Present
Days passed, classes began, and my head swam in a sea of shark-infested waters as I tried to stay afloat and keep clear of the razor-sharp teeth.
While the upperclassmen watched with giddy fascination from the sidelines, freshmen scampered around in a haze of stressed-out confusion or excitement, inundating the campus.
“Shit on a stick of shit,” Pippa hissed one night at the local diner. “I’m so tired. I feel like my eyeballs are going to fall out, and my savings account is dying. I’m going to starve. Die from no sleep and starvation, I tell you.”
Her green eyes were wide and full of playful fear. I smirked, lifting a piece of cheese pizza to my mouth and inhaling it. “We’ll be fine. It’s just a matter of getting used to it, I guess.”
“Yeah, but when? It’s all so different from how I thought it’d be.”
“Maps. I told you, the answers you often forget to seek lie in the maps.”
She grumbled around the straw of her soda. “You and your damn maps. It’s not the getting lost part I’m worried about.” She chewed her pizza, then swallowed. “It’s the three papers I need to write already.”
“You’ve got time.”
“Two of them, yes. One of them is due in a few days … like, what the hell?”
I didn’t comment that she could’ve been writing it for the past two nights instead of watching reruns of Gilmore Girls because I couldn’t talk. I had one due in a week myself, but I’d get to it eventually. Right now, I was just trying to adjust to this new normal and the sinking realization that I might never get my heart back.
I hadn’t seen Quinn. Even though he was a sophomore, I guess I’d still expected to by now. It wasn’t a huge campus, so maybe it was time to admit that this foolhardy plan of mine was just that. A fool’s wish, made from desperation and a boatload of immature dreams.
I was just worried about what might happen to me after holding onto that dream for so long. No, not worried. Terrified.
I wiped my hands with a napkin and took a huge gulp of water, watching a group of girls in the booth across from ours laugh and talk loudly about a party they were attending this weekend.
“They clearly don’t give a shit.” Pippa sighed, shoving her plate away. “Maybe we’re doing this all wrong.”
“Oh? And what makes you say that?”
She sucked her full lips into her mouth, thinking. “Just … everyone else seems to be either stressed out or having the time of their lives.”
I could agree with that, and I did. “You want to go to a party?” I didn’t know if I had the guts to show up at one just yet. I wasn’t exactly shy, but parties didn’t really interest me.
“Maybe.” She lifted her shoulders. “After I get at least two of these papers done, we’ll revisit the subject.”
I laughed. “You make us sound like an old fuddy-duddy couple who need to discuss a vacation.”
Her green eyes twinkled with mirth. “Shut up. I’m not some innocent girl. I’ve …” She shifted in her seat. “Had boyfriends and, um, stuff.”
“Stuff?” I raised a brow.
She threw her napkin at me, and I dodged it right before it smacked me on the cheek. “You know what I mean. My mom might be a little crazy, but she’s always been very encouraging about experiencing love and life before settling down.”
That had me dropping my chin to my fist and leaning forward over the table. “Continue …”
She smirked. “You’re ridiculous.” Shaking her head, she went on. “Though, that might have something to do with her settling down so young with my dad.”
Pippa stared at her soda, twirling the straw around. I sensed this was a bit of a sensitive subject, but I was curious, so I waited to see if she’d say more.
“He left when I was fourteen.”
I sat back, trying not to let my face screw up with pity because I knew she didn’t want that. “What happened?” I asked.
“He had … issues, I guess you could say. Mental health stuff. My mom always supported him, but still, it stressed her out. To the point she probably not only felt like she was walking on eggshells around him, but she even looked like she was.”
“He was depressed?”
“He suffered from that and some other stuff. Borderline bipolar is what they always told us.”
Well, crap. I didn’t know what to say. I knew I had as normal an upbringing as anyone could wish for. Dreamlike, really. I couldn’t relate and felt terrible about it.
I watched her features—the way her pretty eyes stared at her drink yet seemed like they saw something else. Tucking some hair behind her ear, she sighed. “He was never a bad dad or anything. Quite the opposite really. But those days, when he’d disappear inside himself, they were hard.”
“Why’d he leave?”
She bit her lip, and when she looked at me, her eyes were wet. “He said we were better off.”
“Oh,” is all I could think to say.
“Yeah. Anyway, we still talk sometimes. But he has a new girlfriend now. Someone he met in therapy a few years ago.”
I felt a pang of sorrow in my heart when I thought about Terry. Her bubbly personality and her obvious innate need to care for those she loved most. “How did your mom handle that?”
“I don’t think she did. She ignores that Felicity exists. And I can’t blame her. I do too. It’s just …” She blew out a loud breath, slumping back in the booth. “He still loves my mom. He’s always said he never stopped. Even when she stopped talking to him because it became too much for her. She said he couldn’t have it both ways, leave us and still try to come to us when he felt like it. So now he only calls me and my brother on our cell phones.”
“Is your brother okay?” She’d told me she had one and that he was a junior in high school, but not much else.
“He acts like it. Drew hides his emotions well, though. So who really knows.”
A beat of silence passed. “It hurts my dad, a lot. Not talking to Mom. So I don’t get it.”
“I wouldn’t either. Maybe he thinks this new woman can handle his, uh, issues better?”
“Yeah, that’s how I see it. Which is dumb. Like he only deserves someone who’s as messed up as he is.” Reaching over the table, I grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently. “Your turn. Tell me all about your screwed-up childhood, parents, something.”
“You’ve heard the worst of it,” I said softly.
She swallowed, nodding and squeezing my hand back before letting go. “Do you still think he’s here?”
“I don’t want to admit that he’s probably not.” Standing, I started cleaning up my leftover pizza and tossed our garbage into a nearby trashcan.
“Hey.” A guy’s voice startled me as I was pulling my cardigan on at our booth. I looked up, then up some more. Dude was tall and had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. Combined with his knockout grin, square jaw, and huge, broad frame, I stumbled back a step, right into Pippa.
“Oomf.” She grabbed my arms.
“You dropped this into my booth.” He held up the crumpled napkin Pippa had thrown at me.
“Um.” Pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose, I glanced at Pippa, who was looking around the diner with her hands in her jacket pockets. I was on my own then. “Sorry?” I laughed a little, uncomfortable and feeling awkward.
I moved to take it from his hand, but he reached out and grabbed mine, the napkin falling to the black and white checkered floor. “Callum.”
His grip was firm and warm, but he didn’t shake my hand, just held it. “Well, hi, Callum.” I tugged my hand back. “I’m Daisy.”
His grin was almost blinding as he tucked his hands into his jean pockets. “I haven’t seen you around. Freshman?” I nodded, and he asked, “Boyfriend?”
The boldness and abruptness of the question had a snort-laugh escaping me. My cheeks flamed. He only continued to grin, though. “It’s …” I was about to say it’s complicated, but that would be a bit of a lie and not something I wanted to explain. “No, no boyfriend.”
“There’s a party this weekend at the frat house just off Pellington Ave. You should come.” With a glance at Pippa, he bit his lip before looking back at me. “Bring your friend.”
“Welsh! Let’s roll.”
I looked behind him where three guys and a girl were walking out of the diner.
He threw me a wave, taking a step back, then spun around and disappeared outside.
“Holy shit, he was hot,” Pippa whispered.
He was. Picking up the napkin, I tossed it in the trash and dumped some money on the table beside Pippa’s. “He’s … tall.”
She laughed, grabbing my arm and hauling me to the door. “You’re so weird. He was sexy as hell and wants you. Maybe we should go to this party.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for any of, um, that,” I said as we stepped outside.
Leaves danced around our feet as we meandered down the sidewalk toward campus. The streetlamps’ glow lighting the dark streets.
“Well, when you are, I bet he’ll still want you, judging by those freaking eyes. God, intense. So dark yet so sexy.”
“Shush.” I laughed, nudging her in the ribs. “Why don’t you go? You’re not pining for some guy who might not even exist anymore.” I paused. “Wait, are you?”
She rolled her eyes when I looked at her. “No. But … well, I can’t even describe it without sounding stupid.”
I guffawed. “Try me.”
“I don’t know. I’ve gotta have that gut feeling, you know? I’m sick of wasting time on boys who don’t matter.”
“You want your forever man? Already?”
“Says you,” she said, and yeah, she had a point. “Nah, but I’m willing to hold out a while for something that matters. Who knows, maybe my forever man is here.”
Groaning jokingly, I mumbled, “Great, so we are both pining after mysterious beings. Let’s just go buy a ton of cats and be done with it.”
“I’m allergic.”
My feet paused, and I glared at her. “We can’t be friends anymore.”
We were both still laughing when someone called out, “Daisy?”
That voice had my heart galloping instantly. “Alexis?”
I spun around, and there she was, leaning against the front of the ice-cream parlor where Pippa had just started working.
I thought my smile would break my face as I rushed over to her, throwing my arms around her and hugging her tightly. “Holy shit,” she breathed, standing back and grasping my arms. “You’re here.”
“You’re here,” I said back, shaking my head. “What? How? I thought you were going to New York.”
She looked away, her dark hair falling into her face before she nudged it back. “Things change, I guess. I never thought …” She stopped, running a hand over her mouth.
“This is, wow,” I said, feeling Pippa stop beside me. “Unbelievable. Oh, this is Pippa, my roommate. Pippa, this is the friend I was telling you about from back home. Alexis.”
Pippa waved, and Alexis gave her a weak smile.
I was so lost in my excitement that it only just occurred to me to ask. “Oh, you’d know! Is Quinn here?”
Alexis turned to the ice-cream parlor just as the door opened and the boy himself walked out, eyes fixed on the ice cream he was carrying. My mouth dried, my eyes watering.
“Here.” He passed Alexis a small cup of ice cream. “They were out of cookie dough.”
He looked so different. No longer a boy in any shape or form, but now a man and freaking huge. Muscles shifted under his brown Henley and his jeans hugged his thighs. His blond hair was a tussled mess on top of his head, sitting this way and that.
He was everything I remembered, yet so much more.
My heart was in my throat, beating alongside my racing pulse as butterflies flooded my stomach. I stepped back to face him fully, trying to think of what to say, all the while he stepped closer.
To Alexis.
She leaned her head toward him, and he quickly kissed her temple.
Finally, he looked up, our eyes met, and the pizza I’d just eaten started to make a reappearance as my brain finally connected the painful dots.
His hazel eyes widened, my name a rasp of breath leaving those traitorous lips. “Daisy?”