Page 20 of The Summer I First Saw You
She’s brought all of this on herself, and guilt tweaks me anyway. I walk to the threshold of the bathroom, where she’s curled up on the floor, her face pressed to the tile.
“Daisy, go back to bed,” I say softly.
“Just leave me behind!” she cries as if this is a war movie. “Save yourself!”
I laugh. “I’m pretty sure what you have isn’t contagious. Come on.” I scoop her up. She feels tiny, fragile, in my arms. “Let’s get you into bed.”
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she mumbles.
I grin as I set her on the mattress. “Have you looked in the mirror today? You’re not exactly the height of seduction at present. And you smell like vomit.”
She buries her head into her pillow. “Let me brush my teeth. You’ll change your tune.”
“Absolutely,” I reply. “That’s all it would take. I’m getting you aspirin. Stay put.”
I go downstairs, deeply annoyed that she’s done this to herself on my behalf, but warmed by it at the same time. Daisy and her ridiculously big heart. Apparently, I’m the three-legged dog she’s going to cry over all summer, and I guess I need to resign myself to that fact.
When I get back to the room, she’s half asleep and has to be forced into swallowing the pills before she collapses on her pillow.
I push her hair back from her face.
Christ. When did she turn so beautiful? When did she develop those cheekbones? That pout? Even now, sweating andpale, she’s so pretty she’s hard to look away from and hard to look at all at the same time.
Liam warned us off his sister. He never felt he needed to warn us away from his niece.
I hate that it was apparently necessary.
12
DAISY
God, I hate DC.
From November until April and sometimes May, the air is cold, the trees are mostly bare, and the sunlight is weak if it’s present at all. There are no waves here, no endless vistas, no gentle breezes.
There are cars. A lot of fucking cars. Not a night goes by when I’m not woken by the sound of sirens, or honking, or drunks yelling as they stumble down the sidewalk outside. Sometimes I want to weep with the desire for fresh air, sunlight, crashing waves.
The phone rings. It’s my mom, and I’m not sure I can summon the energy to talk to her, but it’s her second call, and by not answering, I’m digging a bigger and bigger hole, one that will require better lies, more good cheer.
I push my arm from my comforter, cringing at the apartment’s chill as I reach for the phone.
“Hi, Mom,” I say.
“You sound like you were asleep,” she frets. “Didn’t you have class this morning?”
My eyes fall closed. It’s getting harder to keep all my lies straight. “Our prof cancelled. She’s sick. Covid, I think.”
It’s best to give her more information than she’s requested—it keeps her from coming up with questions of her own.
“But it’s going well?”
My hand curls into a fist to keep the crack out of my voice. “Yeah. Just tired of winter.”
I want to pull my arm back inside this unwashed comforter and sleep until it’s over, though I’m starting to wonder if that will ever happen.
There’s a beat of awkward silence, her waiting for me to fill in the gaps. My poor mother, wanting so much for me and being consistently disappointed with the outcome. “Do you know when they’ll send details about graduation?” she asks. “I want to book plane tickets before it gets expensive.”
Fuck. I knew this was coming. I just thought I had time, though I’m not sure what I thought time would accomplish. Maybe I hoped I’d have grown a pair by now, but that was always unlikely.
