Pretty Reckless

One evening, Jaime sits me down and tells me that we’re going to Notre Dame to check out the facilities, flirt, and say yes. He booked us both first-class tickets and all. I guess that means he is over the fact I had my tongue and dick in his daughter’s privates. Ain’t he a fucking champ.

“I don’t want any illicit behavior while we’re on campus. I catch you smoking, drinking, or fucking—simultaneously or individually—I swear you’ll be finding a different sponsor to subsidize your next four years because it’s not going to be me.” He waves his finger in my face.

I push the brochures across the coffee table and nod.

“Clear, sir.”

“Jesus.” He flings himself back on the couch, throwing an arm over his face. “You’re about as lively as a puppy that’s been run over by every truck in the state. At least try to pretend that you’re here.”

“I’m here, sir.”

“But you’re not present.”

What do I say to that? This bitch is Hare Krishna now?

“And stop calling me sir. You’re like a son to me.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that, sir, since I feel very strongly about your daughter and not in a sisterly way.”

He exhales, levels up, and slaps the coffee table to grab my attention. I’m still the same lax, drooped-over-the-couch motherfucker I was a second ago. Life just seems to have an aftertaste of nothing when Daria is not around, and whoever said time heals was given LSD or something. Because it wasn’t time that healed them. The more time that passes, the more I want to rip my own fucking skin from my body and let my heart pack a suitcase and go looking for her. It doesn’t escape me that I was crushed about Via—but never had the balls to actually go and find her. With Daria, it’s a different story. The Followhills can beg all they want. Come graduation, I’m packing my bag, breaking the piggy bank, and going to look for her.

“Penn,” he warns. I throw an actual pen—the one I’ve been using the past ten minutes to write all the shit about our bullshit trip down—and stand.

“Just give me her number. I won’t call. I’ll text.”

“You’re just making it harder. If you truly have feelings for her, you will let her have her way and not contact her, not go against her wishes while she’s trying to heal.”

“Like you did with Mel, right?” I chuckle bitterly, shaking my head. I make a beeline to my room, but he stands and raises his voice to me. For the first time, ever.

“Penn Scully.”

I turn around, slow-clapping him.

“Whoa. Escalation. You just used my full name. Not all of it, of course. You don’t know my middle name. You’re not my real dad, after all.”

I’m just being a double douche with a side of jerk. I don’t have a middle name. My mother never fucking bothered. And the truth is, even if I had one, my biological dad wouldn’t know it. If he knows the color of my eyes, then I’m the Pope.

“Stop feeling so goddamn sorry for yourself, Penn. She’s the one who has to handle life away from her house, her parents, everything she knows, and start from scratch,” Jaime’s voice booms.

“How is she doing?” I throw the question I’ve been asking for an entire month at him once again. “And please spare me the bullshit answer of ‘she’s handling it.’ Daria doesn’t handle things. She either slays or she crumples. She has no middle ground, and we both know it.”

And fuck, did I love it when she slayed and played with me. She was a sweet torture I’d go through all over again, even knowing how it’s going to end. She doesn’t want me. She made it perfectly clear.

“She’s dealing with it.” Jaime grins devilishly, sticking it to me, and his eyes are mad, sparkling bright blue. Like Daria’s when she’s in her element. “Now, are you going to get your head out of your ass and soldier through this like a man, or are you going to fall apart like a boy?”

“Only if you do something for me.”

“I think I’ve done quite enough for you, boy.” He throws his head back and laughs. But I’m dead serious. When he sees that, he stops laughing and rolls his eyes. Again—like Daria. It’s only now when I look for stuff to remind me of her that I’m beginning to see how alike she is to her parents. How can she possibly think she is an awful person when she is made of two people who took in totally vindictive, awful teenage strays when no one else would?

“You don’t want me to see her? Talk to her? Know where she is? Fine. But I want you to give her this.” I grab my backpack and take out a leather journal, identical to the one Daria had. It wasn’t by coincidence that we have the same journal. Melody gave it to Via the day she gave Daria hers, four and a half years ago. I think—though I’ll never ask to confirm—she wanted both girls to reach the same realization and try to bridge shit together. Much good it did Melody. Via bailed, and Daria went off the freaking rails. I don’t know why I kept the untouched journal. It just seemed like a waste to throw away something that seemed expensive, being leather bound and all. I started writing in it only four years later, the night my mother died, and I saw Daria for the first time in years.

Writing so I could remember.

Writing so I could let go and forget.

“What is this?” Jaime frowns at the journal. I think he thinks it’s the original one Daria had. But that shit burned to the ground with the snake pit.