Page 71 of In the Danger Zone
“Yeah?”
“Itoldyou n-not to do that. I don’t want the m-money.”
“I’m gonna sound like a huge prick right now, but ten thousand dollars isn’t that much money for me,” I explained. My dad would call that chump change. Mom too. Me as well.
“Y-You wrote a check for ten thousand dollars?” She gasped. “You’re crazy.”
“I just wanna help you, baby.”
“With ten thousand dollars?”
“That should help your parents out, right?”
Daisy frowned, laying back down on my chest. “I’m n-not sending it to them. Or cashing it. I’m gonna rip it up.”
“Don’t do that. All my hard work writing that thing will get wasted. I don’t even know how checks work, honestly.”
“You’re silly,” she whispered.
“Yeah. But I wanna help.”
I held Daisy tight. I was determined to keep her safe forever. To keep anyone who put her down far, far away from her. No one was going to get close to Daisy to hurt her again. No one.
Not when I was around.
Chapter 32
DAISY
“You’re a drama magnet,” Leena said with a laugh.
“I didn’t m-mean to start any of this.” My hands ghosted over the books on the shelves. I was on the hunt for a very specific one for my latest Contemporary Art essay. I wanted to read it before the next class. “Plus that’s what happens at hockey games. They fight! It’s a n-normal thing!”
I was still trying to process the game from the other night. It had taken a lot to get Evan to calm down after I had confessed to him aboutthatpart of my life. I knew it wasn’t a simple thing to process. It wasn’t just casual, everyday news.
But I truly had not been expecting to witness Evan let Asher get destroyed on the ice like that. I had never seen Asher get attacked before. It felt odd to have someone teach him a lesson, and I knew that Evan so badly wanted to be the person to do it. But at least he didn’t have to get his hands dirty.
“Uh, yeah. And usually your teammates help you out when you’re getting your ass kicked,” Leena continued, her back up against the shelves. “Does Asher have a secret crush on you or something? Is that why he’s such an asshole to you? ‘Cause he doesn’t know how else to handle his emotions?”
My head snapped to her. “N-No.”
“I was just joking.” Leena’s smiled faded away. “I know he’s a prick.”
“He would n-never, ever like m-me like that. He… He…”
“He what?”
I moved closer to Leena. The section of the library we were in was mostly empty. I didn’t want anyone overhearing what I was about to tell her. That part of my life was almost always better off being kept a secret. All the shame and embarrassment made me feel that way, but I had learned that Leena could be trusted.
“I n-never told you about how m-me and A-Asher went to school together,” I said the words quietly, like he was gonna pop up behind me all of a sudden.
“Wait, what?” Her eyes grew big. “Is that what he meant when he said you two went way back?”
“He loved giving m-me a hard time. B-But he wasn’t just a regular, old b-bully. It wasn’t just him b-being m-mean and saying stuff about m-me and m-my stutter. He got… He got physical a lot,” I mumbled.
“Ugh.” Leena frowned. “Daisy, I’m sorry.”
“He got really v-violent. Scary v-violent. Sometimes to other students too, to people who he thought were easy targets, I guess. And I was one of those people. He seemed to hate m-me the m-most out of everyone,” I muttered. There was just something about me that Asher really, really didn’t like. Getting the brunt of his anger was something I was used to.
