" Oh, and how do I make you feel Danny ?"
Danny Desai continued to push and pull his body on his swing set, his eyes shut and his lips pursed. He was actually standing up in the seat of his swing, showing off as usual. Sure Lacey did that sometimes too, but she did it first so it was different. That Danny was just being a follower.
He was so annoying. Ugh, and he was so weird. Everyday this week he would give her and Jo flowers. Sometimes the same flower for both girls, and other times a different bloom for each of them.
It had all started when he had caught Lacey in the middle of a game of dozens with Lisa Grayson. Right when she was about to say something mean spirited about the girl's house cat, Danny trotted over with the offensive plant and shoved it in her face.
Danny dropped the flower into her hands and asked if she knew what it meant. Lacey inspected the plant, noticing right away that it was a yellow rose. Before Lacey could say either way, that damn Lisa went in on her full force.
"Lacey and Danny!" The slightly taller girl and her two friends began to snicker and point at the two of them. They went on and on about marriage, a baby and a dog! Lacey could feel her temper beginning to flare up. She hated hated being teased. While the nature of the game consisted of nothing but teasing, the only reason she played the dozens was because she was so good at it, or had been until Danny and his stupid flower.
Lacey clenched her fist as tightly as she could before she remembered she was clutching a rose. When she released the flower out of fear of being pricked, it fell to the ground in shambles. Apparently she had pretty much destroyed the blossom when she started to get angry.
Her heart dropped into her stomach. She didn't mean to destroy Danny's gift ! She stared at the bruised petals and weak stem while the trio of girls continued to chant and pick at her. She could vaguely hear Danny in the background hurling insults of his own at them, but she couldn't dare look him in the eye, not after what she did to his yellow rose. Instead she took off power walking toward the nurses office, leaving Danny and the girls to call back after her.
When she finally made it to nurse Pickling's office, she curled into the large plush chair located near the nurse's desk. She put her head down and clutched her stomach, hoping it would convince the nurse to call someone in to pick her up.
Why would he do something like that? Embarrass her in front of all of those people, as if no one knew what it meant when a boy gave a girl roses. Surely Lisa and her friends were spreading all sorts of lies about the two of them, and only God knews if Danny had enough common sense to set everyone straight.
Now here she sat thoroughly humiliated while the nurse continued to try to contact her parents. To make matters all that more messed up, she had just thought of something horrible to say to Lisa about the girl's tacky snap bracelet.
Too little, too late.
…...
Just a day later Danny surprised both Lacey and Jo with flowers for a second time. This time each girl received a different blossom. Jo was given a light pink colored twig like flower called a Common Heather. The blond frizzy haired ten year old blushed as pink as the flowers she held, and thanked Danny for the gift.
Lacey was still pretty sore over the Lisa diabolical, but she had to admit the purple flowers he gave her were some of the prettiest she had ever seen. Danny had called them Anemone. It was a pretty plain looking flower, but it's simplicity was what Lacey loved most about it. There was something sure and straightforward about the flowers.
There was also the way Danny stared at her when he gave them to her, which would run through her mind for hours after. Like he was holding his breath or something. It was confusing her. What was wrong with him? Was he afraid she was going to crush it again? In hopes of easing his mind Lacey took a big wiff from her flower, and tucked it under her head band so the blossom would be there for everyone to see.
Who cares if Lisa and her goons saw her and teased her about it. Danny Desai may be a boy, but he was also her best friend. He was worth the risk of a few heckling girls.
From that point on, Lacey anticipated getting flowers from Danny.
…...
Later that night Lacey's phone conversation with Danny was interrupted by the sound of her parents screaming at one another. Extremely embarrassed and frustrated with her situation, Lacey hung up the phone without so much as a goodbye. She spent the next hour holed up in the bathroom, using the shower to drown out the screaming. They were going at it so bad, they didn't even notice how long the shower had been running.
What was wrong with them lately? It was like everything the other did was worthy of a scream off. Her dad left the toaster out, her mom insulted him off and on for the rest of the day. Her mother forgot about an appointment and asked her dad if he could take Lacey and Clara to school, her dad hollered for an hour about Judy being an irresponsible parent.
When Lacey got out of the shower, the house was quiet again. She peaked into her little sister's room and saw she was sleeping peacefully. When she glanced downstairs she saw her mother flipping through a book. From where she sat she couldn't see into much of the house, but knowing her father he probably left. Lacey would probably hear him moving around in the kitchen an hour or so after her bed time.
When she made it back into her own room she changed into her warmest sleep pants and crawled into bed. When she turned over to hit her light, she noticed a couple of blue flowers laying on the ottoman she kept under her window. She rushed out of bed and ran to her window pushing it open, hoping to catch Danny's retreating form. Sadly he was long gone, but Lacey would think about this particular gesture for years to come.
…...
That next day during P.E , Lacey thanked Danny for her blue flowers and hugged him in front of the entire class. Sure enough Lisa and her friends had plenty to say, but she shrugged it off before heading to the field for laps. She, Jo and Danny had just finished their final lap when a group of kids calling her name caught their attention. At first she planned to shrug it off and head back to wait for their instructor, but that was before Lacey recognized the voices.
It was Angel Delgado and his friends. Angel was a year older than Lacey, and went to the middle school located right next door. The middle school and the elementary school fields were separated only by a fence, so it was common to see the older kids every class. She was even friendly with a few of them, like Angel for example.
The trio approached the fence cautiously. Friends or not, the older kids were known to pull pranks on their younger peers all the time, and the easiest time to get away with something was P.E period.
Angel pulled up his baggy sweat pants and leaned against the fence casually. The entire time his eyes were trained on Lacey. When she finally made it to the fence, the older boy smiled just a little too big and began to call her not by any abbreviation of her name, but Lacey freaking Desai!
How the heck did the middle schoolers find out about that already?
This was starting to irritate her , and one look at Jo could say the same. The blonds' eyes were hard. She looked about as sick of this as Lacey was. Maybe even more so.
Lacey knew she could play this one of two ways. She could get angry and run away in a huff, or she could let Angel know how little he was bothering her…even if it wasn't completely honest. It wasn't even an embarrassment issue anymore. She just wanted to move on from it already.
"That's not my name Angel". Lacey smiled at the older boy and rolled her eyes. He was so full of it. Standing over there with his chest puffed out, acting all sly and cocky in front of his little friends.
For a split second the secure smile Angel was wearing faltered, and for that second he looked unsure, maybe even a little nervous.
He looked back at his friends as if looking for reassurance, and then turned his attention back to Lacey. "That's right. Your name is Lacey Porter, for now."
What was he getting at? " And what's that suppose to mean?"
He looked away from her again, and when he looked back he was smiling so hard it looked like his face might split. " One day your name will be Lacey Ruiz-Delgado".
Everyone began to laugh, even Angel's own flunky-esuqe friends. When Lacey looked at Jo she could see the blond fighting a smile. So much for that teed-off look earlier. When she looked at Danny he looked ready to punch someone. In a Danny way. The funny thing about Danny was he's the type of person who can hide his feelings fairly well. To the untrained eye he looked vaguely annoyed, maybe not really. On the other hand, if you were someone like Lacey who knew what to look for, you'd swear he was getting ready to pounce. Enough was enough.
"Angel, don't you think you're a too old to humor Lisa Grayson's little games? Shouldn't you be playing with the big kids by now?".
Angel gave her another face splitting grin. Boys were so funny these days. They were always smiling about something.
"You sound jealous. Don't worry, everyone knows you're my wife." Angel grabbed onto the gate and blew Lacey a kiss. This boy was ridiculous. Lacey couldn't even find anything witty to say back to him. Moments before he was calling her Lacey Desai, but now EVERYONE knew she was Angel's wife? She really couldn't get with it. The whole situation had her leaning against the gate shaking with laughter.
Before she could respond with something more substantial, she heard coach Jordan calling her back to the stadium. When she looked back, she could see Danny and Jo were already halfway there. That was odd. Why didn't they wait for her?
When she caught up with Danny and Jo, she wondered if she should bother asking them why they left her. She supposed it wasn't too big of a deal, but they could have said something. Why would they just take off like that? Before she could make a choice Danny walked off from the both of them and headed towards the boy's bathroom.
Lacey figured she could ask Jo. More than anything it looked like it was actually Danny who had the problem.
"What's up with him? Is he mad about the Lacey Desai thing?"
Jo looked up from the dirt sketch she had been digging and gave Lacey a once over. "How come you didn't get so mad this time? The other day you almost fought that girl over it, but with Angel it's different."
God. What was this day turning into ? "Im not going to let this bother me for the rest of my life Jo. That would be stupid. Anyone who would let that happen would be stupid. Besides, Angel didn't mean it like Lisa did. He was just teasing me. In a good way."
"In a flirting way, you mean."
Flirting with Angel ? Get real, that guy was really hot and all that, but Lacey wasn't ready to be that person yet. She was still getting a grasp on the idea of "woman hood", and to be honest she already hated most of what she saw. She had to wear a bra, despite not having anything to put in it, and once a month she got knifed in the vagina and bled out like a gutted pig. She preferred to get a firmer hold on those changes before she bothered with the other stuff that came along with puberty.
Lacey bent down to get at Jo's level and asked her if that was Danny's problem. Jo dropped her stick and hopped back up to her full height.
"Why would Danny care about you flirting? That's silly to say Lacey! No wonder he's so upset, you're always doing or saying something to make it seem like you're all that. He was my friend first, why would he care about you and Angel like that?" Her best friend gave her one of the nastiest looks she'd ever been on the receiving end of, and ran off towards the boy's bathroom.
What even?
The rest of that day went by with Lacey feeling a bit ostracized by her friends. She hated this. Ever since she'd met Danny and Jo, she knew they had something special. The two of them shared crib space as babies, there would always be "Danny and Jo". Lacey was their best friend too, but there would always be that something there to trump her relationship with both of them. It brought back a haunting ache that pretty much followed her until she became friends with them years ago. The pain of being lonely was one Lacey would never forget.
Surprisingly. Danny was the first person to speak to her again. He jumped right back into conversation with her, as if this morning had never happened. Lacey played along, even though she knew her insincerity was probably prominent enough for Danny to pick up on.
She eventually got to the point where she hardly looked him in the eye, and pretty much ignored him whenever possible. Covert things like starting long conversations with other people and neglecting to invite Danny in. Eventually the preteen stopped trying and kept to himself for the remainder of the day. Not even seeking Jo out. Lacey tried to ignore how satisfied that last part made her feel. It wasn't nice at all.
That next morning she found a small bouquet of daffodils on her desk. They were lovely, but the tension between the two of them made it impossible for her to cherish these like the other flowers he'd given her.
So here she was now, sitting on her favorite swing and trying to make sense of the last few days. Danny as usual was making communication so much more difficult than it had to be. Deflecting and avoiding her straightforward question with vague answers.
" Once again, just how do I make you feel Danny?" Lacey turned her body on the swing set so she was facing the still swinging Danny. Just when she was a moment or less away from sticking her leg out, Danny slowed his swing to a stop.
" I dunno Lacey. You know guys don't talk about that stuff much".
"Then why go there? Why say something like "it's the way you make me feel" and then not tell me what it is you're feeling? This week is not even halfway through, and everyone's already maxed out their nonsense card. Just once I would like for everyone to just say what's wrong with them, instead of BS around. My parents snap at each other every night, but refuse to just come out and say they don't love each other anymore. Jo's acting like she doesn't even want me around lately, and then you keep giving us flowers and wont tell us why. It should be easy enough. Danny is giving me flowers because he cares about me, but apparently that would be too easy. It would make too much sense. Whatever."
Lacey kicked her legs in frustration, causing her swing to jostle back and forth. Before she could manage to get a good pace going, Danny grabbed her swing and pulled her to a stop.
"Lacey, something's are suppose to be a little bit more complicated than "I like you". To be honest, I think there's no such thing as just saying 'I don't love you anymore' either. Sometimes it like you need more time to figure out the rest of it."
Lacey rolled her eyes and yanked her body away from Danny, causing him to lose his grip on her swing set. "You think you know everything Danny. Like you just have to be cryptic. Well sometimes things are as easy as just coming out and saying it ! Ugh sometimes I just cant stand-".
Lacey held her breath and prayed Danny didn't guess what she was about to say. She was just angry. With everything and everyone turning things around on her, she wanted so badly for Danny to be that one constant. She didn't need him complicating her life or changing on her. He was perfect the way he was.
For a moment he was still on the swing set. Lacey tried to think of something, but it all flew around her brain like an angry hive of bees. To make matters worse her eyes were beginning to tear up, making it hard to see; and her throat felt like it was swelling to the point she could not form a single word.
Danny got up and headed towards his back porch, leaving Lacey too ashamed to even call after him.
…...
That night Lacey dreamed of a little girl who had no one. Her parents were too busy to notice she was around, and she never fit with any of the kids in her class. The little girl was all alone.
…...
Danny missed class for the rest of the school week. Apparently he was out with some sort of stomach virus. Jo offered to take his work to him, but their teacher insisted Danny was more than capable of catching up on a few missed days.
Lacey drew her coat tighter to her body and ran up the sidewalk to her mom's favorite bakery. It was her mom's birthday today, and Lacey saved up 40 dollars to buy her a beautiful birthday cake. It was marble cake with chocolate whipped frosting. Lacey spotted it in a catalogue and just knew her mother would love it.
Before she could enter the bakery to pick up her order, she heard a voice calling her name. When she turned around she saw it was . The sharply dressed woman was leaving the town florist with a very pretty bouquet in her arms. Within a minuet Karen managed to catch up to Lacey.
"Hi Lacey. You getting ready to enjoy a cupcake? It would be a shame to spoil your dinner, your mother's one of the best cooks I've ever met." Karen held the door open and allowed Lacey to enter first. The beautiful woman took a seat at a short table while Lacey picked up the cake.
When Lacey made it back to the table, she took the opportunity to ask about Danny's stomach ache.
"Oh hun, I think he's just upset about something. Vik and I decided he could spend the rest of the week out. It's not like he can't catch up on a few days. I figured he was probably arguing with you or Jo. Kids. You just wait until you get a bit older and things really start to fall apart. He's been moping around the house like his life is over. Shame really, he was a big help with the flower arrangements. He even looked like he enjoyed it."
Lacey's head shot up and she nearly bumped her hand against the cake box. "Flower arrangements?"
"Yeap, he's been helping me out with arranging bouquets for the charity committee. We even got a little book detailing all the different meanings behind them."
So that's where this all started. " , where could I find a book like that?"
…...
Eventually agreed to drop the book off to Lacey on her way past the Porter residents. She told her to expect her twenty minuets from now.
Ever since Lacey got home all she could think about was the last conversation she had with Danny, and how he used flowers to say what he felt he couldn't say, or say the right way.
The sound of the doorbell and her mother calling her name broke the young girl's concentration. When she got downstairs her suspicions were confirmed, it was .
She was at the door, the book in one hand and a slice of cake in the other. "Here you go sweetheart. Just give it back to Danny when you get the chance. No rush. Judy thank you for the cake, hope we can catch up soon."
Judy hugged the woman goodbye, but that was all Lacey managed to see before sneaking off to her room to read the book.
Finally the moment of truth. In this book would be everything Danny was too afraid to say. Well that was about to end, she was going to find out and confront him about it. Make him see that there was nothing too hard to say to your best friends.
Or so she thought.
Twenty minuets later and she still hasn't opened it. Every flower Danny had given her is laid out on her desk, but she simply couldn't open the book. No, that wasn't all true. She just didn't want to open the book.
What if it was something horrible? Something ugly like what she said to Danny. What if it made her feel like she would never compare to Jo in his eyes, or like she wasn't his best friend, but his other friend. What if it meant there was no room in his life for her? After all, people did give flowers for condolences.
The more she thought about it, either way it didn't matter. Even if it was Danny's way of telling her she was smart funny and his best friend, it really didn't matter.
She wanted Danny to tell her . Suddenly, wanting to find out, was only half as necessary as Danny being ready to say it.
…...
That next day Lacey went into town and bought a vase full of pretty purple flowers. Most of which she put in a vase for her mom, only to keep potential questions away, but one she wrapped gently and kept fresh for school the next morning.
As expected, Danny was at his own desk unpacking his things for the day. Lacey took the seat next to him, and gave him her full attention.
"Listen Lace, I think I was being dumb earlier. I shouldn't have freaked out like that. I talked to my dad, and he thinks-".
Lacey cut the boy off before he could go any further, and pulled the purple flowers out of her bag. "This is a Lilac. It's story centers around a God named Pan, and a beautiful nymph. Pan was in love with the nymph, Syringa or Lilac. Both names are cool. Anyway he chased her until she became so freighted she became this flower. While interesting, that's not the important part. Lilacs have come to represent a few ideas in our time. One of them being the first emotions of love. Ugh. That sounds like I practiced it, huh"? Danny didn't shake or nod his head, apparently too stunned to say anything at all. Not that she could blame him. No telling what was going through that head of his.
"What I'm trying to say is, I'm ready to tell you something I should have said a while ago. The truth of the matter is, other than my dad, you're the first boy I've ever loved Danny. I know sometimes I forget my temper, especially lately, but I never want you to think I don't care about you , or hate you. I'm so sorry about last week".
Danny grinned at Lacey and she could tell he was feeling better , but it looked wrong. Like something was still bothering him. "My mom told me she gave you my book. Guess I don't need to worry about needing time to tell you. You already know."
Lacey shook her head a negative and leaned in closer, wanting to keep their privacy as the class started to fill up. " Like I said, I was finally ready to tell you. I'm gonna give you that same respect Desai. I'm gonna wait until you get so full of whatever it is, and just tell me what your feeling. Until then, you can grab your book whenever you feel like it."
Lacey turned away when she noticed Jo walking in the room. The three of them chatted for a few minuets before their teacher demanded their attention at the front. Lacey kicked back in her chair and let her thoughts wonder.
How much time would pass before she was ready to tell him she had a crush on him?
…...
IT'S DONE!
Whew. I have had this story on my brain for a while. To be honest I just wanted it off my to do list. Too much stop and go, I was starting to care less and less so I just pushed through the final half.
Hope you enjoyed another pre-tara trio story !
Forgive me if you find random Partition lyrics in this fic! Been looping her majesty Beyonce since it dropped the other night.