Right now, his few words are crawling underneath her skin faster than usual.
Connor whispers in her ear, and she screams something in French.
I turn to Ryke. “What’d she say?” I whisper.
He stares down at me. “I’m not overreacting,” he translates under his breath.
She shrieks again. I don’t flinch this time.
“Is that your she-devil cry?” Lo continues to antagonize. Lily slaps his arm, seriously telling him to quit.
Connor actually glares at him. “Lo,” he warns. “Stop.”
Rose is tearing at Connor’s hands, manically trying to free herself from his strong hold. His lips return to her ear, and I think she’s on the verge of a panic attack, inhaling sharply. How did this happen over a couple comments?
Guilt washes over Lo’s features, and I catch Ryke watching his brother closely. “Lo,” Ryke says, nodding to him. “Help me with the burgers?”
Lo nods and they break away from us, nearing the fire.
I trudge over to Lily, who’s biting her nails as she watches Rose’s outburst. “Is she okay?” I ask Lily. Clearly she’s not, but I don’t know what else to ask. “Is she PMSing or something?”
“I guess,” Lily says.
I reach out and hold her hand so she stops biting her nails, a bad habit of hers. She gives me a weak smile and I return it.
When I look back at Rose, she’s no longer thrashing in place.
Connor points to me while his lips move fiercely against her ear, and then Rose’s gaze peels off Loren and fixes on me, as though just now noticing my presence. I think she’s about to cry.
I’ve never seen Rose cry before.
She wipes her teary eyes quickly and nods while Connor keeps talking. His flexed muscles start to relax and then he kisses her forehead. She hands him her purse, straightens her dress, raises her chin and walks calmly over to me, as though nothing just happened. As though she did not have an epic meltdown.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Rose says, “just the three of us. I need air that’s not polluted by Loren Hale.” She waits for my answer, and then her eyes linger on my scar. Both of my sisters have been avoiding my cheek since they saw me, looking anywhere but there. She catches herself and tries to force a smile.
“I know a perfect place,” I say with a sly grin. I scoped out the area and woods before they arrived.
Five minutes later, I’ve navigated Lily and Rose through the mountainous terrain, filled with fallen logs and wet moss the closer we near the small waterfall. The moon and flashlights guide our way there. The trees break into a clearing, and stone surrounds what looks like a deep swimming hole, the waterfall collecting in the pool and then running into a tinier stream.
I sit on the stone and shed my long-sleeve shirt, the air nippy in mid-October.
“No way,” Lily says. “It has to be freezing.”
Rose shines her flashlight at the murky water. “It’s brown.”
“It only looks that way because it’s dark,” I insist.
She inspects the area a little more, her beam of light whipping from tree to tree, checking for visibility. It’s private for the most part.
Lily hesitates, crouching and dipping her finger in to test the temperature.
“Come on,” I smile at them. “You’re not going to make me beg, are you?” I stick out my bottom lip and bat my eyelashes. I will totally play the I-was-just-in-the-hospital card if I have to. I have to use it to my advantage while I can.
“Are we going in like naked, naked?” Lily asks.
Rose points the light at her face. “What other kind of naked is there?”
Lily blocks the beam with her hand and squints. “Partial nudity and full nudity.”
“I’m going full,” I declare, standing while I unbutton my jeans. I snap off my bra, and I’m out of my panties in seconds.
Rose shuts off her light. “Daisy,” she says my name with severity while Lily takes off her Wampa cap and starts shedding her shirt. “We should talk about what happened in Paris, the runway and the riot.”
I do the immature thing and take the opportunity to escape that discussion. I jump straight into the swimming hole, the ice cold water shrinking my lungs and plunging me into pure darkness. But I don’t want to kick to the surface just yet.
I know what awaits me.
Feelings that I’ve dug through since… never. I’ve tried to take one thing at a time. The hospital. The scar. My mom. The runway rejection. Quitting my career. Everything just piled up on each other. I didn’t have time to really process. It just happened like a domino hitting the next one in line. I had no chance to go backwards and recount all the pieces that knocked over.