How sweet must it be
To look into your eyes again and see
If I’m killing you like you’re ruining me
Daria
My apartment is beautiful.
Off-campus, it is new, large, and spacious. When I first came here with Dad, it looked pretty bland, but then Melody sent out an interior designer, Tiffanie, and things kind of picked up. I grew to like the place, even if it’s completely new to me.
It’s been three months since I came here. Two since Dad came for a visit personally to give me Penn’s journal. I am not one for self-control. I immediately read the whole thing, then did it again, and again, and again.
A million times, I wanted to pick up the phone, call him, and tell him to come to me.
A trillion times, I simply wanted to purchase a ticket and go back to Todos Santos to his still-open arms.
But every single time, I slammed that idea, knowing that now was not the time for us to be together, and that we needed to stay focused. I’m attending high school here, and Melody or Dad fly out here once every two weeks to spend the weekend with me. I’m slowly learning to get used to calling Mel Mom again, but baby steps.
I don’t feel particularly alone here. It’s a college town, and all my neighbors are twenty-one or below. There are Rich and Welcott, and Beth and Fiona, who I seem to be getting along with really well. Beth and Fiona have Mel on speed dial and vice versa. They get their grocery shopping for free, and in exchange for that, they promised to snitch me out if I throw a party or bring a boy to the apartment. As if. Like I ever would.
Melody says things are getting better at home, and I’m not surprised. Someone needed to step back and let us all heal, and that someone had to be me. I’m not bitter to be making this sacrifice. I want Penn to have a strong relationship with his sister. Knight, Vaughn, and Luna text my new cell phone almost every day. So far Knight’s reported that Vaughn dumped Esme after her confession, Blythe somehow managed to kick her off the cheer team and became captain, and Colin made sure his father went to visit Camilo at the hospital, and they are going to pay for his first year of college. Vaughn said Gus got thrown off the football team for using steroids trying to get bigger and more desirable for scouts and decided to drop out of school. No one knows where he is, and quite frankly, no one really cares. Via has parted ways with the cheer squad after everything that went down, and apparently, she is hanging out with the freaks and geeks of senior year. It made me laugh, and I could hardly even believe it. Luna, who is not big on gossip, texts me that Bailey misses me and talks about me all the time. She sends me fun facts about where I live to try to get me more amped up about the place.
Luna: Word is you have the best popcorn in the States. Make sure to get white popcorn and pop it in the Whirley Pop I’m shipping you.
Luna: Garfield the cat lives there. Give him a squeeze from me.
Luna: Sent you two tickets to the circus via snail mail. GO! It’s supposed to be awesome.
Luna: Also sent you a coupon for that breaded pork tenderloin place you have to try. Try it and let me know, okay?
Bitch is vegetarian, and knows I’d die before using coupons (I think she is the only person in Todos Santos who even knows what they are), but I appreciate the effort, so I always text her back. I think I’m finally getting over the fact she is magic, and I’m real, but maybe being real is no less magical.
I put on my coat, scarf, and beanie and take the keys from the ugly bowl by the door. I got it in a souvenir store. It’s shaped like a golden football helmet. I walk out into the crisp winter day, watching my boots crush semi-dirty snow that’s wilting on the sidewalks. The sky is gray, the trees are white, and the campus is quietly getting back to its post-Christmas routine. I know I’m not thinking any of this through, and that I should turn around before I see them. If I even see them. But I can’t help myself. Seeing Penn burns in me so bad, I can’t even feel the cold that’s kept me tucked in my apartment for much of the past few weeks. I’m shivering with adrenaline, and my stomach churns as I swallow down my nerves.
I stand behind the statue of Jesus in front of the campus when I watch Penn and Dad on the steps of the beautiful building.
Penn is taller than Dad. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that. Broader, too. And my dad is a big guy. They look like they’re arguing. Penn shakes his head, pacing back and forth. He is saying no, but I’m not sure what to. My father is trying to reason with him—they are almost playing a slow-motion catch—but Penn refuses to relent and descends the stairs fast.
I want to run to him and ask him if everything is okay, but I don’t have the guts.
I want to follow him and see if he breaks down and if he needs me, but I’m too scared.
Instead, I take out my phone and text Dad.
Is Penn okay?
He is nowhere in sight now, and I’m getting worried. Edgy. I hate this.
Dad: You can go to him and see for yourself.
I can, but I won’t.
Because I know that no matter how hard it is right now, we were toxic while we were together.
Instead, I turn around and walk back home. Clutching my coat tight, I wrap it more firmly around my chest so the wind won’t slip in.
After all, I have a hole in my shirt the size of Penn’s heart.
The day after, I sit on my cold patio and read Penn’s journal. The pages are wrinkled and yellow, and the spine is almost completely ruined. I need duplicates before I destroy this one. But I’m not ready to replace the real thing with a copy. I flip through the pages, noting the change in his attitude and feelings from his first entry, right after the fight with Vaughn at the snake pit, to the last entries when we were both ripped apart by our feelings. I reread my favorite poem from him.
You’re tearing confessions from my mouth
Reactions from my flesh
Fights from my fists
Blood from my heart
With your eyes alone
Sometimes I want to break the wall I built between us
Let you in
And watch you destroy me
I smile at his bravery. Penn never much cared about getting hurt. Even when he was the tin man, even when his heart was just a faint beat, merely surviving and not doing much else, he always gave me a run for my money. It is stupid, if not completely awful, that I’m too scared to love him.
Too terrified to get hurt.
More than anything—I’m too unsure of myself to know I wouldn’t screw it up.
I hear low growls from the balcony and tip my head forward, peeking down. I live on the main street right in front of quaint, super-pastoral shops. I watch as Penn and Dad come out of a Starbucks. They look like they’re fighting.
Only this time, I can hear them. Unlike the old Daria, I stop and think if I should. If they’d want me to. I stand and—I don’t know with what strength—begin to make my way back into my living room when I hear that the conversation is about me.
“You’re going to throw away everything, Penn? Really? We had a deal. You said if I gave her the journal, you’d pretend to still be in the game for this. Still make an effort in this thing called life. Well, she got the journal, all right? Move the hell on. Apply yourself and fulfill your part of the deal.”
“I’m not enrolling. I want to go find her,” Penn says dryly. “And we can do it the hard, roundabout, not-gonna-talk-to-each-other-again way, or my way, in which you leave me the fuck alone. I said thank you. A thousand times. I’m not going to take a fucking scholarship and let this thing go away. It’s not going away. Trust me.”
My heart is in my throat. Penn is about to give up his scholarship to try to find me? That’s crazy talk. I pace on my balcony, just a few feet away from them, though they can’t see me from this sharp angle, and rub my face with my hands.
What to do? What to say?
“You will ruin your life for a girl who doesn’t want you anymore,” Dad says, and it’s like a shot in the back for me. Because I want him. I want Penn more than I want my next breath. I just don’t know if I’m good enough for him, and I can’t risk hurting him one more time. But it seems as if he’s already hurting just as much as I am.
Penn chuckles darkly. “Well, then. The only difference between you and me is that Melody said yes, and Daria is saying no. But you, Jaime, you did the same.”
I ask Melody to visit me that same weekend. She does in a heartbeat, not even waiting for Friday. By Thursday, when I get back from school, I find her in my kitchen, making my favorite chicken pot pie, designer bags spilling with clothes on the dining table. She put music on her phone, and it’s the favorite song “Maniac” from Flashdance. We used to dance to it like two loons when I was a kid.
When she sees me entering the room, she stops everything, straightens her spine, and wipes the last of the tomato sauce from her fingers onto her apron. I stand on the kitchen threshold, and for the first time in years, I see her for who she is.
A mother trying desperately to reconnect with her daughter but doesn’t know how to because they’ve both made so many mistakes.
I plaster my forehead to the doorframe, taking a deep breath.
“What’s wrong, Lovebug? Is everything okay?”
No. It’s not. I’ve hurt her so much over the years, not communicating the frustration, fear, and jealousy I’d felt, and now we are like two strangers playing house. I walk into the kitchen and stand in front of her, dropping my backpack to the floor, just like I did that day in the studio when Via walked in and stole my thunder.
This time, Melody is not looking for anyone else.
She sees me.
“Our parents mold us into shapes,” I start, trailing the granite counter with my fingers. “You, Melody, lost interest in me halfway through and moved on to another project. To a piece of art with the potential to be flawless. Her name was Via, and even though I’ve always been jealous of people for various things, my jealousy toward Sylvia Scully consumed me. Want to know why, Mel? You looked at her like I wished you’d look at me. Like she was already a fully formed, perfect piece of work while I was barely even a canvas stretched on a wooden frame. I didn’t see the whole picture. I didn’t know where her fancy clothes came from. I didn’t know why you let her get away with it on the days she didn’t have proper clothing on while you berated all of us for less. I didn’t know why you bought her favorite energy bars for her, or why you took her for a week in London, or why it was so important to you that she be there for every class.”
Tears appear in her eyes, and they are like a mirror to what’s going on inside her head. I see now, with a clarity I’ve never had before, the Melody Followhill that I wished to meet my entire childhood. The one who is not only an accomplished ballerina, an amazing teacher, and the talk of the town, but a simple girl—maybe even like me—struggling to do the right thing by her family.
“When Via disappeared and I knew it was my fault, I didn’t even think I deserved your love anymore. You gave it, anyway, though sparsely. We grew apart, farther and farther, maybe a couple of inches each year, until the first semester of senior year. I felt like you were doing things to purposely hurt me. To taunt me about how bad I was.”
Melody shakes her head, pressing her fingertips to her mouth. “Never. I was frustrated and hurt and didn’t know how to reach out to you. I kept waiting for you to snap out of it. One minute, I was trying to talk to you being all submissive and fearful of my own daughter, and the next, I’d get angry and frustrated with you, losing my cool. At some point, when I recognized I became so bad at it, I simply let you be. And when that happened, I watched your relationship with your father, and as much as I love my husband with my entire heart, I finally realized what it felt like to be you. Because not only was I jealous, Lovebug, I was absolutely livid.
“I never loved Via more than you. You were always my strongest, most natural love. But Sylvia needed help. She was poor, and abused, and neglected, and there was nothing I could do because I knew if I stepped in, things could get a lot worse for her. All I could do was help her by buying her gear, providing her with meals and support, and trying to enroll her in the Royal Ballet Academy. I cut her slack not because I was enchanted with her antics—but because someone needed to. I took Penn and Via in without consulting you girls, and that was my biggest mistake yet. I was so focused on trying to atone for letting Via down when she disappeared, I hardly noticed I was stomping all over my own daughter. I’m so sorry you walked around feeling unworthy because of me. It’s always been so hard for me to express my feelings, and I think this is something you inherited from me. I taught you how to act tough, assuming that you are. You became so good at the game, I bought it.”
I laugh through my own tears, shaking my head and wiping them. “You really wanted me to stop trying to be a ballerina.” I sigh.
“Only because I didn’t want you to feel the same pressure I had when I was a pre-teen. You were always a natural.”
“Liar.” I snort, rolling my eyes, which only prompts more tears to fall.
She shakes her head and laughs, the sound bursting from her chest in relief. “Oh, Marx, are you kidding me? You were always so amazing. I watched as you became more and more insecure as time passed, and I had no idea it was about me or Via. I thought you were just tired and bored.”
“Tired and bored!” I screech. “Mom, I tried so freaking hard!”
We stop laughing. And crying. And breathing. Mel’s eyes widen, and we both look at each other with amusement laced with shock. And gratitude. So much gratitude.
“You called me Mom.”
“I did.” I choke on the words. “I did. You are. You are my mom.”
We meet halfway for a hug that squeezes out all the toxic hatred, frustration, misunderstandings, and miscommunication. The more time I spend in my mother’s arms, the deeper I can breathe. We stand like this in the kitchen for twenty or maybe thirty minutes. Until my legs and arms hurt from standing like this, hugging in a weird position for a long time.
“Mom?” I’m the first one to speak.
“Yes, Lovebug?” I can hear the mirth in her voice, and it makes my heart sing.
“I think your chicken pot pie is burned.”
