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“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 in the early evenings, which gives me East Coast vibes, but it might be Midwest, too. Heck, maybe she just likes to get up super fucking early, and she is around the block. No one knows. No one will tell me. And I’d be climbing the fucking walls if I hadn’t fractured four of the five fingers on my left hand.
One evening, Jaime sits me down and tells me that we’re going to Notre Dame to check out the facilities, flirt, and say yes. He booked us both first-class tickets and all. I guess that means he is over the fact I had my tongue and dick in his daughter’s privates. Ain’t he a fucking champ.
“I don’t want any illicit behavior while we’re on campus. I catch you smoking, drinking, or fucking—simultaneously or individually—I swear you’ll be finding a different sponsor to subsidize your next four years because it’s not going to be me.” He waves his finger in my face.
I push the brochures across the coffee table and nod.
“Clear, sir.”
“Jesus.” He flings himself back on the couch, throwing an arm over his face. “You’re about as lively as a puppy that’s been run over by every truck in the state. At least try to pretend that you’re here.”
“I’m here, sir.”
“But you’re not present.”
What do I say to that? This bitch is Hare Krishna now?
“And stop calling me sir. You’re like a son to me.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that, sir, since I feel very strongly about your daughter and not in a sisterly way.”
He exhales, levels up, and slaps the coffee table to grab my attention. I’m still the same lax, drooped-over-the-couch motherfucker I was a second ago. Life just seems to have an aftertaste of nothing when Daria is not around, and whoever said time heals was given LSD or something. Because it wasn’t time that healed them. The more time that passes, the more I want to rip my own fucking skin from my body and let my heart pack a suitcase and go looking for her. It doesn’t escape me that I was crushed about Via—but never had the balls to actually go and find her. With Daria, it’s a different story. The Followhills can beg all they want. Come graduation, I’m packing my bag, breaking the piggy bank, and going to look for her.
