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"I'm afraid that we got off on the wrong foot yesterday," says Matt's mom the next morning, immediately after she asked Daisy if she'd ever seen a plastic surgeon. "I'm really sorry about dinner, it was an honest mistake. And I'm very protective of my son, so anybody in his life with addiction issues sets off my alarm bells. I really didn't mean to upset you."
How rude of Matt to bitch about me to his mom? Daisy thinks, and then she says, "Honestly, it's fine. I was anxious from the flight, and I didn't want to make things worse. I'm sorry for skipping out on dessert."
"Oh, psh," Randy scoffs, flipping a hand in the air the way only rich women without real problems do. "Anyway. I have an olive branch. And if you argue... well, I can't think of anything right now but I'm sure I'll be able to before you leave the city."
And this is how Daisy is led into the lounge, with it's wide expansive windows overlooking Central Park, to find an antique bronze menorah in the window frame.
"Oh," she breathes. It's been eight years since she last lit a real candle, instead of flipping a new switch on the electronic one Renee bought her when the Foxes brought her home. Eight years since her Dad shakily climbed out of his armchair, frail as anything with his skin draped loosely over protruding bones, and dropped the match on the carpet instead of touching it to the candle.
"Matt mentioned that you're Jewish and you couldn't find yours at school, and I know Hanukkah started a few days ago but I spoke to a local Rabbi and he said that it's okay to light the ones we missed all at once, and we can do gifts tomorrow instead of on Christmas if it would make you feel-- Daisy!" Randy finally notices Daisy shaking with unshed tears, and reaches out to touch her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't know-- is this a sensitive subject? I can never keep up with you kids..."
"It's okay." Daisy smiles through cloudy eyes, tries to blink away the tears but only succeeds in letting them roll down her cheeks. "Thank you, Randy. I really appreciate the thought."
Randy returns the smile, squeezes the girl's arm firmly. "Do you want me to get your boyfriend if you're upset?"
"I-- what?"
"The tall, pale one? You two are together, right?"
The shock almost cuts through Daisy's grief. "No, we're not! If I hear one more person ask if we're dating, I'm going to kill them and then myself."
It takes Randy aback momentarily, and then she laughs nervously. "Okay."
The woman leaves. Daisy stares at the menorah longer, stares at the candles in each of the arms of the candelabra and the pack of matches underneath. She wonders what happened to her dad's. Did Jack pawn it when they left Williamsburg? Is it somewhere in the storage unit of random junk she pays to keep but has never visited? Perhaps one of their family friends has it, maybe it's become their family heirloom instead of hers. Maybe it's in a garbage dump somewhere, covered by used tampons and banana peels and a soggy copy of last week's newspaper.
She takes a slow, shaking breath.
We're not thinking about this right now. File it away for when you have Betsy.
So she goes upstairs to the gym. Kevin is still in there, where she left him when Randy pulled her away, and she offers him a closed lip smile while he pulls weights on the cables. He drops the weight immediately and stares at her.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
"Why does something always have to be wrong?" Daisy answers, meaner than she intended. "Can't I just exist?"
He gives her a scathing look, akin to the way he watched her play Exy when they first met. "Something's always wrong with you. What is it?"
"Fuck off," she replies casually. Her shirt comes over her head so that she's left in gym shorts and a high-necked sports bra, and she perches on the rowing machine. He watches her, and the black disdain in his eyes flares into something warm and red. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want to bend me over the weight bench and give me the best twenty-five seconds of my life."
He scoffs. When he doesn't say anything else, Daisy finds herself grinning. She watches him pick up the plastic handle, drop into a gentle squat, and start pulling the weights from knee level up to his chest. The underneath of his arm is taut; his biceps flex every time he lifts the weight. He's not a bulky man by any means, and he doesn't need to be. Strikers need to be fast, powerful in their throws but never really aiming any further than the quarter of court they're on. But he's strong, and he's currently lifting twice what Daisy weighs. His sleeveless shirt leaves nothing to the imagination, and Daisy would be content to sit and stare at him his entire workout if she wasn't still a little pissed off with him.
"You're putting me off," he tells her finally, when she's been watching him instead of doing her own workout for at least five minutes. "Take a picture and you can stare at that all you want."
Daisy pulls her phone from beside her and snaps a quick photo. He blinks. "What? You boss me around day and night, and suddenly when I follow the rules, you hate me? Make up your mind."
He looks like he wants to speak, but says nothing. So she starts rowing, and he starts pulling up the weights and letting them go rhythmically. There's a few moments of silence. Mostly everyone in the house is still asleep, the sun is barely over the horizon, and Daisy highly doubts any of their teammates will even breathe in the direction of this gym during their stay. So, they're alone. Daisy gets up and moves to a stationary bike. It's beside him but facing away, and she makes sure to hover a little over the seat and lean a little further over the handlebars than she usually would.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he snaps finally, dropping the weights with a loud crack and walking over to her. Daisy drops onto the seat, looks up at him with an innocent smile. "No. Don't look at me like that. You know what you're fucking doing."
"Cycling?" she suggests. He narrows his eyes, sets his jaw. "It's not my fault you want to have sex with me every time I work out. Maybe you should talk to Bee about it, I'm sure she could-- Kevin!"
He grabs her around the waist, holds her body under his arm and carries her over to the middle of the room. She shouts, smacks her fists on his back, but he only drops her onto the padded floor. She rolls onto her back to look at him, but he's already dropped down to sit over her waist and pin her down. When she reaches up to hit him, he grabs her hand.
"Don't," he begins, holding her fist tightly to his chest, "do that shit again. If you want to keep your distance, fine. But don't pull that shit and expect me not to react."
"Okay," she whispers. She reaches up to try and free her hand from his grip, but he grabs that one too, and holds it down above her head. They're face to face now, and she can see the beads of sweat on his forehead, feel his heart pumping against her chest, smell the combination of men's three-in-one and the scent of his skin.
"I'm not kidding," he continues. "You either want me, or you don't."
It catches her off guard, and it takes a few tries to get the words out. "You don't want me. You told me so, the night before the winter banquet."
It takes a moment for him to remember, and he lets go of her hands. She's still trapped, but at least she can't leave until she gets answers. "I... didn't mean it like that. It's not... things aren't as easy as you might think they are."
"You told me that we could never date, and that I was seeing things wrong, or whatever," Daisy snaps. Out of habit, she folds her arms over her chest, then realises how ridiculous she probably looks. She doesn't uncross them. "That seems pretty fucking meaningful to me."
"I'm dumb, okay? Is that what you want me to say?" he says, staring down at her with an intensity she's never seen from him off-court. "That I fucked my words up and I regret it and I'm just realising now that you think I hate you?"
Daisy says, "I don't think you hate me. I just don't think you like me."
"Of course I like you--"
"Not the way I want you to."
He stares at her once again. His cheeks are flushed red, with heat and with frustration. The room around him is blinding white, the walls painted cream and the lights on the ceiling growing brighter the longer she looks. From the corner of her eye, she sees the sun peeking over Central Park. So she rolls her head over, watches the red and orange and yellow creep over bare trees and paint the city with sunrise. She can feel his eyes burning a hole into the side of her head and she thinks, let him.
He climbs off of her eventually, when he realises she's checked out of the conversation. He sits, legs crossed before him like he's in elementary school, and waits until she finally pushes herself up from the floor and sits facing him.
The thoughts in her head are close to boiling over, but she feels very proud when she manages to say, "I don't want just half of you, Kevin. I can't do that to myself."
And he watches her leave, arms still wrapped around her body like she's holding herself together.
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"We should go out and party tonight," says Nicky at breakfast. He looks to Aaron, who shrugs, then to Daisy and Kevin, who look at each other and back at Nicky. "Come on Daisy, you must know all the best clubs! It's two days before Christmas, everybody will be out having a good time!"
"I didn't really have time to go out when I lived here," Daisy replies nonchalantly, pushing fried mushrooms around her plate. "I was too busy, you know, trafficking drugs and having sex with my brother's bosses."
The table goes silent.
"Mood killer, Cohen," Aaron mutters. Nicky lets out an awkward laugh. Daisy continues picking at her breakfast while the others talk. She's far too busy thinking about numbers to care about their conversation.
There are eight miles between her and Brooklyn Detention Centre, where her brother will hopefully rot for the rest of his life. It's been two years and twenty-six days since he was caught, one year, nine months, and seventeen days since she transferred to Palmetto University from the shitty community college she'd enrolled herself in during his trial. Eight years, two months, twenty two days since Isaac Cohen finally succumbed to the disease rotting his bones. Twenty years, five months, six days since she was found on his doorstep on a warm July morning, and the date she's always celebrated as her birthday because there's no other proof she exists. These are dates forever ingrained in her mind, ones she will never forget. The mathematical part of her brain likes to work out the minutes and hours when she's feeling extra on edge, but she'll never let go of these numbers.
Her fingers are drumming a beat on the table beside her plate, eyes staring off into a distance she can't see when there's a tap on her shoulder.
"We're going to Central Park," says Kevin. The table is empty, and Randy's maid is starting to clear the plates. "Nicky wants to go skating."
"Hmm," Daisy replies, not dragging her eyes away from that one spot on the table. A moment of peace, and then he shoves her so violently she almost falls off of her chair. "What the fuck?"
"Your head is somewhere it shouldn't be," he snaps. "Get out."
She narrows her eyes, but stands up to face him anyway. "Fuckin' asshole," she mutters, turning away to leave the room. He follows her upstairs once again, and Daisy feels a lot like she's gained a pet sheep. "Stop following me," she says, but he follows her into her (their?) bedroom anyway.
"If you need me to push you out of your chair to stop dissociating, you aren't as healthy as you tell us Betsy thinks," he says once the door snaps shut behind him. "I get that coming here is a lot for you, but at least try to not wallow in self pity for at least a day."
"You," says Daisy, stepping towards him with a finger raised to his face, "are the worst fucking human being I've ever met. And I mean it, too. At least my brother didn't condescend to me, despite both physically and mentally beating the shit out of me every day."
"Daisy," says Kevin in that condescending tone that makes her blood boil. And then he says, "Sit down for a second."
It takes everything in her not to swing at him. She clenches her fingers together in her lap and cracks her knuckles one by one as she perches on the edge of the bed.
"Your brother is in prison," says the boy standing before her. From this view, every part of him is a sharp angle, all cutting-edge jawlines and squared shoulders. Daisy blinks. "Your dad is dead, your mom doesn't exist, and Jack is in jail. He's not getting out, he'll rot in there until he goes to hell. Riko won't touch us here, he's too busy with Neil. So can you chill the fuck out, please? Even Aaron is getting twitchy around you."
Daisy stares at him, slack-jawed. "Wait, what do you mean Riko is busy with Neil?"
"Fuck," Kevin mutters.
By the end of his explanation, Daisy really does punch him. Only in the shoulder, and not even really that hard. But he deserves it. "There's something seriously wrong with you, Two. Letting your best friend waltz into enemy territory, knowing full well that if he comes out at all, he's going to come out looking like he got dragged three blocks under a garbage truck."
Kevin shrugs. "He can handle himself. And he's not my best friend."
"Best friends schmest friend. I can see you two making lovey-eyes on court all the way from defence."
You're my best friend, Kevin thinks. He dare not speak it aloud, or else face the wrath of Daisy's everlasting smug-faced insults. So instead, he leans against the dresser and watches her get changed into something New-York-Winter appropriate. In other words, the one pair of jeans she owns, a coat she borrowed from Dan (who is at least two dress sizes larger than her), and worn-out boots that haven't seen daylight since she left this horrible place.
"You're going to freeze," says Kevin as they make their way downstairs, where they can already hear Nicky's chatter bouncing off the walls.
"Uh, I think I can handle a little frost."
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"Your jaw is shaking worse than mine on Dust," Aaron comments slyly as they step into a café near the ice rink. "How embarrassing."
"How about you eat my fucking shit, pintsize?" Daisy retorts, knocking her elbow into his shoulder in a desperate attempt to get into the warmth before him. "Aren't you supposed to be a doctor? Riddle me why I'm always cold after being a opioid addict. Oy," she mutters under her breath with a flip of her hand, and almost jumps out of her own skin upon hearing it tumble from her lips.
God, she's fallen straight back into the person she used to be without even noticing it. How can it be that she spends two years trying to forget who she was here, and as soon as she steps off of the plane she's a Brooklyn girl all over again. What's she going to do next? Deepthroat a deli sub? Verbally abuse a cab driver? Start a flash mob?
How embarrassing.
"Can I get a hot chocolate?" she asks the barista, who gives her a dead-eyed stare. "Do you guys-- uh, do you have soy milk?"
"Soy, almond, oat, cashew, 2%, half-and-half, full fat, skim, or goat," he runs off robotically, then turns his gaze back upon her.
"Soy is fine," Daisy says, then lets Matt step up to finish the order and pay. "I forget that it's not a sin to provide anything but cow milk outside of South Carolina."
Kevin snorts. "Yeah. You know how much convincing I had to do to get the diner to make a soy milkshake?"
Daisy opens her mouth to ask, what do you mean convincing? you told me that they'd always served those when Nicky, thank God, interrupts. "So we're thinking of going shopping after this, and by 'we' I obviously really mean 'me', but you can totally tag along if you want. I want to go to the big Forever 21 and the Disney store, because Erik loves Toy Story and I thought it would be so cute if I got us matching Christmas tree ornaments..."
He keeps talking, but Daisy zones out. There's somebody across the room looking at her, the elderly woman's glasses perched so precariously on the end of her nose that it makes Daisy adjust her own. The woman looks familiar, sure, but all old folks sort-of look the same, she guesses? Then the woman goes back to reading her newspaper, and Daisy blinks. Somebody thrusts a paper cup Daisy's way, and her hands find their way around the warm vessel.
Her glasses fog up when she takes her first sip, and she balls her jacket around a fist to scrub them clean.
"I don't want to go back out there," Daisy whines, following the crowd of boys ahead of her. "It's cold."
"You're not allowed to call me a hypocrite ever again," says Kevin. "Go shopping with Nicky, get some warmer clothes. I'm sure Randy will bankroll you."
"She will," Matt pipes up. "She thinks she made you anxious, and she won't believe me when I tell her you're like that all the time. So she thinks she owes you."
"You're such an asshole, Matt." Daisy tucks herself deeper into her jacket and stares at Matt over the collar buttoned to her nose. "She can buy me whatever she wants, but I am not shopping at Forever 21."
Outside the weather bites even harder than it did on her way in, even before midday when the sky is the brightest it will be all day. She'd forgotten how miserable this weather is, how much she needs to feel the sun on her skin to feel some semblance of humanity. Each calculated step on the sidewalk keeps her out of the slick ice on the surface, keeps her out of the way of citizens and tourists making their commutes around the city.
"I'm moving to the countryside," Daisy declares to Kevin, who has been walking at her side despite the others being a few paces ahead. "At least, a sleepy little country town. I don't ever want to be in a city this busy ever again."
"Which countryside? Californian country is very different to Maine country."
"I don't give a shit, as long as there's at least a mile between me and my next door neighbour, I'll be happy."
He laughs properly, not a snort or a scoff. "You wouldn't last two seconds by yourself in the wilderness. You'd get too bored."
"Fine," she says, looking at him with half a smile. "I guess you could visit. Twice a week, even though I know how hard it would be for you to be away from me for that long."
"Make it three days a week and you've got a deal."
She reaches out a hand and they shake on it, and he seems reluctant to let go. She shimmies her hand free from his grip to replace in her pocket, sneaks a sideways glance at him. He's staring straight ahead, white cheeks bitten pink by the wind, black hair hidden under a dark green beanie that almost mirrors his eyes.
I love you, the voice in her head yells. But the words that come from her mouth are, "Come on, Two. We're going to lose them if you keep dawdling back here."
And she almost wishes she said it out loud.
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The court, later that night. Kevin had turned down the option to watch some sappy Christmas film with the guys and Randy to follow Daisy to the local athletic centre, even though she assured him that her pocket knife will keep anybody shifty out of her path.
"Fuck marry kill," says Daisy, as Kevin latches the plexiglass door behind them. "Neil, Andrew, Aaron."
"How old are you?" he sighs, helmet gripped in his hand and an almost tired look on his face.
"Twenty," she replies. "You know that. Fuck marry kill, Neil Andrew Aaron. Go."
"I'm not answering that."
Daisy rolls her eyes. "Okay, Heterosexual of the Year. Dan, Allison, and me."
"Are you actually entertained by this, or do you just like pissing me off?"
"A little bit of both. I'm not playing until you answer at least one."
"Fine," he says, turning to face her. She's already got her helmet on, strapped tightly under her chin, but he can still see the glint in her eye. "I'd fuck you, then marry you, then kill you and get away with it so I could have your money."
"Smart, but not the answer I'm looking for. You're no fun, Two."
"Exy is fun. Childish games are not fun."
Daisy mimics him under her breath, then scoops a ball into her net. "Fine. We'll carry on after I kick your ass."
It doesn't take long before somebody figures out that the two kids violently shoving each other around on court are Kevin Day and his teammate. Hands press against the walls as people watch, plexiglass gets foggy with heavy breath, those with cameras on their phones film over heads. The flash photography makes Daisy almost lose her balance more than once.
"Should we call it?" Kevin asks her. "This is getting out of hand. ESPN will be here soon at this rate."
"I forget that you're actually, like, famous famous." Daisy follows him off court, stows the equipment back where they found it. They decide to shower at home, and Daisy uses her biggest New Yorker voice to clear a path for them to leave. Kevin puts on his Public Kevin Day Persona and takes a few photos with fans, signs a couple jerseys, and then they're back out in the chill once more. While they match step back towards Matt's place, Daisy finds herself inching closer to him. When their fingertips brush, he takes a grip of her hand tightly.
"Your hands are freezing," he mutters under his breath. "Surprised you haven't got frostbite."
"Can't play if I lose my fingers," Daisy retorts. When he shoots her a look, she adds, "What? It's what you were going to say anyway."
"It wasn't, actually."
Daisy falls silent, lets the hubbub of New York fill her ears instead. "Well, what was it?"
"I was going to say," he begins, staring straight ahead of himself to avoid her eyes, "that it's weird, being famous without him around. He made me feel so... like I wasn't worth anything without him there beside me. But I'm still me, even if I feel like one half of a whole sometimes."
She squeezes his hand. There's nothing Daisy can say to make him feel better, and even if there was, she wouldn't say it. Some answers he needs to find on his own.
"You make it easier," Kevin says. He squeezes her hand, and Daisy can't reply. The words she wants to say get caught in her throat, and her eyes burn and her chest pounds. "I didn't mean what I said that night. You know I didn't, you just don't want to admit it because you're a stubborn asshole."
"Then why won't you do anything about it?"
They stop, twenty feet away from Matt's place on the sidewalk, caught in the dull spot between two street lamps. "I don't want Riko to give any more of a shit about you than he already does. If nearly breaking your ankle on court, getting your brother out of prison to mess with you, and spiking you at the Winter Banquet is what you get for just being my teammate, I don't want to think about what will happen if he finds out we're anything more. And I know what you're going to say," he continues, when Daisy opens her mouth to argue, "It's not my place to protect you, or whatever. But if I can, I'm going to."
"Fuck you," says Daisy, because nothing else will come out of her mouth. Kevin looks at her, and she stares right back at him. She wants to feel something right now, but nothing is coming to the surface. She supposes she should be angry, or at least a little pissed off. But nothing happens. She just watches him as he blinks, looks up and down the street, then looks back at her.
"That's it? Did you finally run out of insults?"
"As if," Daisy replies. "I've punched Riko in the face, and I'd do it again. And I'm not afraid of my brother anymore. The worst things in my life that could happen, already have. I love that you would stand in their way if they try to get to me, but you don't need to. I can do it myself." Kevin looks at her, blinks when she steps closer. "And if that's the only reason you won't start anything," she adds, raising her hands to snake around his neck, "Then it's a lame fucking reason."
He's halfway towards her lips when he pauses. "He gave me something-- at the Winter Banquet, Riko gave me something to give you."
"It better not be a venereal disease," Daisy mutters, but lets him lead her by the hand up towards Matt's place, lets him push him inside and jog behind him up the staircase to his room.
The place looks the same as when they'd got there. Either Kevin has suddenly started doing hospital corners on his bedsheets (which Daisy knows isn't true based on the ever-rumpled state of his bunk back on campus) or he hasn't touched the bed in his room. But creases form when she pushes herself onto the mattress, sits square in the middle with her legs crossed in front of her. Kevin rummages through the duffle bag holding his belongings, until he pulls out a large yellow envelope.
"He wants to fuck with you," Kevin warns her as he hands it over. "I looked inside to make sure it wasn't anything bad-- and it is, but just know that he's only doing it to mess with your head. This is not an act of kindness. Do not take his cruelty for generosity."
Daisy narrows her eyes, frowns at him as her fingertips slide underneath the flap and remove two sheets of paperwork. The first is a photocopy of a birth certificate.
NAME: JUNG, MARGARET
DATE OF BIRTH: 04/14/1986
TIME OF BIRTH: 0142 hrs
WEIGHT: 4lbs 9oz
PLACE OF BIRTH: NEWARK, NJ
MOTHER: JUNG, LYNETTE
FATHER: [_______________]
The breath catches in her throat. "I've never seen this before," she whispers, clutching the paper so tightly it wrinkles in her grip. "I didn't even know it was still out there, I thought I looked everywhere..."
The second page is a screen capture from the website of a real estate office based in Princeton. A middle-aged Korean woman with an expensive blowout and an empty-eyed smile beams out at Daisy, flashes chemically-whitened teeth at her in less of a grin than a snarl. The resemblance between this woman and the girl staring down at the page is striking.
"Holy shit," says Daisy, loud enough that it startles Kevin beside her. "That's my fucking mom."
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pls abuse me for not updating for two months i deserve it. college is kicking my ass what can i say. but pls have this chapter as my apology, this is honestly as happy as daisy is going to be for a good while so enjoy it while you can. pls make predictions abt daisy's mom i love reading ur theories!!! let me know what you thought, and lmk what you think is going to happen with k + d over christmas break!!! i love u all a million <33333