Daisy

She stares up at me starry-eyed and asks me if it hurts when you die.  I stare off and tell her no.  She’s quieter than she’s ever been, and she doesn’t need my brutal honesty.  I hug my knees to my chest and half-smile as she does the same.

Daisy is sick.
Not the kind of love-sick that most teenage girls feel, Daisy has a sick heart.  Daisy does not know if this feeling will ever pass, she tells me through her silence and starry-eyes, she doesn’t know if she will ever get any better.

She doesn’t want to talk.
She says it is easier being alone but we are teenage girls, and I try to get her out of the house, we try to go to the mall with other friends, spending time doing things that used to seem so big to us, and now are so small, insignificant, Daisy stands distant in front of a window display, staring at a mannequin.  The others have walked ahead, already leaving us behind, I stand with her as long as she needs to.  She lets out a deep breath and keeps moving, never giving me a second glance.

Two months after it happens, Daisy can’t sleep.  She calls me hours after midnight, “Amanda,” She says, “I don’t know what to do.”   I can’t think of a good answer.  So although I have never belonged to a church, a temple, or anything of the sort, as physically disconnected to God as I am, I remember that I’m a poet, and I tell her to pray.

Softly, Daisy tells me she thinks she’s too fucked up for that.

I tell her no one ever is, and if she is, then we all are, but do it anyway.  Pray anyway.  She starts to speak over the phone, until the tears begin to flow and I take over, finishing her prayers for her until they eventually lull her into a much needed sleep.

Six months after it happens, Daisy decides to write a letter.  We all stand in her backyard as she reads it aloud.
     “Mom, I’m sorry you were so sick, and I wasn’t.
       I’m sorry I feel so sick now when I’m supposed to be living.”

We watch with glossy eyes, clutching each other’s’ hands as she holds the letter to a lighter, burning all the things she wishes she said.

Eight months after, Daisy is with me at a party.
She freezes as someone carelessly asks her if her mom is picking her up.  They realize their mistake as soon as they make it, “I’m sorry,” They say, she swears it’s fine.  We leave shortly after.  She apologizes for breaking down, says sorry for being so weak and breakable and fragile, I stay quiet until she stops.
     
“I’m sorry she died, Daisy,” I tell her as she prays, “But we don’t have to act like she never lived.”

Daisy looks up, her eyes watery, and gives me the closest thing to a smile I’ve seen for a while.

It’s been a year.

Daisy is getting better.  She laughs, sometimes, the stars in her eyes shine bright, the strength in her voice, previously borrowed by her father, and her sisters, and her aunts, to get through the nights, has returned.

One night she looks up at the sky, some of the stars are missing, and now reside in her eyes where they always belonged.  Thoughtfully, she looks at me like I have all the answers.  I don’t know when she will realize that I don’t.  Daisy turns to me with a bittersweet smile.  “Do you think it hurts when you die?”

Truth has grown its way back into our lives and this time, I know she can handle brutal honesty.

“I don’t know, Daisy,” I tell her, “But I will let you know as soon as I find out.”

Daisy smiles and I know when she says she is okay she believes it.  She’s learned to live in the right now.  She hugs her knees to her chest and lets out a sigh she has been holding for a year.  Daisy lets out half a laugh and says to me, “Don’t worry.  There’s no rush.”