“I hated you, too.” She darts up, pushing me and taking a step forward. “Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s the truth. Even before I knew you ruined my letter, I hated you. I hated you for looking at her with starry eyes every time you waited on the corner to pick me up after ballet class. I saw you falling in love with her before you even realized what your stupid ass was doing. And she was the enemy. You fell for my downfall.”
Clamping my mouth shut, I rub the back of my neck. All this time, I thought Daria was a bitch for doing what she did to Via. I never stopped to consider that my sister gave her a run for her money even back then. Via always covered for her shortcomings by being mean. These two were awful to each other, and Daria just happened to stumble upon something big she could ruin for Via.
If Via had found an identical letter, she would have destroyed it, too.
“I’m done with you.” I turn around, walking away. I hear her wild footsteps gaining on me. She’s tugging at my sleeve, falling to her knees in front of me, and I’m forced to stop.
“Penn, please.”
“You’re with him,” I say, not ask. She doesn’t deny it. Just keeps on saying please, please, please. I’m not even sure what she is asking for, but if it’s my forgiveness, she is officially high.
“I’m with him because I need someone. I need an ally,” she admits.
I laugh because it doesn’t matter anymore. I kick off her arms, which are hugging my shins. “Who do you think was my ally, Sylvia?”
“Daria is my enemy,” she moans.
“Gus is mine,” I retort.
I won this battle and lost the entire fucking war. It’s like crawling back home defeated and finding your home burned to ashes once you enter the gates of your fallen kingdom.
I take a few more steps, then stop at the threshold and pivot to her. “My only regret is trying to pacify your sorry ass and breaking things off with Daria. I loved you when no one else did. I grieved for you. I thought you were dead and tortured myself, blamed myself. But my actions never intended to hurt you. I made a mistake. You did all this on purpose. So now I’m leaving you, just as you left me. Only I’m four years too late.”
When my mother was still into poetry (and life in general, I guess), she used to read us passages every night. There was one that really stuck with me for years afterward. Not the entire thing—that shit sucked as a whole. Just the one sentence.
Love is humbling.
Those three words boggled my mind. What could be humbling about love? Love is celebratory. It is victorious. It is the exact opposite of humbling. Even back then, I understood the definition of the word love but not the meaning of it. Now, as I stand in front of Daria’s closed door for the first time in weeks, after not exchanging a word, or a kiss, or a fucking glance with her all this time, I am truly, devastatingly, shoot-me-in-the-fucking-face humbled.
I knock on the door before deciding it’s a stupid-ass move. A real man would barge in and hoist her up over his shoulder. The man I was at Lenny’s when I still had the confidence I could have her.
But that was before I caved into my sister’s wishes.
Back when I really was a real man.
Fuck. This is hard.
“Come in.” Her voice is throaty and callous and distant.
I push her door open and step in. Closing it, I keep my back to her so I don’t have to see her face and what’s on it.
“Talk?” I ask, still staring at the door. Since when do I use question marks? Since I fucking lost the right to tell her what’s up.
Say yes.
Say yes.
Say yes.
She says nothing instead.
I wait. And wait. And wait. I deserve this. All of it. My phone pings, and I take it out of my pocket.
Talk.
A tired smile finds its way to my lips. We’re still us, and there’s some comfort in that. When you don’t talk to someone you see every day, you start to wonder if they blocked out your existence. But Daria remembers. The Ferris wheel and ballet studio and the woods. The pool house with Vaughn and the locker room in All Saints