Page 47 of Like A Daydream
“I would flirt, and he would flirt back,” she says with a shrug. “It was to the point where a lot of people thought we were together, and I was so gone for him.”
She looks out the front window of his truck, leaning her head back against the seat.
“It was stupid teenager stuff, but I thought for sure he was going to ask me out,” she says, “and I was going to have it all. The grades, the guy, the friends. Everything I was supposed to have, everything that made me impressive. That’s what I wanted more than anything, back then.”
He gets that, in a way. Wanting to have it all so that you can be a step ahead of everyone else. So that people will look at you differently, and even want to be you sometimes. He doesn’t think it’s worth the cost.
“What happened?”
“Jet showed up holding Ainsley’s hand on a random Monday after one of his games, and it was all over,” she says with a shrug, “and after that I made her life miserable without any thought of how my behavior was hurting her. I was hurt, so I wanted her to hurt, too.”
“And she internalized the hurt,” Andrew says with a nod, “and it’s been this way ever since.”
“Okay, therapy,” she teases, kicking a bare foot up on his dashboard. He grins, because if this isn’t a country song come to life, he doesn’t know what it is.
“Fourteen years of it,” he says with a laugh.
“You actually go?” she asks, head swiveling towards him, eyes wide.
“I have to,” he says, shrugging. “If I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to handle anything that happens during the hockey season, and I especially wouldn’t be able to have gotten through this past one.”
“When are you going to tell me about that?” she asks, raising a brow.
“When you’re done telling me about this JT, Ainsley, you dynamic so I know what I’m getting myself into.”
“By the time that happens, we’ll be there.”
“Then you’ll have to be patient.”
“Patience isn’t what I’m known for,” she replies, “if you haven’t figured that out by now.”
“I have,” he says, “but keep telling me.”
“Ainsley also found out that Jet and I almost hooked up after she broke up with him. That definitely did not help.”
“She mentioned that.”
“It was stupid,” Danielle says, watching as he turns onto JT’s road, the mountains rising in the distance. He’d gotten used to this view, but at golden hour it still takes his breath away.
“He was single,” she says, “I was single, and I thought I could finally have everything that I’d wanted. That I’d worked for. I ran my parent’s business, I was successful. He was there. I went for it, and then threw it in her face because when she came back in town, everything I’d built my life on until that point felt like it crumbled.”
He doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue.
“I always wanted to be this person who everyone looked at and went ‘wow, she has it all’,” she says, “it’s probably part of how I was raised.”
She pauses again, taking a breath before continuing. “My parents were pretty cut-throat when it came to making sure I got everything that I wanted, and more. When you live your whole life following the example of others, there’s a lot of unlearning you have to do. By the time you figure it out, you’ve burnt a lot of bridges and hurt a lot of people in the process.”
“Well, consider this your first step at healing,” Andrew says, parking his truck in JT’s driveway. “It’s going to be fine.”
He jumps out and runs to the other side of the truck, grabbing her door before she can even get her seatbelt off, and she sends him a shy smile as she jumps down.
“I always forget how unnecessarily massive this house is,” she says with a huff as they head around the side of the house to the backyard. Sokka and Roscoe come charging toward them from the fire pit, barking like they’ve never seen Andrew before. When they reach him, they jump around him in a circle before taking off again.
Danielle walks slightly behind Andrew, as if he’ll be able to keep her hidden, and he leads her deeper into the back yard.
JT and Ainsley are already outside, Ainsley in JT’s lap as the fire dances in front of them. They’re talking about something quietly, Ainsley throwing her head back in laughter at something JT says.
She catches Andrew’s eye and he offers a small wave. Ainsley waves back, and JT looks at them over his shoulder.
