’re an idiot,” in Spanish.

she's so real for cyber stalking

I hate the feeling like I’m doing the wrong thing, though. And I feel like I am all over. Which is weird, I get that. To you, my whole life is doing the wrong thing, a series of wrongdoings—both in and out of my control—but indisputably tied to, around, and done for and by me. I try my best to be better whenever I can. Try to tilt the scales back in our favour. I always give money to the homeless. I never litter. I tried to stop drinking dairy for a while but I can’t drink the milk of an almond, I’m sorry—I just can’t.6 I have a little notebook in my drawer by my bed where I try to keep track of how many people my brother’s killed so I can at least save that many and maybe that will balance everything out a little in the universe and we won’t go to hell for everything we’ve done.

real

4 I think of him every time I’m in a car, every time my hair falls over my face. Every time I taste coffee, I try to work out whether he’d like that particular cup or not. I hear a Ziggy Alberts song and wonder if he loves it. He’s never not on my mind.

omg

The flight over there’s long and I think about Daisy the whole time, how I wish I was good at this feelings shit—that I knew how to say sorry, say what I really think. I can’t say it out loud. I can’t risk it. I’ve loved a girl who doesn’t love me back for going on three years now—being aware of my feelings hasn’t gotten me anywhere, and I was fine before—before I knew I was into Daisy—fuck, I’ve probably been into her for months unawares, and for months and months I’ve been fine, and then fucking Henry caught a whiff of it and ruined it by bringing it forth into my consciousness, that shitty prick. So Daisy’s just what I think about now, that’s who I’ve become. I just think about Daisy Haites all the time, and I’m angry about it all the time. I mean it. I stew on it the whole way there.

i feel bad tbh

Doesn’t help that Parks and Beej are holed up at the back of her boyfriend’s plane and she’s touching him in that way she does where she doesn’t even know; it’s fully unconscious. Her hand falls into his lap and his eyes never move from her

i will forever love them

and besides it’s pretty shit reception by the pool and I keep checking my phone to see if Daisy’s texted me. Which she hasn’t, by the way. “Just give her her own fucking text-tone.” Henry gives me an annoyed look when I dive on my phone as it vibrates. “No—” I scowl at him. “I’m not pathetic.” Henry gives me a long look. “If you say so.

the angst and miscommunication

I’m angry. I feel like fucking her off, feel like fighting with someone so I can get my mind off of Daisy and her hands on Rome.

typical man behaviour

And I hate that about me—that this is what it’s turned to, that loving her for me a lot of the time feels like hating her, but it’s where I am and it’s what I’ve got.

oh

It’s why Daisy’s such a nice distraction from it all, she’s like this reprieve from all this shit my chest feels choked up with all the time. And I know it’s not the same with Daisy, I know that I love Parks and not her, it’s not the same, it doesn’t feel the same—I know what being in love feels like and it’s not this. It’s too easy with Daisy to be love. It is good, though. And it’s weird, I float between being in my head about Daisy, thinking about everything I say to her, everything I want to say, all the things I want to talk to her about, and then when I’m with her I don’t really think of anything. Daisy’s that feeling you get when you’re floating on your back in a pool and there’s so much fucking noise around you until you put your ears under and it all goes quiet. That’s how she feels to me. I’ve probably fucked it up with her anyway because I couldn’t just tell it to her face that, actually, there was a reason why it was bad that she’s sleeping with Romeo. I should have told her I don’t want to share her with anyone. I hate sharing in general, but I especially hate sharing her. I’m done sharing her. I don’t know why I couldn’t find the words to tell her that—I wish she was here, but she’s not, and she’s not texting me and I know I should text her, be the first one to make the first step to us talking again, but I can’t. I’ve spent too many years giving a shit and trying to be close to a girl who doesn’t want me. I can’t put myself out there how she wants me to, bec...

wow

should be done, I can feel myself crossing a line that I shouldn’t, the one where I get angry at her and yell because it’s the embers of the fire we had that I used to be able to stoke in different ways and now yelling at her is all I’ve got left.

omfg

Even Tom must know it’s a date, and I don’t know what the fuck he’s playing at, but I guess Magnolia has a nose for finding men who’ll do anything for her, and letting her be whatever she wants to be with BJ is her number one dating criteria.

omg lmfao

They’re fighting outside the hotel restaurant, and these two can have a screaming match for the ages. You think I’m bad with her? These two are weapons designed to end each other.

wow

He hooks his arm around Magnolia’s neck and pulls her away and I stare after her, thinking about how Daisy told me to get out the other day when I made her sad and there was no one there to pull her away from me. I wonder if she’s okay.

he can't stop thinking about her

“I think I’m in love with Christian,” she whispers to me. I lean back, surprised. “What?” She says nothing. “Fuck.” I breathe out. “Fuck. How long for?” She swallows as she shrugging like it’s hopeless. “Couple of months,” “A couple of months?” I repeat, eyes wide. I can’t believe I missed it—I should have seen it. I knew she liked him more than she said, but love? Falling in love is like cancer to people like us. Gives you a weakness the whole world can see… Gives the whole fucking world something to use against you.

omg

“I’ve spent the last three years sleeping with girls who aren’t Magnolia Parks because I’m in love with Magnolia Parks.” My heart breaks a little because I think, probably, it’s the same for Christian. “It’s not just about the sex.” Ballentine elbows me gently. “You mean more to him than that.” “How do you know?” I blink, my eyes too wide and hopeful.15 He shrugs, leaning back into the chair behind us. “He’s never once told us what it’s like with you.”

omfg

“The boys and I, we swap war stories. Locker room shit, you know? The only person I never tell them details about is Parks.” “Why?” I frown. “Because she’s mine.”16 He gives me a small smile that, even though it’s not about me or for me, my heart thumps like a maniac anyway because I’m a sucker for romance and I love love and Magnolia Parks is a fucking idiot if she doesn’t pick BJ Ballentine.

omg

I stare over at Christian, who’s actually watching us, frowning — all these girls fawning over him, touching him, pulling his shirt for his attention. Vanna Ripley’s the worst of them all17 with her hand on his knee like it’s a permanent fixture. Then she reaches over and picks a piece of lint off of his shirt — and she does it like it’s nothing — like she’s comfortable there, like she’s always picking things off of his body, and I’m just dying. I think I’m dying. My chest feels tight. I want to cry. I hate watching her touch him. “He has a lot of ‘ just friends,’” I say out loud accidentally. BJ follows my gaze. “Yeah, he does.” He gives me a look. “But you’re not one of them.”

omg

They’re only a couple feet from us, these big, buffoon, sexually repressed meatheads who think that talking about “pussy” will drown out their desire to buy Men’s Health for the pictures.

LMFAO

“You never touch her,” he yells in his face, holding him by the collar of his shirt. “Never. Try it again, and I’ll kill you myself.”

OMG

“Easy on—” Miguel calls after him,20 like Christian would ever actually hurt me — at least not in ways people can see with their eyes. Christian shoots him a look.

exactly

Vanna kissed me. I let her. I shouldn’t have let her. I wanted to make Daisy jealous, remind her that she likes me more than she likes Rome, but I don’t even know if that’s true and it didn’t work anyway, because now all I have is a clingy, slutty, ex-Nickelodean star thinking we have a thing when we don’t, and I’ve pissed off the girl I like. The girl I like who’s a fucking idiot. Fighting a fucking giant by herself? And I’m furious, because what if something happened? She’s a fucking idiot.

omfg