Page 84 of Bitter Rival

“I took a series of photos of the girl in the mirror, and I tried to learn how to love her the way she deserved to be loved.”

I don’t need a therapist to tell me I have abandonment issues, and I’m self-aware enough to know why I stayed too long in a bad situation.

“So I worked hard on becoming the best version of myself, you know? I just?—”

I cut myself off and swallow hard. I don’t know why I’m spilling my guts, giving him way more than he asked for or probably wanted.

“You just what?” he prompts.

I deliberate over my words before speaking. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to be everything my mother isn’t. It’s always felt like my burden to carry…the lives she’s ruined and the people she’s hurt…I always wanted to be better than that. I want to be a good person and I don’t always succeed. I’m a work in progress. I'm deeply flawed. I’m human. But I keep showing up for myself, and I keep trying. And I think…I think that’s all we can do. Just show up.”

I have no idea why I told him all this.

I feel so naked and exposed right now. Even more naked than when I nearly lost my towel earlier.

I yank on the thread, and it rips in two.

“Daisy,” he says quietly. “Why did you pretend to be someone you’re not?”

I know what he’s talking about. Our text messages before we met at the airport that day. And the weeks that followed, too.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I’m always hoping someone will look beyond the façade and see the real me.” I give him a playful smile, trying to lighten the mood. “But where’s the challenge in just handing it over on a silver platter? You should have to work a little harder than that.”

“And who is the real Daisy Larsson?”

There are a million things I could say, but that was enough heavy, deep, and real for one day, so I opt to keep it light. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m the sunshine to your storm cloud.”

“Says you,” he retorts. But the corner of his mouth tugs into a half-smile, and that’s good enough for me.

“Now tell me something honest,” I say. “Something true.”

He’s quiet for so long that I all but abandon hope that he’ll respond.

When he finally speaks, his voice is so low that I’m not sure he even wants me to hear the words.

But I do. I hear the words as if he’s shouting them.

“Daisy Larsson is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. She’s so fucking beautiful that it’s a miracle I haven’t run this car off the road.”

And I die a little.

Beckett would never say something he didn’t mean. And I’m choosing to believe that he’s not only talking about my physical appearance but that he thinks I’m beautiful on the inside, too. The place where it matters most.

I think you’re beautiful too.

“These booty shorts really do it for you, huh?”

“Why do you think I volunteered to drive? That booty’s gonna need a bodyguard.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Beckett

“It’s giving me Burning Man vibes,” Daisy says, barely able to contain her excitement. “This is why I love being a photographer. I get to capture all the weird and wonderful.”

Weird and wonderful are one and the same to Daisy.

If I had to describe my own personal hell, it would look a lot like this festival. But as she was so quick to remind me, I volunteered for this, so I can’t even complain.

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