Chapter Text
Daya doesn’t like cages. Any confine of any sort is kind of her own personal hell—metaphorical or literal, doesn’t matter. A smallish sized elevator is the same as her third grade history teacher telling her she was dumb for an eight year old. They’re both boxes.
And Daya hates boxes. She turns her hands over in her lap, examining the newly-formed bruises freckled onto her knuckles; they’re splotched over her hands like sunspots.
There’s no blood, only bruises and the slightest bit of dirt caked under one of her nails from pushing herself out of the grass some moments ago. Daya had been on the ground when she got those bruises (and gave someone else a whole lot more). She considers herself lucky that it hasn’t snowed yet—she would’ve gotten soaked from the slush.
Well, maybe that would’ve been enough of an excuse for her to go home early and not have to sit in this tiny wooden waiting room chair. She’s supposed to stay here until the door in front of her opens. And then she’s supposed to go inside and talk to her principal. And then her sister is supposed to pick her up and chew her out.
And then, if Daya continues to be lucky, she’ll go to school tomorrow.
She thinks she has a pretty good case, the boy she battered half to death was asking for it, and, besides, it’s not like she broke his nose or anything.
(Just his wrist—but that was when he fell! Not when she punched him.)
Daya doesn’t think she deserves to be suspended, but that’s mostly because she can’t be suspended. Point, blank, period. She cannot, under any circumstances, be prohibited from going to school.
Because she’s in grade twelve. And she’s failing three of her classes. And she really shouldn’t have beat the ever-loving shit out of that guy, because beating the ever-loving shit out of the principal’s son usually begets getting kicked out of school.
But, fuck—Daya clenches her bruised hands into bruised fists—she doesn’t like cages, and he, apparently, does. So, it’s actually totally expected for her to–
Just as she starts to grit her teeth and seethe, a door opens. Except, it’s not the one she’s waiting for, it’s the one she doesn’t expect.
“Um, okay, just wondering,” her older sister, Crystal, stammers, stepping into the small waiting room, “do I even want to know what you did? Or are we back to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, let’s just get in the car and I’ll wait for a call from the principal’?”
Crystal is her older sister, but she’s not old. She’s barely twenty, but she dresses like an elderly woman who did too much acid in the seventies, so it ages her a bit. Not much, though, she’s still close enough to Daya’s age that they’re friends in some ways.
Not now, though. Now she’s in Mom Mode.
Daya stands up immediately, mouth moving a mile a minute: “Wha– hey! This wasn’t my fault this time, Crys, seriously, you gotta believe me, I mean, you should’ve heard what this guy called–”
Before she can finish explaining, Crystal’s hands jut forward, and she grabs Daya’s fingers to inspect them. Or, inspect her knuckles. The bruised ones.
“Uh,” Crystal is still staring at the paint-like purple splotches. “Can we– is there a nurse here? Why don’t you have ice on these?”
Daya swallows. They do have a nurse. But she only looked at Mr. Broken Wrist before leaving the office with a tired expression. She didn’t come back. Daya doesn’t know if she was too exasperated to help her or if she was instructed to leave after wrapping the boy’s wrist.
“The kid I beat up was the principal’s son,” Daya admits.
The clock on the wall next to them ticks faster than normal, maybe it needs to be replaced.
“Right,” Crystal blinks. Then, she lowers her voice, “Are they gonna sue us or something? Because I need to pay rent. I might have to sell you. Or Fendi.”
Daya cracks a smile at the thought of receiving any money for their happy little dog, but her joy is short-lived, because a crack in her lip makes itself known by starting to smart. And bleed, a little bit, it feels kind of wet there now. Fuck.
“Shit–” Crystal leaves her to begin harassing the secretary for bandages, rags, ice, or anything helpful to them right now.
Daya stands there, useless and bleeding, starting to get a headache and staring at her hands again. Stupidly, she decides to use her tongue in an attempt to soothe her lip, which turns out to only make it worse. So then she decides to do nothing. Nothing but wait.
In between waiting and being stupid, the unexpected door opens again, and it’s still not the person she’s here to talk to.
Daya now knows why she’s gotten a headache all of the sudden, because Jasmine Kennedie has just taken a few tender steps into the room.
Jasmine’s delicate hand is still wrapped around the door knob as they make eye contact, and, because there’s not enough time for it to become blistering, it stays a surprised kind of tension. Daya breaks it, briefly, to glance down at the doorknob where Jasmine’s fingers are. Her nails are painted baby pinks and blues, and there’s a birthmark on her index finger.
After a second of staring, she meets Jasmine’s eye again. This must cause her to realize who she is, who Daya is, and, more importantly, how much they both despise each other, because she immediately spins on her heel and tries to leave.
There must be another person behind her, because her pushing out does nothing but make her arrival loud and awkward and noticeable (but, honestly, Jasmine has always been loud and awkward and noticeable).
“No, Mom, no, please–” Jasmine begs, trying and failing to not be shoved into the room with a huff. When the door closes behind her and a shorter, older woman, Jasmine just stands there, lamely, with her hands at her sides.
Daya swallows again, which causes the pain in her lip to start up once more.
The waiting room is small. It makes sense; a school of only a thousand students shouldn’t need a front office like one you’d find in, say, an MGM Grand Hotel. Still, Daya wishes it were bigger so she’d have an excuse to look at anyone or anything besides Jasmine. She doesn’t want to look at Jasmine. She wants to look at the dashboard of Crystal’s car as they leave this awful, terrible building, but sadly that is impossible.
Jasmine is still standing there looking miserable and terrified, until her mom nudges her, apparently trying to get her to say something, because Jasmine pipes up immediately after.
“How’s your– like, um, how’s your hand?” Jasmine utters out, somehow speaking a mile a minute despite only saying a few words. Daya doesn’t know how anyone can do that, but, apparently Jasmine can. Ugh, annoying.
She definitely doesn’t even care about Daya’s hand, she’s just asking because her mom probably told her to be nice before they got in here. Maybe so that the principal would just blame Daya and Jasmine would remain ever the innocent little princess that she is.
Not that Jasmine’s guilty in this situation but, knowing the principal, he’d probably lump them together anyway. And Jasmine has a perfect attendance for this year, so Daya’s probably fucked. She has to go down so little miss sunshine can rise again.
“Fine, thanks.”
With how Jasmine nods and looks at the ground, Daya starts wishing the ceiling would cave in and kill all of them. Woah, morbid, but at least it means escape. Another thing she wishes: she wishes she could regret what she did. She wishes that she didn’t mean it, that she just wanted to punch something, and that she could just sell out and say sorry.
But she can’t. She wishes she could feel any regret for punching that guy, but she simply cannot. Not after what he called Jasmine. That’s why she’s here, after all. Because stupid, angry, reckless Daya decided to defend the honour of the girl she hates.
“I’m sorry.”
And yet, somehow, Daya doesn’t regret doing any of it. Not in the slightest.
“It’s fine, Jasmine,” she says, but her tone gives away how absolutely not fine it is. “It” being everything, always, but particularly right now in this office. She knows that Jasmine probably asked about her hand because her mom told her to, but the apology was most likely her own idea. Because it was Jasmine’s own idea, Daya has absolutely no clue why it was said.
Honestly, Daya never seems to have even a semblance of a clue when it comes to Jasmine.
Things are disgustingly quiet until Crystal, in extreme Crystal fashion, rejoins their little group with a handful of Lifebrand bandages meant for paper cuts. As she unwraps one of them with the intention to smack it onto Daya’s lip, she acknowledges the fact that there are other human beings in the room.
“Oh! Hi!” Crystal glances over her shoulder at them while Daya tries not to feel like a toddler getting a checkup. “Oh… you guys aren’t here about the, um, commotion, are you?”
Jasmine looks at the ground. Her mother finally pipes up. “Yes, we most certainly are. I’m Alyssa, this is Jasmine. The victim.”
Both Crystal and Daya freeze, eyes wide and eyebrows high, because what the fuck? What do you even say in response to that? The victim? Is she–?
“I’m just fuckin’ with y’all,” Jasmine’s mom laughs, oh, awesome, she’s the joking type. If she’s anything like Jasmine, well, Daya isn’t going to be able to handle this for too long.
But Crystal is different from Daya. “Funny! Yeah, um, that’s why we’re here too. Except Daya’s the one that did the punching, or– well, she didn’t punch you.” Crystal gestures to Jasmine before continuing. “She punched some kid.”
“Ha! Good one!” Alyssa hoots, and then they’re off to the conversational races.
Clearly, the designated ‘guardians’ are having much more fun with this little reunion than Daya and Jasmine are. One of the few things we have in common, Daya thinks when she notices that Jasmine is still staring at the ground. Ever-talkative Jasmine, who is somehow able to shut up as soon as it’s just her and Daya and two others.
Daya’s not staring at the ground. She’s staring at Jasmine, tensing her bruised fists again, and poking her tongue out to toy with her already wet bandage. It’s not usually hard to tell when she’s mad at someone; Daya found out how to gauge her own anger at a very early age.
(Eye rolls mean she’s frustrated, tense fists mean she’s angry, and punching things means she’s really fucking angry.
Right now she’s teetering somewhere between annoyed and extremely pissed off, wherever that falls on this made-up scale.)
Her eyes fall to Jasmine’s hands while the grown-ups discuss what’s likely to happen in a few moments. Jasmine’s perfect hands, with pastel nail polish and healthy cuticles and a clear absence of bruising. The blonde girl is far from perfect, but her hands are something that not even Daya can think to put down. Just above them sit her sleeves—she’s wearing a light blue long sleeve that fits her kind of weird—which are halfway rolled up and one of them sits lower than the other. And then above those, bony yet soft, is her neck, which leads up to her face.
Slightly-chapped, pink lips tugged between her teeth in apparent nerves. It doesn’t look like Jasmine’s happy to be here either. Oh well, Daya thinks. Tough luck. Not all of us get to have perfect lips, some of us have to suffer sometimes, Jasmine.
Of course, above her lips are her eyes. Daya doesn’t get to think much about those, because once she gets a good look at them, she finds that Jasmine is staring back at her.
Awkward. It’s Daya’s turn to look down now, and she has the urge to cover her ears with her hands in anticipation, just waiting for the teasing smile and the jeers to start. Daya knows that she’s mean, but Jasmine is something far worse. She’s annoying.
Then, with enough force to rival only the most authoritarian of hurricanes, their beloved school principal makes himself known.
“Ladies!” he booms, and Daya just knows she’s about to be suspended or sentenced to death, ugh. Might as well plan her funeral now. The only music that’ll be allowed is death metal, because one time Jasmine said she found it loud and grating in class. That’ll show her. Daya will be dead, but that’ll show her. Anyway, the principal is talking: “Please, step into my office and we’ll get all this business sorted.”
He’s talking to them like a CEO or something, even though Crystal is dressed like a hippie and Jasmine’s mom is five feet tall and looks like she’s related to Dolly Parton. And then, of course, you have Jasmine and Daya themselves, one teenage misfit and one awkward girl with perfect nails and nothing else perfect about her.
So they step into his office. It goes about how Daya expects it to: she gets chewed out and reprimanded and shouted at (until Crystal shuts that down), but the matter of her possible suspension is left until the end. Dragging Jasmine into a situation that barely included her seems to be more important.
Even though she hasn’t said a single word since sitting down and, hey, are pigs flying right now? Jasmine isn’t blabbing to a teacher? She isn’t tattling on Daya? She isn’t even chiming in to defend herself?
Wow.
Daya’s head, like Jasmine, is completely quiet then. She can’t even hear the principal anymore, nor can she hear Crystal, whose mouth is moving without sounds coming out of it, for some reason. It’s weird. Usually her thoughts are loud, and pervasive. Like heavy metal drum solos or screaming, which makes her want to scream along with it.
But now it’s just quiet. Quiet as they talk about her, but not with her. She doesn’t care about Jasmine then, or the kid she punched, or anyone, really.
All Daya thinks about is the fact that she was actually going to do it, she was going to graduate, and now she’s fucked it all up. She had a chance and now she has nothing because of one little outburst.
Well, maybe it wasn’t little. Maybe that’s the problem.
After the initial depression-layered panic wears off, another thought occurs to her. Shit, she thinks, Bosco’s gonna be so pissed I’m not graduating with her.
Someone shakes her shoulder to get her attention. “Daya.”
She’s probably gonna laugh and think I’m joking before yelling at me.
Another shake. “Daya.”
This was our thing. This was our best friend thing, we were gonna walk up to the stage together because you need a partner. Everyone needs a partner. Who’s Bosco going to pick, now?
“Daya!”
If she picks one of her tall, ugly, boyfriends–
“Tell him why you punched Dylan!”
That finally snaps her out of her stupor. Daya always seems to get carried away when thinking about Bosco’s scowling face, but she supposes that’s what best friends are for.
When she finally tunes herself back into the conversation, the first thing she does is look at her shoulder, where a hand rests, the same one that was shaking her. It’s not covered in dried paint and chipped nail polish like Crystal’s, and there’s only one other person sitting close enough to her to make this physically possible, and ugh.
Daya shrugs Jasmine’s hand off, and the other girl responds by drawing it back towards her body like she’s been burnt.
“What?” Daya asks, meeting a pair of nervous eyes (why is Jasmine always looking at her like that lately?).
After a short, hesitant pause, Jasmine starts. “While you were staring at the ground, I was trying to explain to him that you only punched his kid because of what he said to me. Y’know. Trying not to get you expelled.”
Pfft. “Yeah, okay, sure. Like I’m not already expelled.”
Silence. Daya looks around the room before her eyes land on the principal. There’s no way. He’s probably just trying to talk his way into not looking obvious about it. She’s toast, why did she ever think otherwise? This is a joke.
“Seriously, uh,” she stops to read the name plate on his desk, “Brian, no offense, but there’s no way you’re unbiased enough to hear me out, so I’m not even gonna try.” Then, she turns to look at Jasmine. “And there’s no way you’re actually trying not to get me expelled, you probably just don’t want this whole thing to sully your perfect final year of high school. Sorry.”
Both recipients of her statements respond at the same time.
“Now, young lady–!”
“Daya, why won’t you just accept that I’m–!”
When they realize that nothing is going to be understood without waiting their turns, the kind, generous principal Brian gives Jasmine the floor. Of course.
After a second of huffing and puffing and pouting, Jasmine breaks the silence once more. Like she always does. Daya rolls her eyes.
“Don’t– ugh, oh my god,” Jasmine takes a breath and restarts, glancing at her mom. “Just tell him why you did it. It doesn’t matter why I care, or if you think you’re going to get expelled either way.”
If there’s one thing that Daya hates more than being told what she is, it’s being told what to do.
Especially by someone like Jasmine. Someone who thinks she has the final say, someone who thinks her opinion means everything, and that everyone is just dying to hear it.
So maybe, right now, she is a delinquent. And a misfit. And a girl with potent, inexcusable, unexplainable rage issues.
“Okay,” Daya says, looking between her two least favourite people on the planet. She pointedly ignored Crystal’s silent gaze. It seems like her older sister wants to let Daya figure this out on her own. She swallows before she says it: “I punched Dylan for no reason. I just wanted to punch him. He sucks.”
And then Jasmine starts talking a mile a minute, and Crystal grabs Daya’s shoulder, and the principal orders them out and orders Daya not to bother showing up to school for the rest of the winter term (and, because she’s an asshole and flips him off, he upgrades that to include the spring term as well).
And then Daya smiles the same, stubborn little smile she’s had since she was a toddler, and her lip cracks straight down the middle.
After being ushered out of the cramped office, and then out of the even more cramped waiting room, Daya follows Crystal to her beat up old Jeep like a dog about to be put down. Under her shoes, the concrete is wet and tacky. It must’ve rained while they were in there, sometimes the weather is unpredictable in their shabby little town.
She looks up and, funnily enough, there’s a few plump rain clouds nearby. Crystal grabs onto her arm again and drags her faster to the car. That’s how she knows this is serious, Crystal very rarely is rendered speechless with something like anger. That’s her sister. This is serious.
Later, at home, Daya has been sufficiently chewed out and is now left to her own devices. Of course, if given the choice between a sad, empty house echoed with her own thoughts and hanging out with her best friend, Daya picks Bosco any day.
Telling her about Daya’s breakdown goes about as well as expected.
“Dude, what the fuck?” To a stranger, those words would seem strange coming out of her best friend's mouth. Bosco is blonde and pretty in that casual yet intense way. It’s casual for her, easy almost, but to everyone else, it’s serious as a heart attack. The eyeliner doesn’t help, it makes her look like she’ll break your heart one day and then give you a sick tattoo and piercing job the next. “You got kicked out of school?”
“Yeah, for punching someone,” Daya supplies, continuing when Bosco raises an eyebrow, “the dictator’s precious baby boy.”
That killer casualness has Bosco expressing her shock in a trademark kind of way: she blinks a few times before shaking her head slightly. “Are you stupid? After being friends for this long, you’d think I’d know if you were dumb or on drugs or something but… wow.” She sits with the idea. “Honestly, I bet he deserved it.”
“He so did, I regret nothing.” Daya is happy with Bosco’s answer. Or, she thinks she is. It’s not the worst thing Bosco could say. “He–” she considers telling Bosco the truth about why she did it, what he said in the parking lot to a girl who couldn’t seem to defend herself, but she holds her tongue. Instead, Daya says, “He got on my nerves.”
“So you decided to ruin your own chance of graduating.” Bosco snorts. “Sure, man.”
Things are at least an imitation of normal, even though Daya can kind of tell Bosco is confused or upset with her recklessness. It’s not a big problem, though, so she can ignore it until it rears its head later. Daya’s really good at crossing bridges only when she gets to them.
When Bosco comes over, usually they do one of three things: listen to and swap CDs, huddle around Crystal’s laptop so they can pirate movies and burn them, or paint Bosco’s nerdy mini figurines for this board game she plays with her sisters. Daya’s good at art stuff, but she’s not the best at tabletop games, so it’s the perfect setup to indulge both of their interests in the same space at the same time. This is one of those times.
The figurines on today’s agenda are dubbed “Lil Witch Lady,” “Shmauron,” and, Daya’s personal favourite, “Lady Boscaerys Targaryen.” Bosco’s nerdy board game is usually played in sessions, with her as the leader and storyteller (Dungeonmaster? Daya thinks that’s the term), so every week she comes to Daya with some new little ceramic creatures and heroes to paint. Apparently these characters are part of a Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings ripoff story (“campaign”), but Daya doesn’t know enough about either of those books for that to mean something to her.
She’s painting Lady Boscaerys, bruised fingers holding the small figure with utmost care and attention to detail, while real-life Bosco complains about a date she went on last night.
“He said my boobs were great, and then I asked what colour my eyes were and he couldn’t tell me.” Bosco is painting Lil Witch Lady’s face. Daya doesn’t know why she goes on dates with these boys if they all suck and she hates them. Maybe she thinks one of them won’t suck? Daya doesn’t think that’s possible. “So I got him to pay for my burger and then I left.”
Bosco laughs like she’s trying not to lose focus on her painting, lest Lil Witch Lady become Lil Witch Lady, the cyclops, after a bout of voracious Bosco laughter ruins her perfect eyes. Or, as perfect as Bosco can get them with her smoker giggles.
Daya’s quite proud of her figurine. She likes painting and drawing, even if she only does it with Bosco or to take her mind off of how screwed she is. Two weeks ago she lost her copy of the new blink-182 album and she ended up following one of Crystal’s Bob Ross tapes just so she wouldn’t lose her sanity.
“Which one was this?” she asks, only to keep the room from getting too quiet.
“Kevin.”
“Debate team Kevin or hockey Kevin?”
“Kevin with the fat ass, so hockey, I think.”
Daya huffs out a non-smoker, occasional-blunt-enjoyer laugh. “I seriously don’t know what you see in these guys, Bos.”
“I see…” Bosco stops to dip her paintbrush in another splotch of black, “a free meal… and… maybe even… a kiss… or two… if I don’t hate them.”
A kiss or two. Daya feels ill at the thought. “And you’d kiss Kevin with the fat ass even though he smells terrible and heckles all the teachers?”
“I mean, no, not now,” Bosco pauses her painting to look at Daya with a mischievous grin, “but ya never know, Daya. Why? You’re saying you wouldn’t go on a date just for fun?”
“Eugh,” she responds, scrunching up her face. “No. And I don’t get asked out as much as you do.”
“Or at all,” Bosco jokes, going back to her painting.
“Right.” Daya rolls her eyes, but not without giving in to a smile. “Or at all. Not my fault there’s no lesbians at this school.”
Bosco hums. “No lesbians that you know of.”
At that, Daya frowns, not looking at Bosco but rather Lady Boscaerys in her confusion. “Yeah, sure, Bos, let me know when Camden from phys ed reveals she’s actually dyking out.”
“Okay, I actually did hear something about her, but–” Bosco sets the figure and the paint down, clearly eager to take a break from this extremely tiring work. “I’m serious. There’s totally girls here who might be into you.”
“Like who?” Daya questions, following her friend’s lead. “All of the girls in our grade are either happily married band kids, happily married mennonites, or hot bitches with hatred in their hearts.”
“That’s such a lie, also you’re assuming the hot bitches wouldn’t be into you,” Bosco counters with another devilish smile. “I’m a hot bitch, and if I weren’t so interested in scamming men for dinner every night, I’d be into you.”
“Okay–” Daya doesn’t even want to think about that last part. It’s a non-thought. It’s not real, Bosco didn’t just say that. “Whatever. And it’s not a lie, give me one girl that doesn’t fall into one of those three boxes.”
The blonde is silent for about five seconds. “Jasmine Kennedie. Unless you think she falls under the ‘hot’ category.”
“Absolutely not– well,” Daya laughs. Another non-thought. But all she can think about at the mention of Jasmine is how much she irritates her. All that yapping in the principals office– yeah, no. “If I didn’t fucking hate her, maybe. But, no way. You’re telling me she isn’t a band kid?”
“I think she does dance,” Bosco shrugs, “but my point is proven. Other girls exist, so you should, I dunno, put a flyer up or something. Start a Melissa Etheridge club. Do gay things.”
Daya nearly falls over laughing. “Melissa Etheridge club? You sound like my aunt. It’s a new millennium, Bosco, we’re in severe K.D. Lang territory.”
“Sorry I don’t keep up with your dyke trends,” Bosco says. “The last time I kissed a girl was middle school; they’re gonna revoke my bisexual card. Need to find some fresh female blood to make out with.”
Daya bites her lip, but only because she knows Bosco’s joking. “Are you offering to end my single streak, Bos?”
“Maybe in your dreams, loser.”
A few hours pass, and Daya focuses so hard on her painting that she finishes Lady Boscaerys and starts working on Shmauron. His base colours are black and grey, so he’s easy to work on during the last forty-five minutes before Bosco leaves. It must be around seven or seven-thirty by now, Daya guesses. Hanging out with her best friend for this time was enough to take her mind off of school for a while, but she knows the panic will be making its way back to her as soon as Bosco leaves.
It’s inescapable. She can’t just curse and punch and eyeroll her way out of it. The truth is, Daya has no idea what to do. Crystal’s been out with her girlfriend since they got home; maybe she’ll have a plan once she gets back?
“Are you thinking really hard about how hot Shmauron is?” Bosco asks, finally resigning herself to giving up on Lil Witch Lady and gathering her things to leave. “Or is there something else more important in Daya’s perfect life?”
Daya scoffs at the thought. Perfect life? Sure. Just give her a head of blonde hair, a dancer’s persuasion, and a loud mouth.
She’s quiet a second before she answers, even though she knows that anything overly emotional is kind of breaking the rules between them. Not that she can’t talk to Bosco about serious shit, she just rarely gets anything serious back.
“I just really wanted to be up there with everyone,” Daya says, and she keeps her voice even and balanced and does not give away how much she cares about this. She frames it as a want rather than a need, that’s easier for her best friend to understand. “It’s… embarrassing.”
It’s not just embarrassing, but Bosco’s weird, so Daya can’t say it makes her feel like less than. Like she’s all bark and no bite. Like she can talk a big game about graduating and proving everyone wrong… but maybe she’s exactly what they say she is. Maybe there’s no use fighting the box she can’t help but fall into.
Mean girl. Idiot. Delinquent.
It’s at that moment, when they’re both standing in front of Daya’s door, that Bosco says something very unexpected. Something real. “It’s not embarrassing.” And then she furrows her brow, microscopic and calculated and familiar. “Is this because I called you dumb? I didn’t mean that. You know that, right?”
Daya nods, and somehow nothing feels like it needs to be said.
“I mean, I’m sure Dylan deserved it.” Bosco’s back to casual now. Normal. Daya wants to meet her there. “I think you should call the school tomorrow, or maybe get Crystal to. See if you can get your homework mailed.”
“Really?” Daya asks– can she do that?
“Irene got suspended for a week for bringing pot to school in, like, ninth grade,” Bosco shrugs, “I don’t think it’s impossible for you to graduate if you can get that. Hey– try to grovel, apologize lots–”
“No way,” Daya scoffs, reaching out to shove at Bosco’s arm.
“Try to, and maybe send him a gift basket,” Bosco laughs as she moves to open the door. “It’s okay, Crystal's nicer than you. She’ll be better at begging for forgiveness.”
Bosco takes a few steps out the door and then down the porch stairs. It’s not too cold out, but the blonde has her fur-lined coat anyway. It’s probably faux; Daya thinks she wears it just to seem like a rich old lady.
“See ya, at–” Daya clenches her fist at the mistake. “See ya, Bos.”
“Yeah, see you not at school,” Bosco laughs again. “Sorry. I’ll miss you in gym– oh, remind me to tell you about how what’s her face is secretly hooking up with Angie from theatre!”
“Please!” Daya waves from the door. “Bye, Bos!”
“You already said that!” Bosco responds, and then she gets into her rickety old car she’s had since they were sixteen. It’s only been two years, but the car is older than that. Daya thinks it was her mom’s.
(Bosco calls it her Kuntmobile.)
Across the street, behind Bosco’s car, Daya can see a small, light-grey car parked on the side of the road. It’s not usually there, and its parking job is a little wonky, but she pays it no mind. Things are different now, maybe that includes weird cars in her neighbourhood.
When the other girl drives away, headlights fading into a darkening distance, Daya shuts the door quickly and plops down onto the couch. She doesn’t turn on the TV, that would be too noisy and Daya really wants some alone time right now. It’s perfect for stewing in misery.
Now that Bosco’s gone and she’s run from everything for a little while, it’s time to properly think about some things:
- She’s fucked
- She’s super-mega-ultra fucked
- Like, in the history of everyone who’s ever been fucked, Daya is probably somewhere between Chris McCandless in 1992 and all the poor people on the Titanic
She’s not gonna cry. She just won’t think about how she’s not graduating. Actually, Daya thinks, I could still totally graduate. Maybe Bosco’s right. Maybe she can call and grovel and get her homework sent to her house.
But, of course, to do said homework she’d have to teach the material to herself. And that’s kind of her biggest problem. Daya can’t even learn when she’s being taught by a professional, much less herself.
So Daya doesn’t cry. She laughs a little bit, mainly at herself and how amazing she is at making important decisions. Well, and then the laughing turns a bit hysterical, and maybe a few tears fall out. It’s only natural. Daya feels a lot, always, so right now is no exception.
God– it’s so pathetic. The only thing that would be more pathetic than her crying alone in her living room would be if someone were to actually see her like this. Not that Daya doesn’t like crying in front of people, she just really doesn’t like her options for who could catch her. Maybe Bosco’s forgotten something, so she comes back and sees just how much of a mess Daya is about this. No cool girl in sight, no rebel, no brushing it off. Just Daya.
And then, maybe Crystal’s about to walk in the door. She would be better than Bosco, but it still wouldn’t feel too great to let her sister see all of this. Crystal’s done so much for her, the least Daya can do is compose herself. Right?
In the end, it is not Bosco or Crystal who walks in on her crying. Well, nobody walks in on her, she goes to the door after she hears a meek little knock and opens it. Daya’s a little bit stupid, she doesn’t usually open the door for someone she doesn’t know after dark, but she’s not thinking.
But it’s okay. Because it’s not Bosco or Crystal.
“Hi, um– are you crying?”
It’s Jasmine. Jasmine Kennedie. “What the fuck?”