I’ve broken a few fingers by the way they hang off my hand. Perfect timing. A day after the last game of the season.
The doctor is talking, explaining to me what happens next. I sit on the white bed in the white room in a hospital that looks more like a fancy hotel and don’t even pretend to listen. My thoughts drift to the house I’m coming back to. A house that is going to feel so empty without her.
Twelve hours later, we’re discharged, and my hand looks like it’s gloved and ready for boxing. When we pull in front of the Followhills’ mansion, I don’t want to go inside. But I don’t want to be that pussy-ass broken guy who can’t deal with the fact his girl just doesn’t want him anymore.
The minute we get in, Melody runs toward us. Her face looks like what my wrapped hand did a few hours ago. Red and swollen.
“Where’ve you been?” She charges at both of us. She’s obviously back from the airport, which means it’s done.
Good, Skull Eyes. Fucking perfect. Watch me rip out all my shirts and walk around shirtless for the remainder of my life.
I’m so tired of the lies and the secrets that I straight up walk past her and open the fridge, taking out a pitcher of iced tea with my healthy hand.
“When I found out your daughter left, even though she promised me she wouldn’t, I got a little creative as far as how anger management goes. In other news, you probably need some work done on your garage wall.”
“Penn.” She gallops toward me, shaking her head. Via is retreating to her room, still staring at us, wide-eyed. She knows better than to assume I’ll fess up to any emotion while she’s around. That shit between us will be much harder to fix than the wall.
As soon as Via’s not around, Mel hugs me. I let her, solely because she is partly Daria in DNA, and I’m a glutton for punishment. I can still smell her daughter on her clothes, which doesn’t make any sense. Knowing Daria, she didn’t hug her mother goodbye today.
“Where is she, Mel?”
She shakes her head in the crook of her neck.
“She doesn’t want anyone to know. I’m sorry. She wouldn’t even let me come with her to help her settle in.”
“But she let Jaime?” I ask.
She is nodding now.
“Did you get your closure?” I want her to say no. I want her to tell me that I’m not the only one here feeling like every breath is a fucking nail jammed straight into my lungs. If this is what love feels like, it’s complete bullshit. I want my money back because Shakespeare was right all along. True love truly sucks ass.
“No.” She bursts into tears. “She barely even told me goodbye. Did you?”
“Not by a fucking long shot.”
The next few weeks are pure torture. The days crawl, time slithers on the walls of a house that’s not empty, but not alive, either. Somehow, all those days add up to a month without Daria. A month in which Jaime comes back, acts like nothing is wrong, and every time he gets a call and it’s from her, he closes the door to his bedroom behind me and shoots me a don’t-even-think-about-it look.
Regretfully, I’m starting to fucking lose it. After caving in to modern society, I open Instagram and Twitter accounts only to find out that Daria is officially not active on any of them. She hasn’t deleted her Instagram, but she doesn’t post there anymore, so the old pictures of her with her cheer team and friends keep me going. I stare at them for hours every day as I do constructive, emotionally healthy things, like figuring out what time zone she is in by making a sheet with all the hours she calls Jaime and Mel.
Yes. About a month after she went away, Daria caved in and started speaking to Mel, too. Bailey always talks as though she’s been keeping in touch with her, too, so I guess it’s just the Scullys Daria wants out of her life, and I can’t even fucking blame her. We stormed into her life and ruined it completely in less than six months. If there were an Olympic medal event for being the biggest cunts, Via and I would have been the pride of this nation.
If my calculations are correct, Daria is still somewhere in the US. She calls very early in the mornings or