“No,” I said more forcefully than I intended. I wasn’t angry with Dolly.
Although she had kept this from me until now, so maybe I should’ve been. In fact I definitely should’ve been.
“Dolly, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew it would make you upset. There is no use trying to change what’s done.”
“No use? Would make me upset? I am way past upset. I don’t want special accommodations. I don’t want my own room. I don’t want to be treated differently,” I hollered.
“Daisy, calm down. This isn’t the end of the world.”
How could I explain that it wasn’t the end of the world, it was a continuation of the same world.
And that was the problem.
I wanted to be Daisy Payton here, not Daisy Payton.
Because Daisy Payton played a mean game of spades, and knew how to cornrow in every direction. She had a natural head for figures, and could even do three digit multiplication in her head. She loved the Temptations and could cut a rug on the dance floor with the best of them. She could bake better than your eighty-five-year-old granny. She studied geography for fun. She got a four-point-oh during the worst year of her life. She was good with potted plants but terrible in the garden; weeds were foes she could not defeat. She’d been kissed twice. Once was awful and once was amazing, so amazing that she did it again, and then again—so really four times, but three of the kisses happened in one session. And she wanted opportunities to roll that fifty-fifty dice again to find out how the next kiss would be.
But Daisy Payton?
Daisy Payton had a powerful father. (That poor man.)
Daisy Payton was a rich girl. (She’s not but it doesn’t matter if people think you are.)
She had a dead brother, who got murdered in Vietnam. (What a useless war.)
Daisy Payton had a mother who was there and then *poof* was gone from breast cancer. (Poor Daisy.)
Daisy Payton went from rich girl to poor girl. Poor little rich girl that everyone looked at with pity.
And she hated it.
She hated that everyone, everyone thought they knew her.
She hated the assumption that if they hurt with her, or worse, for her, then it made the pain better, as if that made it the entire community’s pain; when it absolutely didn’t.
She hated that she still read and reread the letters from her brother. Some of the pages had wrinkles from being crumpled in fits of anger because oh, she was so angry when he left. And then she felt guilty and stupid and horrified that she’d almost destroyed his letters when they were all that was left. Some were starting to show signs of age, yellow in some spots and the ink fading in others, and she hated that too because how could so much time have passed without him?
And she hated that her mother had been helping her shop for homecoming dresses and was buried before Thanksgiving.
No junior prom dress shopping. No junior prom.
She barely remembered her senior year; she didn’t even make it to find out she got into Fisk.
It had spread so fast.
She hated that her friends and family and perfect strangers spoke to her in hushed tones and assumed she was broken.
She hated they were right.
Because the ache inside her was relentless. It constantly missed her brother. It constantly missed her mother. It would not abate. It could not be moved. She was thoroughly, horribly, broken and all that brokenness was put up for examination by an entire town. And that just couldn’t happen here.
For the whole of her life, the whole of Green Valley and treated her differently, and she absolutely hated it.
But she wasn’t in Green Valley now. And Daisy Payton had a plan.
She would have a roommate, her father’s meddling be damned. No one would ever know she was the daughter of the owner of largest lumber mill in eastern Tennessee because she was going to do what everyone else did with their influential connections. Hide them.
And she was going to do what everyone else did with their hurts and disappointments. Tuck them away and ignore them till they didn’t hurt anymore.
She was going to be just like everyone else.
But first she was going to get rid of Dolly.
** END SNEAK PEEK **
Pre-Order Upsy Daisy Now!
Other Books by Piper Sheldon
The Unseen Series:
The Unseen (Unseen, Book #1)
The Untouched (Unseen, Book #2) Coming Fall 2020, add to your Goodreads now!
* * *
The Scorned Women's Society
My Bare Lady (Book #1)
The Treble With Men (Book #2)
Other Books by Smartypants Romance
Green Valley Chronicles
The Donner Bakery Series
Baking Me Crazy by Karla Sorensen (#1)
Stud Muffin by Jiffy Kate (#2)
No Whisk, No Reward by Ellie Kay (#3)
Beef Cake by Jiffy Kate (#4)
Batter of Wits by Karla Sorensen (#5)
* * *
The Green Valley Library Series
Love in Due Time by L.B. Dunbar (#1)
Crime and Periodicals by Nora Everly (#2)
Prose Before Bros by Cathy Yardley (#3)
Shelf Awareness by Katie Ashley (#4)
Carpentry and Cocktails by Nora Everly (#5)
Love in Deed by L.B. Dunbar (#6)
* * *
Scorned Women’s Society Series
My Bare Lady by Piper Sheldon (#1)
The Treble with Men by Piper Sheldon (#2)
* * *
Park Ranger Series
Happy Trail by Daisy Prescott (#1)
Stranger Ranger by Daisy Prescott (#2)
* * *
The Leffersbee Series
Been There Done That by Hope Ellis (#1)
* * *
The Higher Learning Series
Upsy Daisy by Chelsie Edwards (#1)
* * *
Seduction in the City
Cipher Security Series
Code of Conduct by April White (#1)
Code of Honor by April White (#2)
* * *
Cipher Office Series
Weight Expectations by M.E. Carter (#1)
Sticking to the Script by Stella Weaver (#2)
Cutie and the Beast by M.E. Carter (#3)
The Treble With Men Page 31
