“Penn,” he warns. I throw an actual pen—the one I’ve been using the past ten minutes to write all the shit about our bullshit trip down—and stand.
“Just give me her number. I won’t call. I’ll text.”
“You’re just making it harder. If you truly have feelings for her, you will let her have her way and not contact her, not go against her wishes while she’s trying to heal.”
“Like you did with Mel, right?” I chuckle bitterly, shaking my head. I make a beeline to my room, but he stands and raises his voice to me. For the first time, ever.
“Penn Scully.”
I turn around, slow-clapping him.
“Whoa. Escalation. You just used my full name. Not all of it, of course. You don’t know my middle name. You’re not my real dad, after all.”
I’m just being a double douche with a side of jerk. I don’t have a middle name. My mother never fucking bothered. And the truth is, even if I had one, my biological dad wouldn’t know it. If he knows the color of my eyes, then I’m the Pope.
“Stop feeling so goddamn sorry for yourself, Penn. She’s the one who has to handle life away from her house, her parents, everything she knows, and start from scratch,” Jaime’s voice booms.
“How is she doing?” I throw the question I’ve been asking for an entire month at him once again. “And please spare me the bullshit answer of ‘she’s handling it.’ Daria doesn’t handle things. She either slays or she crumples. She has no middle ground, and we both know it.”
And fuck, did I love it when she slayed and played with me. She was a sweet torture I’d go through all over again, even knowing how it’s going to end. She doesn’t want me. She made it perfectly clear.
“She’s dealing with it.” Jaime grins devilishly, sticking it to me, and his eyes are mad, sparkling bright blue. Like Daria’s when she’s in her element. “Now, are you going to get your head out of your ass and soldier through this like a man, or are you going to fall apart like a boy?”
“Only if you do something for me.”
“I think I’ve done quite enough for you, boy.” He throws his head back and laughs. But I’m dead serious. When he sees that, he stops laughing and rolls his eyes. Again—like Daria. It’s only now when I look for stuff to remind me of her that I’m beginning to see how alike she is to her parents. How can she possibly think she is an awful person when she is made of two people who took in totally vindictive, awful teenage strays when no one else would?
“You don’t want me to see her? Talk to her? Know where she is? Fine. But I want you to give her this.” I grab my backpack and take out a leather journal, identical to the one Daria had. It wasn’t by coincidence that we have the same journal. Melody gave it to Via the day she gave Daria hers, four and a half years ago. I think—though I’ll never ask to confirm—she wanted both girls to reach the same realization and try to bridge shit together. Much good it did Melody. Via bailed, and Daria went off the freaking rails. I don’t know why I kept the untouched journal. It just seemed like a waste to throw away something that seemed expensive, being leather bound and all. I started writing in it only four years later, the night my mother died, and I saw Daria for the first time in years.
Writing so I could remember.
Writing so I could let go and forget.
“What is this?” Jaime frowns at the journal. I think he thinks it’s the original one Daria had. But that shit burned to the ground with the snake pit.
“Some stuff I wrote for her. Don’t read it.”
“You know I will.” He laughs.
“Whatever, asshole,” I groan. “So, will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Send it to her!” I roar. He is playing with me, and I fucking hate it.
Jaime looks up at the ceiling and pretends to think about it. “If you start acting like a human being and not like a zombie, maybe.”
We shake on it, and for the first time since I’ve met him, my shake is harder than his.
How sweet must it be
To look into your eyes again and see
If I’m killing you like you’re ruining me
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.