Author's note: This story has definitely been a good exercise in writing description for me. Also, it's nice to write an adult character because I can use obscure vocabulary without having to replace them with simpler words an average teen would use later.


The End of Danny

.

"Which one of you was snoring last night? Fenton?" My neighbor, Peterman, sounds cross. I can't see her face, but I'm sure it is twisted in an irritated snarl.

"You know it wasn't me," I answer calmly.

I've been studying everyone and everything here since my arrival. It's what I do. I must figure out how things work, how to make things work better. My mind analyzes everything. Subconsciously, unconsciously, always. There's no use in trying to change the way my scientific mind works now.

After careful research, I know how to speak to everyone, how to get favors, respect, how to keep them away from me.

"It was Baskova," says another neighbor, Chamberlain. "She's getting worse."

My neighbors start bickering. I don't pay attention. I need to concentrate, convert my thoughts and memories into words as eloquently as possible. The past tortures me, but I owe it to him to get the story right even if no one believes it. This torture must be my punishment. It won't exonerate me, but I must endure it for him.

But the days are long, so long. I embrace my pillow, try to remember what it felt like to hold him. He was once so small, always the smallest in his grade. He felt tiny in my arms. When he at last surpassed me in height and size, I was overjoyed. He made it to adulthood. I had raised him to be a man, my finest achievement. Broad shoulder mass, arms defined with muscle, a strong neck anchored so perfectly at the meeting of his collar bones. But he still retained some sweet features of his childhood, a boyish smile and the break of dark hair over his nape. Masculine, grown up, but still a hint of delicacy and innocence. So much more to hold on to. I wish I never let go.

...

His room was in disarray. Drawers pulled out, blankets and pillows on the floor, posters torn down. My doing. I was searching, determined to discover at last what he was hiding from me. Contraband, drugs, anything. I could handle and help him with whatever was going on in his life if I could just know what it was.

It was past three in the morning. Where was he? He was in high school, had a curfew, had to go to school in just a few hours.

When he returned, he flipped the light on and gasped when he saw me. He was horrified, but so was I.

...

"Fenton."

I look up and see two guards standing outside my cell. I am not sure if they actually want me to respond, so I wait.

"You have a visitor."

I look away blinking. I hope it's Jack this time. I comb my fingers through my greasy hair. If only I could make myself presentable. What if it really is Jack this time?

The guards take me in chains through halls and corridors. They are all familiar to me now. I have been taken this way many times. Every time, I hope it's Jack, pray it's Jack, beg for it to be Jack.

But it's never Jack. And it's not Jack this time either.

I'm put into a small space, a cage. Through the glass, I can see the same man I always see when I am here. His diamond hair looks silky. His suit is well-pressed.

"Maddie," he says with a cheerful lilt in his voice. "How are you, my dear?"

I stare back at Vlad Masters, my old college friend, a man I trusted far too much. He comes to see me almost every week. I should stop accepting these visits, but I am so hopeful that it will be Jack one of these times that I can't help it.

"I'm fine," I say. Vlad always asks how I am. I could tell him the truth, but what would be the point? A polite "fine" is all anyone wants to hear when that question is asked.

"Glad to hear it." Vlad smiles at me, that beguiling smile that could fool anyone. He is a snake charmer, a thief, a criminal. He should be locked away, too, but instead he sits across from me on the side of freedom.

Not that any human force in this world would be enough to restrain him.

"Maddie dear, remember…" Vlad's voice lowers. "You don't have to stay here. Say the word, and I'll whisk you away."

I know this. He wants to come in the night and rescue me from all of this, take me faraway and keep me all to himself in a different kind of prison.

I say nothing now.

"You know that I always love to just chat with you," says Vlad, "but I came this time because I actually have something to discuss with you."

I wait.

"I finally got around to selling that house," he says. He doesn't need to explain further; I know exactly what house he is talking about. "I put it off for so long, well, because it was far too painful to deal with." He pretends to be sorrowful. "But at last, I sent a team in to clean it out, and it appears you and Daniel left quite a bit behind."

That name. How dare he say it. I grit my teeth behind my closed lips.

"I cannot return any of the items to you, of course, so I am wondering what you would like me to do with them." He looks at me pleasantly, his leg bent and crossed over the other. "I could send them to Jack. I could sell them. I could burn them. I'll let you choose. Whatever you want, my dear."

He acts so nonchalant, so blasé. He acts as if he had no part in anything that has happened, in my being here.

He knows that I know the underhanded truth. I just realized it too late.

He leans forward. "Maddie? Do you have a preference for what to do with your things? With Daniel's things?"

"Danny," I say sharply. "His name is Danny."

"It was."

I curse at him, rage at him, scream at him, pull against my restraints to lunge at him. He calmly smiles back at me. He looks amused.

The guards pounce and drag me away. Vlad is still smiling at me as I am pulled out of his sight.

I will kill him. He is next.

...

Someone writes: I am thinking of naming my son Danny, too. It's cute, right? I'm sure you agree.

There is no sweeter name.

...

"Anything you want," Jack whispered. "It's your turn."

I was so excited. I let Jack name our first child, our daughter. He was hooked on the name Jasmine. Perfectly fine with me. I thought it was a beautiful name, and our Jazz turned out to be a beautiful girl.

But it was my turn now. We were having a boy. Rapture. I always wanted a boy. The day his sex was confirmed to us, I told Jack I already knew what I wanted to name him.

"Anything you want."

I lovingly ran my hands over my swelling belly. "Danny." The eighties were just about to end, and I was a girl who loved the sugary pop tunes and beats that were so prevalent at that time, that were only going to increase in popularity throughout the nineties. In particular, I adored Tiffany, a teenybopper princess of that time. More in particular, I adored her initial single, her little-known song, Danny. From the moment I heard it, I was in love.

When you take your mark, Danny, with your aim, Danny, for my heart…

Danny, Danny, Danny. A precious name, so darling, so adorable. I wanted a Danny in my life so that I could say the name over and over and over everyday.

Jack scrunched up his nose. "Danny?"

"Mmm hmm." I rubbed my belly with a dreamy sigh.

"Are you sure?" asked Jack.

I looked up at him in confusion. How could anyone not like this name?

"Are you sure?" he asked again, slower this time.

"You really don't like it?" I asked with a small pout.

Jack sighed and gazed at the ceiling. He mumbled, "Daniel Fenton." He tried saying it again, louder, "Daniel Fenton."

"No, not Daniel," I said quickly. "Just Danny."

Danny, Danny, Danny. Only Danny. Not Daniel. I wanted only a Danny.

Jack looked at me in disbelief, shock. "You want his real name to be Danny?"

I nodded emphatically.

He was exasperated, dumbfounded. The very idea, the concept, completely nonsensical to him. We squabbled, debated, disputed. At last, a compromise. We could name him Danny if the name on his birth certificate and now on his grave could be Daniel.

I yielded, but even today, in my head, in my heart, he is only Danny.


("Danny" by Tiffany is a real song. Check it out on YouTube if you'd like! I quite enjoy it.)