Page 30 of Sweet
She was ungrateful.
She was throwing away her future.
Daisy knocked on Spider’s door, confused when it took him so long to respond. His car was in his parking spot, but he did like to walk; maybe he was out.
She knocked again. “Spider?” The door swung open and the smell of cigarette smoke made her nose twitch. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
Daisy looked up, blinking her swollen eyes. “I told my parents.”
He went utterly still. “Told your parents what?”
She was so tired. All she wanted was to snuggle into Spider’s pile of pillows and have her secret boyfriend—who wasn’t exactly a secret anymore—cuddle her. “Can I come in?”
He nearly jerked her arm, pulling her into the house. “What did you tell them?”
She looked around and tried to think through her exhaustion and head fog. “You were smoking inside?”
Spider smoked, but he was fastidious and he didn’t like ashes on his floor or smoke in his clothes. She’d never even seen him smoke inside.
Daisy turned and looked at him. “What’s going on?”
For the first time since she’d known him, she couldn’t read his face. He was wearing a mask she didn’t recognize.
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat and walked over, putting his arms around her. “Tell me what happened with your parents.”
She put her head on his chest and her arms around his waist, glad that he sounded more normal. “I told them I didn’t turn in the transfer applications. And that I wanted to stay in Metlin and I didn’t want to go to school anymore; I want to run the café.”
His arms tightened around her. “You didn’t turn in the applications?”
She sighed. “Don’t you get mad at me too.”
“I asked you, like, two weeks ago, and you told me you’d finished them.”
“I did finish them. I just didn’t…” Daisy’s eyes fell on a black duffel bag sitting by the closet. She lifted her head and frowned. “What is that?”
“What’s what?” Spider’s head followed hers. “Um… I was cleaning out my closet.”
“Why?”
Spider hardly owned any clothes. Daisy had seen him wear three different shirts and three different pairs of jeans, all meticulously folded. He had two white T-shirts and two black ones. And he needed to clean out his closet?
She took a step back. She hadn’t been looking when she came in, but there was something different about the room. “Spider, what’s going on?”
She saw the trash neatly bagged by the door. The dishes were washed and dried on the shelf. The TV was off and the bed was made. One pillow was sitting on the edge, clearly placed there next to Spider’s black canvas jacket.
She looked and saw that the gold medallion that had hung on the wall next to the sink was gone, along with the prayer card of Saint Luke.
Her heart began to race. “You’re leaving.”
Daisy looked at Spider, and he didn’t deny it.
He didn’t deny it.
I left LA in twenty minutes, princesa. I could probably do it in half the time now.
She turned in a circle, feeling like her world had tilted sideways. “You’re leaving Metlin.”
