I don’t even know who I want to become.
I just know, as I’m on my knees in the sand, that I’m ready to become someone else. Get through this shit and come out the other side better.
To become is better than being.
But will anyone love what I become?
Will I?
I get to my feet, feeling those tears now starting to come up again.
So I turn toward the jungle and run.
Eighteen
Tai
One minute Daisy is on her knees, face in her hands, the next she’s springing to her feet and running into the jungle.
I’m about to run after her, but Lacey grabs my arm.
“Don’t,” she says.
“Why not? She’s having a nervous breakdown.”
“I think we’re all about to have nervous breakdowns,” Richard says. He sighs and peers at the fish he still has on his line. “Tai, can you clean this?”
“Can’t you man-up and do it yourself?” I snipe at him.
“Tai,” Lacey admonishes me.
“Oh come off it,” I tell her, in no mood for these dynamics. “Richard doesn’t need you to keep sticking up for him.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Lacey says.
“Your sister just admitted to you that she’s not okay. That she’s having a hard time processing this. That she doesn’t even know who she is anymore. And yet I’m the one about to run after her and comfort her, not you.”
Her mouth opens and shuts, taken aback. “She doesn’t need anyone’s comfort,” she says.
“How could you say such a thing? Everyone needs that at some point. I don’t care how strong you are.” Or how much you keep it inside.
“Look, you don’t know Daisy like I do,” she begins.
“Apparently, you never knew her at all,” Richard says quietly.
Lacey’s blue eyes go wide. She turns to her husband in shock. “I know my sister.”
“She doesn’t even know herself,” Richard explains. “Maybe you should stop being so hard on her for a minute, and just give her a break.”
Lacey looks like he’s just slapped her, skin paling. “Give her a break? She’s only been given breaks her whole life! You know that!”
“I know what you’ve told me, and only that,” Richard says. “Perhaps Daisy was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, perhaps not. What does it matter?”
“My parents were hard on me, and easy on her. That’s why it matters.”
“That happens, Lacey loo. It’s very common. What should matter is whether your parents love the both of you, and they do.”
“Well, why should I work so hard for everything, and she gets everything handed to her?”
“Because life isn’t fair? Because it doesn’t work that way? Because Daisy took the opportunities presented to her, just as you took yours? Yes, I’ll be the first one to say that yours have been more challenging, but you fought for the life you chose. You fought for me. Daisy is only now admitting that she wants more for herself. Put yourself in her shoes for a moment, and just imagine working a job for ten years that you didn’t even like all that much.” He pauses. “And she failed at it. Isn’t it better to fail at something you love than something you hate?”
“And you shouldn’t be rooting for her to fail, at any rate,” I tell Lacey. “Which tells me that whatever issues you have with your sister, it’s all to do with you, and nothing to do with her.”
I glance over at the west where Fred is standing on the beach and staring off into the distance.
Dark, angry-looking clouds are building on the horizon.
Storm’s coming.
And moving fast.
“Now you can think about the fact that I’m right, or you can continue harboring resentment, but I’m going to get Daisy,” I tell her.
I turn and run off into the forest, the deep musty smell of earth and foliage filling my lungs.
“Daisy!” I yell, leaping over fallen logs, dodging tangled roots. The canopy above makes the world dimmer, harder to see.
I pause and listen. I hear the stream burbling nearby, the constant birdsong, but beyond that, nothing.
I head toward the flowing water and then follow it, knowing this is probably what Daisy did.
I’m worried about her. I wasn’t expecting for her to melt down like that, even though it was obviously a long time coming. I knew from the moment I first met her that she was wearing a mask, that beneath the makeup and the trendy clothes and that bright smile, was a little lost girl who was trying to be what the world wanted her to be. It definitely didn’t help that she had someone like Lacey drilling those things in her head. If you hear something enough, you believe it.
You become it.
And now Daisy wants to become something else.
I want to help her become that person.
“Daisy!” I yell again, as the elevation gets slightly higher, the stream bringing me closer to the pool.
When I finally get there, I see a couple of crested iguanas on the rocks. They look at me with idle surprise, but don’t dart off. Daisy is nowhere to be found.