CHAPTER THIRTY
[30]
song: what is love by howard jones
ON NEW YEAR'S EVE, DAISY REFLECTED ON HER PAST SELF. She saw the emotional progress, the focusing on the relationships that really mattered to her. She dwelled on the positive thoughts, letting them soak in a little deeper, then took a deep and relaxing breath. Then the New Year can come.
1990. It didn't roll off the tongue the way 1989 did, and Daisy knew she'd be still be writing '89 on the top of her papers until at least May.
Daisy had spent New Year's Eve at Mike's club with Kai, there was a concert and a big party at Mike's house after. Unfortunately, Daisy doesn't remember any of it but she's sure it was fun.
Daisy walks downstairs to her kitchen, hoping to satisfy the hunger that fought inside her stomach before she got to school. She was pleased to have found leftover toast from her mother's breakfast sat on the counter. She took a bite from the overly burnt toast and walked over to the living room window, glancing over to Kai's house.
"Oh, good, you're still here." Susan says, walking downstairs in her work clothes. Daisy takes another bite from her toast, raising her eyebrows at her mom. "I got a call from your English teacher, Miss Wilson, this morning." Daisy chews, waiting for her mom to continue on. Susan sighs at Daisy's obvious uninterested. "Daisy you got an F in her class last semester." She says disappointedly.
Daisy shrugs. "Grades restart are semester, it's fine."
Susan shakes her head. "Well there's now an F on your transcript. And 4 D's."
"I have an A in PE." Daisy responds, wiping the toast crumbs off her mouth.
"Everyone has an A in PE." Susan responds, narrowing her eyebrows at her daughter.
Daisy shrugs again. "Not everyone—"
"Daisy that isn't the point." Susan says sternly. "Do you want to have to repeat senior year? Don't you want to go to college next year?"
"I haven't really thought about college." Daisy responds.
"See, that's the problem. You have to start thinking about your future." Susan says, Daisy clenches her jaw. "And everything you're doing will affect it. It may seem little now but you have to start caring about yourself, honey." Susan says, with a concerned voice.
Daisy inhales sharply. "Okay, mom." She says awkwardly, feeling a little disappointed in herself.
Susan frowns. "Is it because of Kai?"
Daisy looked up at her mother. "Why would this be about Kai?"
"Boyfriend's can be a distraction." Susan says. "And you guys are together every single day."
"It's fine." Daisy shrugs.
Susan frowns again, and takes a deep breath. "Just— promise me you'll do better this year, okay?" She steps towards her daughter, gently placing her hands on her shoulders to reassure her.
"I will, mom." Daisy spoke quietly, nodding a bit. Susan gave her a faint smile, before grabbing her keys and heading off to work. Daisy followed her out the door, where Kai's car sat parked on the street waiting for her.
She inhaled sharply, catching glance of Josette in the front seat. Daisy's heartbeat increased rapidly, as she approached the car and opened it up, sitting in the back seat.
"Good morning." Kai says, putting the car in drive and beginning the journey to school.
"Hi." Daisy responds, she glances at Kai in the mirror above his head.
Josette turns around in her seat, smiling softly at Daisy. "Hey, Daze." She says, trying to make conversation. "How was your Christmas?"
"Fine." Daisy says, with little to no emotion, before turning away from Josette's gaze. Josette lingered a bit before turning back around in her seat, swallowing harshly. Daisy was surprised she was bold enough to even be in this car with her and Kai after the conversation they had at the beginning of Winter break.
The rest of the ride was silent, and as soon as the car was parked Josette was the first to get out and walk into the school without saying another word. Daisy rolls her eyes, watching her out the window.
"I tried to get her to walk to school but dad said it was too cold." Kai sighs, turning to Daisy in the back seat. He smiled at her. "Hi." He says, Daisy leaned towards him and kissed him
happily.
"Not a single bone in my body wants to walk into that school right now." Daisy groans.
"Same." Kai sighs. There was a quick silence as he thought before he spoke again. "Let's ditch."
"Ditch school?" Daisy raises her eyebrows.
Kai nodded. "Mhm."
Daisy wanted to, she really did. But she couldn't, missing the first day back would set her behind in every single one of her classes, and she didn't want to upset her mom any further. "I can't." She shook her head.
"Why not?" Kai frowned.
She sighed. "Because my grades suck." She let out a scoff.
"Grades don't matter." Kai shrugged. "Class doesn't matter. School doesn't matter. None of it really matters." He laughed a bit out of excitement.
He was right. "I told my mom I'd do better this year."
"It's just one day." Kai frowned. "She doesn't even have to know."
Daisy mentally debated with herself for a few seconds, watching everyone she despised walk into the front doors of the school. One day won't hurt anything. "Fine." She rolls her eyes.
Kai smiles excitedly, tapping the passenger seat for Daisy to come sit. She climbs over from the backseat and sits down, as Kai puts the car in reverse. Daisy looks around quickly, earning confused glances from the rest of her peers who were wondering what they were doing.
"Shit." Daisy says, seeing one of the teachers who worked the cross walk that morning, waving his arms at Kai with a confused face, before quickly walking towards them. "Shit! Go!" Daisy laughs, covering her mouth as Kai slams his foot on the gas out the parking lot. "Go! Go! Go!" Daisy watches as the teacher falls out of view as Kai turns the corner off the school property.
The both of them laugh uncontrollably as Kai takes an exit off the highway. "Where are we going?" Daisy asks.
Kai smiles faintly. "Downtown."
—
Kai pushed opened the large, stone door to the museum. The ceiling was high, with detailed architecture that draped down onto the walls and down to the tile. A fountain sculpture stood in the middle of the round room the door opened them to, and multiple signs were hung at the top of different archways to guide them down to each part of the museum.
"Can I help you?" A woman says from behind them. Daisy and Kai turn around. She was older, maybe Susan's age, with fake red hair and bland makeup.
"We're good, thanks." Kai smiled a bit, before turning back around.
"How old are you guys?" The woman asks again, not out of curiosity, but more out of disgust.
Kai turns back around. "Why does it matter?" He raises his eyebrows.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" She asks with a fake smile.
"Field trip." Kai says, bluntly. Daisy hid a smile.
"Mhm, right." The woman nods. "Yeah and where's the rest of your school?"
Kai inhaled before speaking again. "It's just us." He smiles. "Yeah, it's a shame. We seem to be the only students at our school who seemed to care for the arts." He sighs, Daisy rolls her eyes.
The woman eyes them suspiciously. "What's your school called?"
"Oh my god, is that Robert De Niro?!" Daisy widens her eyes, pointing past the woman.
The woman quickly turns around, to which Daisy yanked Kai's hand and began running in the other direction toward one of the halls. The two laughed, glancing behind them to see the woman speaking into the walkie-talkies on her belt.
Their laughter echoed throughout the halls, as they pushed past innocent bystanders to find a good place to stop running. "Here!" Kai says quickly, yanking Daisy in the other direction suddenly.
They stumble into a dark room, that seemed to be playing a short film of some sort. The moviegoers all turn to see who just swung open the door so loud. Daisy and Kai swallow, waving awkwardly as they sat down on one of the empty benches.
A black and white film played in the projector screen in front of them, it showed men and women from decades ago building what looked like Portland now. The two breathed rapidly, trying to quiet down their laughter.
"We're screwed." Daisy whispered.
"What are they gonna do? Arrest us for not going to school?" Kai says.
"Possibly." Daisy says back.
"Shh!" An old woman turns around from the bench in front of them and hushes them.
"No you." Daisy snaps back, putting her finger to her lips, the woman turned around confusedly and Kai snorted. "This is much better than Chemistry class." Daisy whispers as she rests her head on Kai's shoulder.
He plants a peck on the top of her head. "Isn't it?"
The door swings open again, and the two quickly sit up and face towards the projector, trying to look very focused on the film while trying to hold in laughter.
"There they are." The woman from earlier says, Kai and Daisy turn towards the door to see a big security guard walking towards them and grabbing their shoulders.
"You can't just kick us out we didn't do anything!" Kai says, as he's dragged off the bench and pushed towards the door.
"You didn't pay for entry." The security guard responds.
Daisy widens her eyes and looks at Kai who had the same expression. "Oh, yeah, okay that makes sense." He shrugs, as they continue to be pushed out the door.
"I can walk on my own." Daisy pushes the man off her and shakes herself off, before the security guard opens a door and guides them back out onto the streets.
Daisy turns to say one last thing but the door was slammed in her face before she got a chance. She turns to Kai with an angry expression. "We had to pay?"
He shrugs quickly. "How was I supposed to know?!"
Daisy facepalms, before letting out laughter. Kai begins to chuckle along with her, and he wraps his arms around her in a hug as she continued to laugh.
Her laughter dies down and she looks up at him with a smile. He thinks for a second before speaking again. "Let's go get pizza."