Chapter 17: Natalie
Major stroked my hair as he held me in his arms. We laid together in silence, but not an awkward one. I had just finished riding him until he burst, and his arms around me conveyed things that words could not say.
I buried my mask into his chest, and he pulled me closer. Before Major, I thought my love life was perfect. To me, it had been obvious Nathan was The One. He was a top lawyer in the Bay Area, intelligent, and good looking. Now, I couldn’t even imagine marrying him. I felt more with Major than I ever had with Nathan.
“Mother’s Day is next weekend,” he said, planting a kiss on the top of my head.
I had completely forgotten. It wasn’t a holiday I needed to keep track of. “I suppose it is. Will you not be able to make it?”
“I told my mom I have to work late on Friday. I didn’t want to leave early in case you were still able to make it.”
“I’m going to be free,” I whispered.
“I’m glad. You’re from Seattle, right? Is that where your mom lives?”
My stomach twisted at the thought of telling him everything. I should just lie to him, like I did with everybody else in my life. But the thought of not telling him the truth made me feel sick. “Well, the thing is…I don’t have a mom.” My cheeks turned red just saying it. “Well I mean, I did. But she’s dead. My whole family is dead.” I pulled away from him and wrapped my arms around myself, an absent-minded attempt to conceal my embarrassment.
“Daisy…” He pulled me back into him. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. I don’t tell anyone. You’re actually the third person who knows.” Only Michaela and Mark knew, and I had no plans to tell anyone else. “I lie to people,” I continued, “I say my family lives too far and it’s hard to see them. I’m too embarrassed to tell the truth.”
His pulls had turned into squeezes, as if he was trying to fuse my body with his. “Do you want to tell me?”
“I…do. I mean, I can, if you want.”
“Of course, I want to know,” he murmured, stroking my hair.
I supposed the best starting point would be right before I was born. “Both of my parents were drug addicts. So, I’m a crack baby.” I stopped. What if this changed how he thought of me? Maybe I should stop.
“You don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.” He could sense my hesitation. No, this wouldn’t change Major’s opinion of me. I trusted him.
“It’s fine. When I was five months old, my dad died in a shooting. He was a drug dealer, and it was a deal gone wrong. So, then it was just my mom and me. When I was a year old she overdosed in our apartment. They didn’t find her body for two days. The only reason they did is because the neighbors got tired of my crying and finally called the police.”
“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Daisy. Daisy, Daisy, Daisy.”
When he repeated my name, I melted inside. I wanted to stop the story there and wrap my legs around him and be joined at the center. I needed to be the closest two people could be as he made me cry out his name in pleasure.
“So, I went to live with my aunt, which was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. She was a historian and was absolutely brilliant. One of the most respected in her field.
“I know she never wanted kids, but she gave me everything. Sent me to private school. Made sure I did plenty of extracurriculars so I got into college. She was the reason I went to Stanford. If I hadn’t lived with her, I’d probably just be another junkie on the street.”
“Don’t say that,” Major whispered in my ear.
“It’s true, though. Environment is a huge factor of success. It does sound bad, though. I’m essentially saying I’m happy my parents are dead.” I let out a hollow laugh. “Oh well.”
Major didn’t say anything, just made sure to continue holding me.
“So, I made it to Stanford. I was so happy. Then my aunt started to call irregularly and acted weird over the phone. She was encouraging me to have fun, and she had never done that before. Her whole life was raising me to be an intelligent drone, like she was.
“In spring of sophomore year, she told me she had stage four cancer. I knew she’d had cancer when she was younger, but I thought it wasn’t that bad. And it never occurred to me it would come back. Anyways, she told me she had two weeks to live. She had known for months but kept it from me.” I couldn’t hide the bitter tone that crept into my voice. “Two weeks. I lost the only family member I had in two weeks.”
I didn’t want the millions of dollars I received in inheritance. When I saw the direct deposit, my first instinct was to throw my computer against the wall. I won’t tell Major—It’s hard to have sympathy for a rich orphan.
“Daisy,” Major whispered. He didn’t know what to say, and that was okay. Most people didn’t when others drop bombs like that. But the emotion in his voice conveyed that he was hurting for me.
“But,” I stopped. I’d never told anyone this part before.
“But what?”
“I finally realized why she raised me the way she did. Cold. Drone-like. I think she knew the cancer would come back and she wouldn’t make it. My aunt didn’t want me to get stuck in an emotional pit. The worst part is, it worked. I don’t cry, Major. You’re the only one who makes me laugh. I’m cold and uptight. I don’t have the emotional range of a normal person.”
“No, Daisy. You are absolutely perfect the way you are. I’m so, so glad she raised you that way.”
I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. He thought I was perfect the way I was. No one had ever said that to me before.
“Thank you.” It was all I could muster.
There was another silence between us. It was the same, comfortable silence as earlier.
“Is…there anything I can do?” he said, running his hand along my collar bone.
Normally, when I thought about the memories I felt nothing. For some reason, talking about it with Major had hurt.
“I want you inside of me,” I whispered.
“I don’t know if I should…”
I shook my head and grabbed his shaft in my hand. In seconds, he was ready for me. “Take me.”
If only we weren’t wearing these masks. Then, his lips could be crushed against mine, fusing our bodies in every possible way. He was the only person that could take this strange feeling of hurt away.
Major flipped on top of me and I wrapped my legs around him. I thrust my hips to meet his, pushing him inside of me. He stroked every inch of my body as he pumped in and out of me.
“You’re perfect, Daisy.”
* * *
I had been in a funk since Major told me I was perfect. How could he think that when I was so clearly imperfect? My flaws had started before I was out of the womb—my mom had used throughout her pregnancy, and I’d had no prenatal care.
I often get called smart, cold, or logical. But never had the word perfect been used. Yet somehow, he thought I was.
A pang of guilt stabbed my chest. I still felt like I had cheated on Major with what Patrick and I had done on the dance floor. It was because I had zoned out and was fantasizing about Major. And I knew it wasn’t possible to cheat on him, because our glory hole relationship was a silly term for our Friday meet ups. We weren’t actually in a relationship. But Major was the only one I had sex with, and I had a feeling that it was the same for him.
I put my lunch in the breakroom fridge and slammed the door. Major made me extremely happy, but he also made my life extremely complicated. I was the most distracted I’d ever been because I spent so much time thinking about him.
Thoughts of Major filled my head as I whirled away from the fridge. I was so distracted I didn’t see Stephanie with the coffee pot in her hand. I bumped into her, and hot coffee spilled all over my torso.
“Fuck!” I swore, running to the sink.
All modesty was forgone with how badly the coffee had scalded my skin. I yanked my blouse out of my skirt, baring my entire stomach and bra line to the office. I flipped the nozzle of the sink upwards and began to splash cool water on my body. The skin had turned a nasty shade of red from the scorching liquid, and the cool water was doing little to soothe it. After a few minutes of splashing water over it, the pain began to dwindle.
Stephanie was behind me, blubbering about how sorry she was. She had been at it since the moment the coffee had spilled. “--and I’ll replace your clothes, I swear.”
My first instinct was to tell her to shut up, but that would have been rude. I took a deep breath and rephrased my sentence. “Stephanie.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “It’s not your fault. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“But, but…” She wiped a tear pooling in the corner of her eye.
“It’s my fault. Don’t apologize.”
I said goodbye and walked into my office, where I assessed the damage. My blouse was ruined, but that was fine. It was the shame of having to walk around the office with a ruined shirt that bothered me. I supposed I’d just try and stay in my office today.
I didn’t have a change of clothes in my office—one would assume I would, because I was such a planner. I made a mental note to change that as soon as possible. And by that, I meant tomorrow.
“Hey,” Donovan trudged into my office. Normally, he was upbeat—even on Mondays—but today he seemed down.
“Is everything alright?”
“Steffan broke up with me.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry.” I knew I sounded awkward, but I wasn’t sure what to say.
“I just don’t understand.” He grabbed a tissue on my desk and blotted the tears that had formed in his eyes. “I thought he was The One.”
“Well, that’s the shitty thing about The One. You think you know who they are, but then they blindside you.” I thought back to Nathan. I couldn’t believe I ever thought he was The One. “Maybe the concept of The One is stupid.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re dating a hot lawyer.”
I hadn’t told him Nathan and I were no longer together. It never worked into any of our conversations, and it didn’t seem like something I should just bring up. “Well, not anymore.”
“What?”
“Nathan and I broke up a few months ago.”
“A few months ago?! And you didn’t tell me?” His demeanor went from upset to angry.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I sighed. “We’re talking about you. Tell me what happened with you and Steffan.”
Fortunately, Donovan would rather talk about himself than harass me. He chattered about how Steffan thought their relationship was moving too fast, and it was weird that Donovan wanted to settle down.
I didn’t disagree with Steffan. People needed to date for at least two years to truly get to know each other. Anything less is begging for divorce. But I couldn’t say that to Donovan.
“I know this is cliché, but you’ll find someone better.”
He snorted. “That is pretty damn cliché.”
A rare smile crept across my face. “Trust me. In less than six months from now, we’ll be sitting here, talking about your next love interest.”
“Be still, my heart. The Ice Queen just smiled. It must be true.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
“What the hell happened to your shirt?”
Donovan and I had been talking for over five minutes and he had just realized I had a large coffee stain on my blouse. Well, large coffee stain didn’t do it justice. The front of my top was eighty-five percent covered in coffee.
“You just noticed?”
“I guess Steffan had me too upset. What happened?”
I started to relay the day’s earlier event, omitting the reason why I was distracted. When I reached the part of the story where I bared myself to the office, Donovan lost it.
“I didn’t know you were an exhibitionist.” He let out a cackle. “I bet Dave wishes he was there.”
“Be quiet.”
“Whatever. I’ll give you this extra dress shirt I have in my car.”
A stained women’s blouse would get more stares than a clean men’s top. “Let’s do it.”