In The Spring

My mother used to tell me, that when she was little she had an obsession with making daisy chains. She’d sit in the garden for hours, making the little slit in the stem of the flower and slotting them through until she had yards and yards of daisy garland. She’d go to the park and pick the daisies and put them in a little yellow tin that she called her ‘flower box’ and when the box was full, she’d go home and make her yards and yards of daisy chain. When she thought the chains were long enough, she’d take them out and wrap them around whatever she thought needed it. Streetlights, parking meters, trees. If you’d walked down the streets near her house in the spring, all of the posts would be wrapped in the little twists of yellow and white. She told me that in her perfect world, everybody would just sit around and make daisy chains their entire lives. They’d only stop to plant more daisies and eat.

“What are you thinking about kiddo?” My Dad appeared at my side, his deep voice penetrating my daydream.

I glanced at his face, a serene smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, curiosity crinkling the delicate skin around his eyes, before pointing at a single daisy isolated amidst a sea of flourishing green grass.

“Your Mom loved daisies”

“I know” I replied, admiring the tiny flower’s dainty, white petals and the bright, shock of yellow centre in which they emanated from.

“When there’s more you can make daisy chains just like she used to”

“You hated it when she did that” I stated.

“Of course I did, she insisted on wearing the damn things around her head wherever she went!” He exclaimed, but his faraway smile gave him away. We both knew that she was the epitome of beautiful with the garlands draped in her sun-bleached hair.

“I don’t think I will”

“Probably for the best, we were never any good at making them anyway. Making daisy chains was definitely your Mother’s area of expertise” He sighed, that far-off look on his face again. I could almost see the flood of memories racing behind his muddy, brown eyes. “Along with everything else”

We sat in a serene silence for a while on the front porch, both aware of the space between us, even though our shoulders were touching. A space that was always there and neither of us seemed to be able to fill.

My father sighed once more and I saw him glance longingly at the solitary daisy before he got to his feet. “Well enough daydreaming, you’ll be late for school”

“You know, suddenly I’m not feeling so good” Clearing my throat for affect.

“Nice try kiddo” He laughed. “School, now!”

“Fine” I grumbled, exhaling dramatically. I started down the porch steps, before turning back to my Father. The sun was causing him to squint, accentuating the wrinkles around his eyes and the morning light shone through his thinning hair, glinting off the gray. He looked tired and he looked worn, but his expectant smile was still bright with life. “Love you Dad”

His smile turned into a grin, as he watched me tease the daisy from the ground and tuck it behind my ear.

***

I hastily made my way to my locker, feeling much more upbeat than yesterday. I could feel the dainty petals of the daisy tickling my skin and it reminded me of the kisses my Mother would place upon my cheek every morning before I left for school. The first day is always the worst I told myself.

“Today will be better” I whispered encouragingly under my breath, before stopping dead in my tracks.
The boy from yesterday—Frankie, the arrogant, wise guy— and three others, stood blocking my locker.

Perfect.

I silently scolded my Dad’s refusal to let me stay home. Damn him for not believing that I’d been struck with a sudden bout of nasty flu even when I was gasping and spluttering in his face. It seemed my fake cough wasn’t up to scratch.

I gathered my thoughts, took a deep breath and scrambled at the fading optimism I’d been feeling only mere seconds ago.

“Excuse me; you’re in the way of my locker”

“Hey it’s you! Elizabeth Rae” Wise guy announced, flashing me that infuriating smirk.

“You know calling me Elizabeth would be just fine”

“I could, but I think I like Blondie better. I was hoping you’d had a change of heart on that one?” I rolled my eyes.

“No? Fine let me think, let me think” He muttered, tapping his chin with his calloused index finger. “What’s your opinion on Lizzy? I like it, yes Lizzy it—“

“Don’t call me that” I snapped, interrupting his little rant. He flinched slightly and his smug smile faltered, and then came back just as quick as it had gone.

“Just call me Lilly. That’s what everyone calls me” I stuttered, my face growing hot as I remembered the other guys standing there. Smart mouth seemed to realise this too, he cleared his throat and flicked his long hair out of his eyes.

“Well Lilly, this is Gerard, Mikey and Ray” He pointed to them in order. “And guys this is Lilly, she’s new and just a heads up, but she likes to throw herself at people” I felt myself blush furiously as he recalled my clumsiness.

“Not even going to ask”, the one called Gerard stated. His hazel eyes were focused on me and I slowly met his stare. He wore his messy, dark hair in no particular style and was dressed head to toe in black, emphasizing his broad shoulders and muscular arms. He had an alluring, intense look about him and was attractive, if grunge was your thing.

“It’s nice to meet you. Where’re you from new girl?” I watched Gerard’s eyes contemplate my appearance as he waited for an answer, his brows furrowing in amusement when they fell upon the daisy tucked behind my ear.

“I just moved here from New York” I told him.

“Nice, welcome to the dark side Daisy Duke” He smirked, as I pulled at my bottom lip with my teeth fighting the urge to smile.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence” I teased.

Gerard was about to take a step closer to me before wise guy caught his attention. I’d almost forgotten he was there, his irritated tone confused me. “Dude, she wanted to get to her locker. Now stop hitting on her and let’s go”

“Chill Frank” Gerard berated his friend. “See you around Daisy”

Frank glared at Gerard, while the others said awkward goodbyes out of politeness. I glanced in Frank’s direction, expecting some taunting remark or sneer before we parted ways, but he didn’t even acknowledge me. His eyes stared ahead, as though I wasn’t even there.

Strange, I deliberated as I strolled to homeroom. I’d given myself plenty of time today to ensure that I wasn’t late and I knew vaguely where I was going. Really strange.

I was surprised at Frank’s sudden ability to not ridicule me, the guy obviously loved the sound of his own voice, so what could have caused him to finally stop running his mouth? Don’t get me wrong, it certainly made a nice change but in my books pure ignorance made you just as much of a jerk.

“Lilly!” Someone called my name apprehensively, as I went to take an empty seat towards the back of the classroom. There were plenty of vacant chairs this morning, thanks to my tactfully timed arrival and hardly any prying eyes as I was one of the first to enter the room.

I glanced up curiously, eyes searching for the person who seemed to know my name when my eyes fell on a familiar face from earlier. “Mikey, right?”

“Yeah that’s me, Frank’s friend. I recognised you from yesterday! You came in really late and looked totally lost” He chuckled, but it was different from the way Frank laughed at me. Mikey’s laugh was friendly and reassuring. “You can sit here if you want?”

I’m sure that it was meant to be more of a statement than a question, but he actually seemed unsure of whether I’d take him up on the offer. Of course I wasn’t going to turn it down. If someone actually wanted me—the new kid—to sit with them, I wasn’t going to deny them that.

“Yeah I’d like that” I replied, mirroring the small, sheepish smile that was now on his face. I took the seat next to him, desperately searching my mind for a conversation starter.

“I noticed that yesterday you had a Pumpkin’s shirt on! They’re one of my favourite bands!” Mikey announced and I smiled again; relieved that we had found some common ground. We chatted aimlessly for most of the hour about the music we liked. There was something about Mikey that made me feel comfortable, he was a sweet guy. He wore a pair of black rimmed glasses on the end of his nose, so that he was constantly pushing them up and his straight, dark hair lay flat around his slender face. He was scrawny and lean and had an awkwardness about him that was endearing.

“Sorry about my brother and Frank by the way, they’re both idiots” Mikey said sympathetically and I laughed.

“You and Gerard are brothers?”

Mikey raised his thick eyebrows and nodded.

“Gerard seems nice” I shrugged. “He’s older than us?”

“He’s a senior, so is Ray and as for the nice thing, it’s selective. Gerard can be a royal pain in the ass” Mikey explained, turning back to the paper he’d been drawing on for the past hour. I stared at the careless pattern defacing the paper.

As the bell for second period rang off the walls, echoing in my ears, I gathered up my things and Mikey turned to me. “You should sit with us at lunch; we meet near your locker”

“Sounds good” I replied in a non committal way, before heading to my next class. As I pushed myself through the crowds of people, I mulled over the idea of meeting them for lunch. I knew I wasn’t in any position to turn down potential friends and Mikey seemed like the kind of person that I could get along with, but the notion of voluntarily spending time in Frank’s presence didn’t fit too nicely with me. If he wasn’t being an egotistical wiseass, then he was just being plain rude and I couldn’t stand him.

You couldn’t help but notice how is hair is always falling into his big, brown eyes though could you?

I cursed furiously under my breath. It was the second disturbing thought I’d had about him. Yesterday after the pleasant experience with him and his girlfriend and now this? I disliked him far too much to be noticing his eyes. Shut up brain, just shut up!

The lunch period came around much quicker than I had anticipated. I was definitely still undecided about Mikey’s offer; the nerves were writing around in my stomach, however whatever my head was saying, my feet weren’t listening. I traipsed over to the lockers, praying Mikey would be the first there.

He wasn’t, Frank was. Just my luck.

He glanced up as I stood beside him and nodded. The action caused his hair to fall loosely around his features and as much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help but notice it. His hair, dark and glossy, could almost have been mistaken for jet black, but a sultry, deep brown could be seen around the edges as he shifted his stance slightly and the artificial light settled on each strand. He must have sensed that I was looking at him because he lifted his head, his hazel eyes lazily roamed from my feet to my face, where they met my stare. I could have sworn that his expression softened slightly, but we both looked away too quickly for me to be sure.

“Lilly, you came!” Mikey commented cheerfully, bounding towards us with Gerard and Ray in tow, a girl I didn’t recognise and one I did. Frank’s girlfriend. Mikey flashed me a friendly smile and linked his arm through mine, leading me towards the cafeteria.

I didn’t say much over lunch. The other girl’s name was Lucy, she was a sandy blonde, with a friendly smile and she seemed nice enough. She included me every now and then, asking me the occasional question about my school in New York and what I liked to do for fun, but most of the time she conversed with Frank’s girlfriend, Evelyn. She held Frank’s hand the entire time, only spoke a word or two to me and if she recognised me from yesterday, she didn’t show any signs of doing so. Mikey talked my ear off the whole time, he was chatting away to me about his favourite book when I heard Evelyn and Lucy discussing some boy that Lucy was contemplating asking out.

“So Lilly, have you seen anyone you like yet?” Lucy pried and everyone’s gaze fell on me. I looked up, unintentionally finding Frank and his eyes were locked on mine.

“Not really, I mean it’s only my second day” I spoke in a small, panicky voice.

“Really? Because I could have sworn you were flirting with Gerard this morning” I frowned at Frank’s austere comment, sending daggers with my glare.

“Is that true Lilly?” Lucy asked, her chestnut eyes wide and shining in delight at the prospect of gossip.

“No” Everyone’s attention on me was making the blood rush to my face, the air felt clammy and suffocating.

“She’s blushing, it must be true!” Lucy gushed, laughing zestfully. I shot a pleading look in Gerard’s direction.

“Not that I would blame her if she was, I mean look at me! But if anyone was doing the hitting on, it was me” Gerard shrugged, clearing up the little misunderstanding for everyone around the table. I couldn’t help but notice that Lucy looked more than disappointed at the news that this scandal was no more real than the fake, over the top, fuchsia nails glued to the ends of her fingers.

My gaze was about to drop to the flaking, formica tabletop, when something caught my eye; something tiny and yellow and white twisting between calloused fingers. My hand flew to my ear, where the daisy had once been and I narrowed my eyes at Frank, brows knitted together in resentment as he winked at me.