Growing Pains

Chapter 44 - Carrying all that anger around

J A S O N

I woke up to someone jumping on me, not just anyone, but Zoe, and not just anywhere, but right next to my bad leg.

"Watch it!"

At this, Zoe screamed and moved away as fast as she could. I was confused at first, and then not at all. She thought I was Daisy. I hadn't exactly woken her up last night to let her know we had switched rooms. I had just collapsed in bed, pulled the blanket over my head, and scrolled through social media until I couldn't anymore.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" she screamed.

"You're gonna wake up everyone," I said, trying to turn around under the blankets, eyes still half-closed. When I managed, Zoe was sitting at the end of bed, arms crossed over her chest, hair a mess, eyes still puffy with sleep, and the lines of a frown on her forehead.

"Where's Daisy?" she asked.

I sat up straight, "First of all, we've shared a room before, so don't look so–"

"When we were kids," she said before I could go on. "And only because you were too scared to sleep on your own –"

"No!" I interrupted. "It was because my parents didn't want me sleeping on my own."

"Because they didn't want you getting scared," she insisted. She was right, but I didn't care. I was going to deny having believed Anabelle was real up until the day I died.

"We've gone on a tangent," I said instead, smiling right after. "See what I did there? Did I use that right?"

She gave up the frown to smile, "You did."

I smiled too, "I'm a genius."

"Where's Daisy?"

I shrugged, "It's not my place to tell you."

She smiled again, "Very funny. Where is she?"

"Hopefully getting some dick," I said, only to get hit with a pillow for it. I moved to throw it back at her, but she was already getting up, the back of her t-shirt showing a picture of the guy from Twilight. I dropped the pillow so I could stop her from leaving.

"I thought you were better than this, Zoe."

She rolled her eyes but sat back down.

"Just explain yourself."

So I started, "Fine, it was way past midnight, I wake up to Luke fighting his inner demons in his sleep. Like the good guy I am, I leave him to it. I find a peanut butter jar in the back of the fridge. I get a spoon. I start eating it. Daisy walks in and screams like a little bitch when she sees me. Why is she there? Because I was right, like I always am, and we should call pest control for just this one room. We tell each other what brought us to the kitchen. I ask, do you wanna switch rooms? She says, yes, I really wanna lose my virginity to a guy that watches the same cartoons as my brother. Fast forward to minutes ago, you almost break the screws in my leg."

Zoe was smiling, her legs crossed, sweatpants tucked into her socks, "Very funny."

"You've said that already."

"And I lied both times."

"No, you didn't."

"Yeah," she admitted. "I didn't."

I threw the pillow at her. She caught it in her hands and put it on her lap.

"So what's the deal with them?" I asked.

"Daisy and Luke?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "But it's nice, right? I always thought they would be good together. She's incredibly smart, and funny, and kind, and so much herself, and he's the same, really. They're just very good at being themselves, in the same way some authors are very good at writing in their own voices. You start reading and you know right away it was them who wrote it. I think they're good like that, you know? I also think they're very much each other's audiences, and that right there, that's one of the best things in life. To be known by someone, and to have the privilege of knowing them too. If that makes any sense, which maybe it doesn't, but you know, that's what I think anyway."