“What?”
“Did you know that Seamus McAllister was the one who got Pete to stop kicking my ass? Remember how Pete just stopped all of a sudden? Like he’d lost interest or something?”
“Yeah,” Jonathan said slowly. “You were finally big enough, and he realized one of these days you were going to fight back.”
“I should’ve done it a long time ago. He was right—I was a total pussy.” I thought about that meeting with Seamus, agreeing to stop seeing the girl I loved just because he was telling me to. “I still am, actually.”
Jonathan looked at me closely. “Errr . . . you all right, man?”
I wanted to punch the fucking wall, but I was afraid if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Chapter Thirty
Daisy
I didn’t know what my plan B was supposed to be. I hadn’t gotten any call backs from any of the resumes I’d sent out, and now I was officially without a job. I spent the day on as many different jobs sites as I could, sending out my resume, trying to come up with a cover letter that would get me noticed. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be because everything I seemed to write sounded inauthentic or ridiculous.
I jumped when I heard my phone ring. I looked at it and saw that it was my mother.
“Hi, Mom,” I said when I picked up.
“Hello, Daisy. I was just taking a break from my book and I thought I’d give you a call. How are you?”
“Not great, actually.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“I quit my job.”
There was a pause. “Oh. How come?”
“It just . . . it wasn’t turning out to be the best work environment for me.”
“I’m glad that you’re self-aware enough to know when it’s time to leave a toxic environment.”
“Well . . . thanks,” I said, surprised that she wasn’t going to start giving me a hard time.
“This might be a good time to work on your writing, Daisy,” she said. “I know that you’ve been resisting the idea in the past, but really, that’s what you went to school for, so don’t you think you should put it to some use? There are grants you can apply for. Fellowships. All sorts of programs.”
“Right, but it takes a lot of time to apply and hear back from those things. And they’re all really competitive. And I haven’t really published anything, so I’d probably get looked over.”
“With that kind of attitude, you certainly would. Do you have any money saved?”
“I’ve got a little.”
“I’m not suggesting that you exhaust your savings, but maybe it would be a good idea to look into some grants, take a little time to work on your writing—perhaps while you’re looking for another job—and see what pans out. I have another colleague who runs a well-known blog, and she’s looking to feature some articles written by younger people, you know, someone like yourself. I told her I’d mention it to you. She knows Carl, too. He said he had a very good interview with you, and that you’re a lovely girl, which of course made me proud to hear.”
“Thanks,” I said. “He was nice. And very helpful. What does your colleague want the article to be about?”
“Anything, really. Any relevant topic to someone your age. She’s thinking between eight hundred to fifteen hundred words. And it will pay, too. Honestly, Daisy, you might just want to think about starting a freelance career, and writing articles for people. I’ve read your writing before and I know you’d be very capable of doing that. Plus, you’d be good at meeting deadlines.”
“Maybe,” I said. There was a certain appeal to that sort of thing, but the writing world seemed like it was highly competitive and hard to break into. “I’m just sending out resumes now, and it’s kind of depressing.”
“Don’t get too down on yourself. Are you at home?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should take your laptop and go to a café. A change of scenery always helps me. Send out a few more resumes, then see if you can get something written for that article. It’d probably be good to get your mind on something else, too. And if you can’t get it written, that’s fine, but when she mentioned it to me, I immediately thought that it would be something you’d be interested in.”