Daisy.

I missed Valentina.

The old Valentina, not the junkie mess she became. Just like our parents. If there was one person who I wished hadn’t, who shouldn’t have because she knew how divisive and horrible it was and what that kind of thing did to our minds, bodies, and souls, it would be her.

Maybe it was her way of coping.

I sat down at my table and tried to work on my article, blinking the tears away when they made my vision blurry. I worked for almost two hours on my first rough draft, growing more and more invested in what I was writing to distract myself from how I felt, but that was only a momentary distraction.

After I set away my laptop, I wandered into the closet, reaching into the very back of it to pull out a dusty powder blue shoe box. I picked it up and brushed the dust and cobwebs off it with trembling fingers, feeling its weight in my hands as I sat down with it on my bed. I pulled off the lid and coughed a little as the musty air hit me in the face. I pulled out the pictures with a pained smile, unable to stop the smooth flow of tears as I looked at our young faces, biting my lip.

Everything was okay then. Well, not really, but at least we had each other and at least we knew that we’d be okay, eventually. Maybe not that day or the next day or even the next week, but eventually we would.

We wore matching sweaters, curling our arms up in a funny pose with goofy grins on our faces. In another one, she was standing on our Aunt Mitzi’s deck, running off of it to jump into the lake. And then we were sticking out our tongues, cherry red and blueberry blue, and we were winking, holding up peace signs and pouting at whoever was taking the picture. Then there was one where she was looking away with a scowl on her face, staring at the wall with knitted eyebrows. I rubbed my thumb over her face, sniffling quietly as my chest heaved.

“One day we’ll be far way, and happy, and safe,” she’d tell me, wiping the blood from her swollen lip, “and we’ll tell ourselves, ‘This is paradise.’ And it’ll be so goddamn good and we’ll live like we should. We’ll change the world, baby girl, you and me. You’ll see. We’ll be okay and this’ll all be over one day.”

We were saving up for a loft space in Los Angeles—she had friends out there, she told me—and we were going to get away. Her boyfriend at the time, some older guy who worked at a record store in town, gave her his old Camaro when he bought an even older Mustang, and we hid it in the woods near our house. Sometimes when things got really bad and crazy, when our parents got a little carried away and we just couldn’t take it, we’d sneak out through the narrow window in our bathroom and run into the woods and hide out in the car, sit on the roof and stare at the sky for hours, talking about how great our new life was going to be.

I stopped on a picture of us in front of that car, grinning like the fools we were.

Even though we really couldn’t go very far with the car, it gave us the tiny taste of freedom we were dying for.

She promised me that as soon as we had enough money, we would hop on the next Greyhound. She packed our bags, old valises that must have belonged to the people who owned that house before we moved into it and pretty much destroyed it, and hid them in the closet behind all of our secondhand, raggedy looking clothes.

I never thought the day would come, but one day, it did. I remembered with hot tears, sobs ripping through me as I brought a hand up to my mouth, shaking my head at a picture of a laughing Valentina, holding two thumbs up at me without a care in the world on her pretty round face.

It was my fault.

We had the money stashed away in a false bottom of the nightstand in our room—we shared a room and our parents used the spare as a storage room (my mother had a problem with letting go of things)—buried beneath old books and papers and letters, in an old chocolate box.

One frigid December afternoon, I got called out of my math class to go down to the office with my things because I was going home early. I frowned in the hallway, pulling on my coat and hat as I shoved my belongings in my backpack. I didn’t have any doctors’ appointments that day, and even if I did, my parents wouldn’t have picked me up. I’d just have to cut class and take the city bus down to the clinic and fend for myself.

Something wasn’t right. I could feel it in my bones as I traveled in the empty, cold hallways, looking at the snow coating the ground outside quickly. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. In the office, a ruddy faced Valentina stood up quickly, nose ring catching the light from the fluorescent lighting above.

“Let’s go,” she said tightly, forging our mother’s name hurriedly in the sign out book. She rushed me outside and into the rusting red and blue Camaro, hopping in the driver’s seat hurriedly.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking at her as she drove through the blurring white streets frantically.

“We need to leave.”

“But—I—what?” I felt confused. Why now? Had something happened? What was even going on? I felt like I was in a dream, like time raced forward and came to a startling stop in surges, leaving me disoriented and confused.

“We’re leaving, Daisy,” she said, screeching to a halt at a red light. She dug around the glove compartment and pulled out two blocky grey and green tickets, handing them to me. “Look.” The small font on the shiny stub told me that our bus left at three and arrived in Los Angles sometime around midnight, after stops in Denver and Phoenix.

“We’re leaving?”

“We’re leaving, baby.” She kissed my forehead and drove to the house quickly, parking the car in the alley way behind the backyard. “But we’ve gotta go right now. Archie is dropping us off at the station and he’s going to be here any minute, okay?” We burst into the empty house, running like animals. Valentina tossed the bags at me, then started counting up the money, once, twice, and thrice, just be sure it was all there.

All eight thousand dollars, cash. She shoved some of it in my bag and the rest in her own bag, looking around quickly to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. She tucked my ticket in the front pocket of my bag and did the same with hers, sighing happily.

“We’re finally leaving, Daisy.”

She stilled when she heard someone step onto the porch.

“That must be Archie. I’ll be downstairs, come down when you’re ready, okay? But hurry, ’cause mom and dad should be here soon.” She kissed my forehead and left, thudding down the carpeted stairs.

I nodded, grabbing my heavy suitcase with two hands and started to drag it down the steps, but stopped short when I heard the familiar sounds of a fight in the living room. I crept quietly to the middle of the steps, avoiding the ones that creaked loudly if stepped on cautiously and peered inside, biting my lip, sweaty hands struggling to keep a firm grip on my things.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? Why aren’t you in school?” our father roared.

I blanched.

“We’re leaving.”

“Oh, like hell you are, young lady,” he spat back at her. He scoffed derisively as she tried pushing past him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m leaving with Daisy and we’re getting the hell out of here. You and mom are bat-shit insane, and we’re not taking it anymore.” His hand collided harshly against her cheek as his eyes clouded over, the same look in his eyes whenever he was drunk as he stepped towards her.

“What’d you call me?”

“We’re leaving!” she exclaimed. He pulled her by her hair and smacked her against the wall, starting to yell and curse her out loudly. I couldn’t take it anymore and raced down the stairs, trying to pull him off of her.

“No, you’re not!”

“Leave me alone!”

“Get over here!”

“Stop,” I cried, pulling on his white shirt. “Please! You’re hurting her!” I exclaimed, wrapping my hands around his as I tried pulling him away from her. “Please don’t.”

“Oh, so you’re really in on it too, huh?” He let her go and started in after me, cornering me as he swung at me. I kept trying to duck and bob and weave, staying out of his path until I had nowhere else to hide, finding myself in a corner, literally. His fist crashed with my upper cheek, cutting me with his wedding ring. “Who do you guys think you are, huh? We clothe you, we feed you, we keep a roof over your heads, and this is how you repay us? How ungrateful are you, huh?”

I whimpered in response, fighting with myself to not cradle my cheek and start screaming bloody murder, because that would only make it worse and it wouldn’t help matters at all. I still shake and cry when I think of it, even today. Before I even knew what was happening, Valentina was cracking one of our mother’s lamps across the back of his head, yelling at me to go.

“Just leave, Daisy!” she yelled, hitting him again.

She should have killed the bastard. Instead, she just pissed him off even more. I wanted to stay behind to protect her, and because I couldn’t just leave without her.

“What are you doing? Go!” she begged as he threw the lamp at her, catching her in the arm before it shattered on the ground.

“I can’t leave you!” I cried, hiccupping.

“Do this for me! Please!” He started knocking down things in his mad dash to get at her. She ran into the kitchen and I grabbed my things and fled, slipping and skidding on the ice outside. I lost track of how many times a car almost ran me over because I kept wandering into the freeway, unable to see because of the tears freezing on my cheeks. I almost missed the bus, but I wish I had, because it meant that I abandoned the person who had never once even thought about abandoning me and who was always there for me in my moments of need.

I walked down to the crafts store down the street and bought a photo album to put the pictures, because she deserved better than being shoved away in a box, all dusty and alone. I started to put them in the plastic slots. It didn’t take long for me to start crying, so I left the pictures on the table and went to my room, laying down on the bed with a heavy sigh, picking up the remote control and flicked on the TV.

I woke up to a frantic knocking on my door and realized that I must have fallen asleep. I pulled myself away from the comforting embrace of my bed and shuffled to the door, pulling my hair over my shoulder and a hat on my head as I opened the it, rubbing my eyes.

“Daisy,” Dash sighed, hugging me tightly after a chaste kiss. I opened my eyes and looked at him tiredly, confused at the worry on his face. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked with a frown, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t know about Valentina. He just knew she existed, and even that was too much. If he found out about her, about how I abandoned her and essentially ruined her, he’d run for the hills. If I had just been braver, she wouldn’t be where she is now, scared and alone and terrified and somewhere only god knows.

“I called you and you weren’t picking up or answering any of my texts, so I thought you were with Marina or one of the girls or something. So, when she came home with Sunny last night, I asked them if they had seen you. She told me that she thought that you were with me. Marina called you yesterday, but it kept going straight to voicemail. And then we all came over to see if you were okay, but no one answered the door, so we didn't know if you were even home or not. Apparently Marina’s spent her whole day trying to talk to you. She just called me and told me she was worried about you, so…” He shrugs. "Are you okay?"

“I’m fine,” I said, turning away from him. “Thirsty?” He shook his head, following me into the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water to soothe my dry throat, sighing as I looked at him. “How was work?” I asked.

“Fine. Where were you?”

“Here,” I answered, sitting on the counter, legs dangling. “I didn’t go anywhere. I don't have a car, remember? I can't really get around.”

“Then why didn’t you answer any of our calls? We’ve been worried sick about you!” he exclaimed.

“Because I didn’t, that’s why. I’ve had a crazy couple of days,” I said flatly, looking at him with a tiny scowl.

“What happened?”

“None of your business,” I said simply, gulping down my water. He made a face at me, crossing his arms across his chest. “What?”

“What am I supposed to make out of that?”

“Nothing. It has nothing to do with you, so I don’t see why you’re so mad about it at all.” I turned my nose up at him. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“I’m not mad, Daisy,” he sighed.

“You sound pretty mad,” I countered, hands on my lap.

“I’m not.”

“I think you are.”

“I’m not mad. I’m worried about you. There’s a difference,” he said, shaking his head. “I got scared and I thought something really did happen to you.” I frowned at the insinuation, scowling at him. I didn’t need this from him. Not from anyone.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing, I just—”

“What’d you think happened to me, huh?” I raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation.

“I thought you did something.”

“Like what?” He bit his tongue and I frowned even more at him, narrowing my eyes at him. “Say it.”

“Daisy, I—”

“Say it.”

“I thought you…” he trailed off, tugging on his lip.

“Say it,” I insisted, putting the glass in the sink.

“I thought you might have, um… hurt yourself or something,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. That was what I was afraid of—being unable to tell if he was with me because he actually wanted to be or because he was just scared that I was going to do something to myself if he wasn’t.

Or both.

It probably was both, I mused.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about me before you finally understand what I’m trying to tell you?” I asked, hands on my hips, irate and upset and frustrated with him and Valentina and everyone else. “I can take care of myself.”

“Can you? Can you, really? Because the Daisy I know doesn’t—”

“The Daisy you know?” I laughed, shaking my head at him as I slid off the counter, walking up at him. “You think you know me?”

“Yeah, I think I do,” he nodded.

“Really?”

“Yep.” He leaned in closer. “I’ve got you down to a science, Daisy.”

“Of course you do.”

“I do.”

“Care to share?” I asked, making a face at him as I stood in front of him, arms crossed across my chest. I called his bluff because he didn’t know me and I couldn’t believe he thought he did, and I’d have to make him see that everything he’d ever thought about me was wrong.

“You’re not,” he replied without missing a beat. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You never are.”

“Because there are some things you just don’t share with people.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t share either,” I quipped.

“Because you don’t ever ask.”

“I just did. You gonna tell me what you think you know now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t think I know. I know I know.”

“How very confident,” I murmured dryly, mouth in a line as I looked at him.

“Isn’t it?” He continued. “I think you’re scared. It doesn’t matter of what—you’re scared. This—us, me, you, being together, whatever this is—scares you and it doesn’t matter if I’m right or wrong because you’ll deny it anyway, which means I’m probably right. But nothing scares you, right? You want everyone to think you’re this brave girl when you’re actually falling to pieces. You do this self-depreciating thing for no reason because you think you don’t deserve it when someone tells you you’re beautiful or smart or whatever, but you are, so… I don’t get that one. You don’t talk about your past because you think if you don’t then you can pretend it never happened, but it still happened, so you might as well just talk about it. You’re afraid of committing to anything or anyone because you’re afraid they’ll leave you by the time you get around to finally committing to them.” He smiled. “How’d I do?”

“You don’t know me,” I replied icily, keeping my face still. Years of living with parents like mine taught me how to keep my cool and wits about me and how to make it look like I didn’t care and was completely unaffected even though I was falling apart inside. “You don’t.”

“Of course I don’t.”

“You don’t.”

“What happened, Daisy?”

“What part of we’re not talking about it did you not get?” I asked, almost at my wits end with him.

“The not talking about it part,” he replied. “Can you run it by me again?”

“Cute.”

“I try.”

“We’re still not talking about this.”

“Us? Or where you’ve been lately?” He shrugged. “Because, you know, I think they’re both worth an honest conversation.”

Us? So there was…something…between us. This ‘relationship’ was growing more and more complicated as time went on and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to un-complicate it.

“None of it.”

“Why do you get to decide what we can and can’t talk about?”

“Uh… since it had nothing to do with you, maybe?” I shook my head at him. "It's my life. Not yours. Not Marina's or anyone else's. That means I can handle it by myself."

“What do you think is going to happen if you tell me?”

He’ll run.

He’ll run far, far away from me and I won’t be able to get him back. I didn’t deserve him and I was working on borrowed time and I knew that, so I would try to make it last for as long as I could until I couldn’t anymore. He wasn’t making it very easy for me.

Maybe he was right.

“Nothing,” I gulped. “Nothing at all.”

“I want to know.”

“And I want a million bucks, but I don’t really have them, do I?”

“There’s a difference between telling me what happened to you and having a million dollars.”

“I was sick, okay? I just wasn’t feeling well and I shut my phone off because I wanted to get some rest. I think I might have caught something while we were in New York.” I rubbed my nose with my hand. He frowned as he narrowed his eyes at my hands, looking upset. “What is it now?”

“You did it again, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”

“Daisy.” He gave me a look and I shrugged, looking at him curiously.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying.” He paused. “You’re really bad at that, you know?”

“And you’re persistent.” I shot him a look. “You’re really good at that too.”

“Let me see your wrists.”

“No.”

“Because you did it again, didn’t you?”

“No.” He ran a hand through his hair, taking my wrist in his hands. I tried to wrench it away before he saw them, but he saw them anyway. “It’s my body and I can do whatever I want to it.”

“Jesus, Daisy.” He sighed, shaking his head as he let my wrists go. I wish he’d been angry or sad or something, anything but disappointed. Angry I could deal with, and sad too—anything would have been better than the crestfallen look on his face. “You promised you’d stop—”

“I promised I’d try—”

“And I believed you.”

“And whose fault is that?”

We were silent for a minute, breathing. He tugged at his lip and I kept mine in a line, trying to be firm.

“You’ve gotta stop, Daisy.”

“And if I don’t?” I countered quietly, looking at him.

“Why won’t you?” he begged, shaking his head me. “This is going to kill you one day, don’t you get it? You’ll die.”

“That’s kind of the point, Dash,” I said quietly, looking at the hurt pooling in his eyes.

“What?”

“I didn’t stutter, did I?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a horrible person,” I explained, shaking my head. “I told you that you don’t know me, even if you think you do.”

“I’m not going to stand here and watch you try to kill yourself, Daisy. I won’t be able to forgive myself if I did.” He held me close, resting his head on top of mine. “Whatever happened in the past happened, and I just want you to know that I forgive you, even if you won’t forgive yourself.”