“When he screws it up again like I know he will, I’ll help you fix the broken bits.” He tipped my chin up and forced me to look at him. “I’ll always be your friend, no matter what. I trust you, and that means something to me, too.”
Chapter Seven
SOMEHOW, I KNEW THE moment Daniel said the words that it would happen. I knew Ronin would ruin me before it was all said and done, yet I couldn’t stop myself from surging on with the plan. I knew I would break, but maybe that’s what I needed? My head knew it was a mistake, but my heart—oh, how my heart wanted to believe Ronin would come back to me. That he would change his mind, and he would suddenly love me again. It would be better than before, and all my worries would be for nothing.
But that’s the difference between knowing and caring. I knew, but I didn’t care. Perhaps I deserved whatever came my way, but good or bad, I wasn’t slowing down. Thank goodness it was Saturday. I could finally take a break from pretending the entire debacle didn’t bother me and just be miserable about it.
My father was working a double shift at the hospital, so it was just us girls. Dizzy practically lived at our house, so when she and Rose came into my room in a fit of giggles, I wasn’t surprised.
“Hazel, Mom wants to take us shopping. You game?” Rose asked as she poked me in the ribs.
“I don’t wanna. I wanna be miserable all day,” I whined.
“You didn’t seem so miserable with Daniel yesterday,” Dizzy said. “What’s going on with him?”
“Yes, please, do tell. What’s it like to kiss... What is Daniel exactly? A nerd? A bad boy?” Rose asked, working as hard as I had to put Daniel into a neat little box, but I knew better now. Daniel Starnes could not be put into a box, because there wasn’t a box good enough for him. He was too smart to be categorized, and now that I knew why it made a lot more sense. Nothing about high school was normal for him since he already knew what he was doing for the rest of his life.
“I wouldn’t say he’s a bad boy or a nerd, more like a... I don’t know. Nice,” I said.
“He’s nice? Is that a category?” Dizzy questioned.
“No, I mean, kissing him is nice. It’s... different,” I admitted. “It’s not like kissing Ronin.”
“Is nice a good thing?” Rose asked, and I suddenly realized where their little interrogation was leading.
“Guys, I’m not dating him. We have an arrangement. I get him a date to prom, and he helps me make Ronin jealous. Speaking of prom dates—”
“Do not look at me,” Dizzy said. “I hate dances, and I have zero plans to go to prom. Besides, you should go with him.”
“Me? No, with any luck, I’ll be going with Ronin,” I said as I rolled to my side and pushed up. I sat in bed, hair a mess, looking at two people who clearly misjudged the nature of my relationship with Daniel. “Guys, he’s helping me with calculus, and I’m helping him with French. Besides that, all we’re doing is plotting and scheming.”
“Really? How much plotting and scheming has been accomplished?” Dizzy asked.
I thought about it, and come to think of it, we hadn’t really come up with a game plan. Besides those few kisses, we’d done nothing, and my plans to set him up with a date for prom blew up in my face left and right.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said when I failed to offer a reply. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to fight it, or to explain why I wanted Ronin back, the two of them were hooked on Daniel and they weren’t letting go any time soon, which was why I was so happy to see my mother appear in my doorway.
“You coming, Hazel? Shopping and lunch, what do you say?” she offered, but I still wasn’t feeling it.
“I think I’ll pass this time, but thank you,” I mumbled, pulling the covers up and settling back into my bed.
“Nope, sorry. It was a rhetorical question, and you answered incorrectly. The whole reason for the trip is to cheer you up, so get your butt up and get dressed so we can go have some fun, child of mine,” Mom said, waving her hands as if, magically, it would make me want to move.
I sighed and laid my head on my sister’s knee. “You heard the woman. May as well get it over with,” Rose said as she played with my hair. “It can’t hurt, right?”
“It all hurts, Rose,” I said, slowly rising from the comfort of my bed, forced to tackle the day, want to or not. I mumbled and grumbled as I gathered my clothes, then grumbled some more as I showered and dried my hair.
Somehow, we ended up at the mall though I didn’t remember much of the ride there. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for me to find my stride with them, rummaging through the racks of clothing, laughing at Dizzy’s impression of our history teacher, and listening to my mother crack jokes about my father’s snoring habit.
In all, the day hadn’t been so bad. It was a slow start, but girl time made it all better. I’d almost forgotten about Ronin McKinsey altogether, but then he had to go and show up—with her. It was all very confusing, especially since he’d been swapping spit with another girl the day before, but there was no mistaking that blonde hair. Sara draped herself over him, ignored the uncomfortable look he gave her and rambled on about who knew what.
“Neither one of them are worth your time, Hazel. You’re too good for them,” Rose whispered, but the damage was done. Whether I was too good for them or not wasn’t the point. I wanted Ronin, and he had clearly moved on.
“She’s right. Don’t let him do this to you.” Dizzy wrapped her arm around my shoulders, turning me away from the sight of my former best friend hanging all over my former boyfriend. All of our other mutual friends were with them. Though, I assumed they were all Ronin’s friends now since not one stuck by me. Not one.
“I wonder if Sara wandered into traffic if the rest would follow her?” my mother asked, narrowing her green eyes at Sara. “I might be willing to push her into traffic to test the theory.”
“Mom!” Rose exclaimed.
“What? She hurt my daughter. You wait until you have kids, many, many years from now, and you’ll see. One day, you’ll be tempted to push a teenage girl into traffic for your own child,” Mom argued. I loved her for it. There was a small part of me that knew, if I didn’t watch her closely, she might seriously consider pushing Sara in front of a semi-truck during rush hour traffic.
“I think it’s time for food. Anyone else?” Mom asked.
“Yes, please,” I said, dragging my eyes away from the horrific, cliché scene in front of us.
Mom waited until we were elbow-deep in cheeseburgers to begin her speech. She always made sure we had our mouths full before she started those since we would just roll our eyes and argue with her otherwise.
“See girls, the thing about a broken heart is this... they happen,” Mom said with a shrug.
“Brilliant, Mom. Really brilliant,” Rose said, rolling her eyes while stealing a few of my waffle fries.
“Hush. Let me finish. All three of you should take notes. Broken hearts happen, it’s a fact of life. If you don’t get your heart broken at least once in your life, then you haven’t truly lived. But you have a choice when it happens. You can let it tear you apart, or you can move on. The world keeps on moving right around your heart, and it doesn’t care much how you feel.”
“So, shake it off, right?” I asked. Her trademark advice for most of our lives had been to shake it off. If I shook as often as she suggested, I’d shimmy right out of my skin. Get a bad grade? Shake it off. Get into a fight with a friend? Shake it off. Fall from your treehouse when you’re eleven and break your arm? Shake it off.
“Heavens no. You don’t shake off a broken heart, Hazel. You spackle it back together and try again,” she said, placing her fork on the table. “Girls, there’s no point in wasting a broken heart. Use it. Learn from it, then put it back together stronger than before, a little wiser, and hopefully give it to the right person the next go-around. The right guy won’t care what it looks like, or how badly beaten it was before he came along, as long as it’s
his.”
“You say that from experience?” Dizzy asked, curiosity eating at her.
“Oh, yes. My heart was blown to smithereens many times before I met the girls’ father. It doesn’t even hurt to think of those times now, because I’ve found him.”
“Easier said than done, I think,” I said, stuffing the last fry into my mouth before Rose could steal it.
“I didn’t say it was easy, only that it should be done. Now, let’s blow this popsicle stand and catch a movie, what do you think?” Mom asked.
Rose and Dizzy were up for it, but I had some thinking to do. I had reached a crossroads, and I wasn’t sure which path was the right one for me and my broken, needing to be spackled, heart. “I think I need some time alone to think. Can I meet you later?”
“Sure, honey, don’t be out too late,” Mom said.
“Here,” Dizzy said. “Borrow my car. I’m staying over tonight anyway.”
I gave her a confused look. “I’m just gonna walk around the mall for a while. I’m not leaving.” She shoved the keys at me again.
“Just in case.” With that, the three of them went one direction while I stood trying to decipher the enigma that was Dizzy. I pocketed her keys and began wandering through the mall. I was careful to head in the opposite direction of Ronin and the lemmings. Ronin had seemed downright miserable, yet he didn’t push Sara away when she kissed his cheek or draped over him.
And who was the mystery girl in the hall? Why was he kissing her one minute, and seemingly with Sara the next? How did he move on so fast? Had he been cheating on me? No, Ronin was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a cheater—that much I was sure of.
I knew Ronin was angry when I kissed Daniel, but if he didn’t want me, then why was he upset? None of it made any sense, and my head hurt thinking about it. My phone rang, frazzling my nerves. I almost ignored it but thought it could be my mother, so I checked it. It was Daniel. I debated answering the call. Daniel was great, but he wasn’t so good at understanding my feelings where Ronin was concerned.
I answered before I could change my mind again. “Hey, Daniel.”
“Peaches! I’m bored. Come save me from my boring life,” he said dramatically.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Dan—” The line went dead before I could respond, and almost immediately, I got a text message from him.
Come over. You can’t turn me down through text, Peaches. It’s rude.
What a doofus. I certainly could, and it’s what I intended to do. I needed time alone to think, and Daniel would be just fine without me. I typed a reply, but just as I was about to tap send, I got another message.
Come over, pleeeeeeaaaase???
I tried to tap send again, but more messages came through.
Please
Please
Please
Please
Please, with a cherry on top??
I groaned and deleted the message I’d intended to send, then typed another and tapped send before he could barrage me with more begging emojis.
How Dizzy knew I’d leave the mall was beyond me, but it was lucky I had her keys. I barely remembered the way to Daniel’s house, probably because I was screaming the last time I rode there, so I had to call him three times to verify I was going the right way. He met me outside, his drama in full force by the time I parked.
“I thought you’d never get here!” He flung himself on me, behaving like a vapored southern belle.
“Where is your sister?” I asked when he finally let me go and led me inside.
“She’s with my mom driving to Jacksonville,” he said. He was already head-first in the fridge to get me a drink.
“Jacksonville? Florida?”
“Yeah, to the Mayo Clinic. Apparently, there’s some experimental treatment for my sister’s condition, so they have an interview with them Monday morning,” he said, handing me the water and snacks I probably wouldn’t eat since the cheeseburger was already settling all wrong.
“Why did she leave so early?” I followed him down the hall to his bedroom though we had the entire house to ourselves it seemed.
“I don’t know, Peaches. I just live here.” Daniel flopped on the bed and flipped on the television. He settled in and patted the space beside him. “I won’t bite you. Not too hard, anyway.”
I rolled my eyes and sat on the bean bag chair. I took a sip of water, then asked, “What about your Dad? Did he go with them?” It never occurred to me that his family situation was any different from mine—Mom, Dad, sister... maybe a dog—but I was wrong.
“What dad? He bailed when Becca was two years old, and I haven’t seen him since,” he said as he flipped through the channels. He didn’t seem all that shaken over it, but I still felt like a jerk for bringing it up.
“Oh. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, Peaches. You’re not the one who ran off with your much younger assistant, leaving your wife to raise two kids on her own, are you?” He paused the television on a movie we were evidently watching, waiting for my brilliant comeback, but it wasn’t coming. I’d never tease him about his father running out.
“Still, I’m sure it’s difficult not having a father around.” Dig deeper, why don’t you, Hazel? I was anxious, so I searched for words to fill the space, but they were all wrong. I didn’t want to put him on the spot, but it seemed my brain and my mouth couldn’t quite get on the same page.
“Nah, not really. Mom’s great, probably better at the dual parenting role than most single moms. She’s done a good job playing Dad when necessary, except that whole debacle with the sex talk. That was awful.”
“The... the what?” Surely it wasn’t what he meant. I’d heard wrong.
“You know, the birds and the bees? How babies are made and all that?” he asked, waving his hand, indicating that I should be able to keep up with the discussion.
“Your mom gave you the talk? I guess that’s not so bad, really.” I imagined there were loads of other ways for guys to learn that would be even more uncomfortable than having their mother tell them.
“Yep. Becca and me... at the same time.”
And... that would be one of those ways.
“Oh, gosh.” I giggled loudly, suppressing the snort I felt coming because I was laughing so hard. “That must have been horrible. I remember when my mom tried to give the talk to Rose and me. It was a disaster of epic proportions, and when she was done, I swear it felt like she wanted us to run out and get pregnant.”
Daniel stopped laughing, his stare deathly serious. “Did you?”
I stopped laughing myself and stared at the insane boy. “Are you serious right now? Have I, at any time, appeared pregnant to you?”
“I don’t know. Do you think I spend all my time watching you, Peaches?” His tone sounded disinterested, sarcastic even, but the tint on his cheeks gave me pause. Why was he blushing? This was our usual banter, our thing as he called it. I decided I liked the way it looked on his cheeks and wanted to see if I could make it a deeper red.
“I don’t know. Do you spend all your time thinking about me, Daniel?” I asked, hoping to be rewarded for my efforts with more blushing, but he changed the subject.
He cleared his throat and unpaused the movie. After a few minutes, he said, “Well, at least you didn’t screw up and sleep with Ronin.” It was an odd statement, one he couldn’t have been sure of, and, frankly, it was out of line for him to even mention it. When I didn’t respond right away, he looked my way with an expression of concern. “Wait... You didn’t, did you?”
“Is that really any of your business?” I asked, only slightly offended, but far more intrigued by the look of worry on his face. I was glad I hadn’t for many reasons, not the least of which was the promise Rose and I had made to each other—we’d wait until marriage, even if it meant breaking up with a guy who wanted something we wouldn’t give him.
Daniel realized he’d overstepped and backpedaled. “I suppose not. Sorry. That convers
ation sort of got away from us, didn’t it? Anyway, yeah, Mom plays the role of both parents, and Becca—”
“I almost did,” I whispered, interrupting him. What was I doing? Why was I about to tell him the truth when thirty seconds ago I thought it was none of his business?
He sat up straight on the bed, his undivided attention planted on me. “Wh-what?”
“Ronin. I almost did... You know. I planned to the night of our first anniversary, but we both know how that ended, so... I’m glad I didn’t, though. I would have broken a promise to my sister if I had... had done that...” I trailed, still unsure why I told him to begin with.
“Oh,” he said quietly, his demeanor almost comforting in a quiet, sweet way. He seemed pleased, yet afraid to let it show. “Bullet dodged then, I guess.”
“Yeah. I guess.” I wanted to fall in a hole, any hole would do so long as it was deep and dark.
Daniel reached down and brushed his thumb over my cheek. “Peaches?”
“Yeah?” I whispered.
“It’s gonna get better. I promise,” he said. “And try not to forget this because it’s important—no guy is worth breaking a promise to your sister, and none of us are worth you putting your values on the line for. That said, I know the right guy will come along for you.” He sat and draped his legs over the edge of his bed while I stayed frozen in the giant bean bag chair.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because I know everything,” he said with a smirk.
“You don’t know everything, Daniel.”
“My IQ begs to differ.”
I rolled my eyes again. “Just because you’re a genius doesn’t mean you know everything. What if Ronin never wants to talk to me again?”
“Then it’s his loss, and you’ll find someone better. Isn’t that obvious?”
“You make it sound so easy, but it’s not,” I argued.
“I make it sound easy because I’ve done it. It’ll hurt for a while, maybe a long while, but eventually, you realize you’re not going to get what you want, and you move on. Do yourself a favor, and get through that first phase fast, and the rest will fall into place soon enough.” His anger and resentment were evident in the bite of his words. Someone truly hurt him at some point, and despite his argument that he was over it, I suspected he was not.
I'm Pretty Sure You're Gonna Miss Me Ronin McKinsey Page 7
