Page 30 of Fake it ’Til Fall

That hits somewhere I don’t want to inspect.

“My ex used to call himself reasonable,” Daisy says, quieter.

I don’t move.

If I do, she’ll stop talking.

Daisy Thorn can fill a room with words, but the real ones come out fast and low, like she’s trying to sneak them past herself.

“He was always very reasonable when explaining why I was overreacting,” she continues. “Very calm when he told me I was making things difficult. Very composed when he said Carla understood his life in a way I didn’t.”

My hand tightens around the book.

I force it to loosen.

Her mouth twitches, but it isn’t a smile. “Technically, he found emotional clarity in another woman’s bed.”

I stare at her.

She lifts one shoulder. “What? I’ve had time to workshop the phrasing.”

“You don’t have to make it sound funny.”

“I know.”

She says it like she does know.

Like knowing has never stopped her.

Bea is at the counter with a customer, pretending not to watch us. A kid near the fantasy shelf laughs at something on his phone. The whole damn place keeps going as if Daisy didn’t just drop a piece of herself on my table and try to decorate it.

I don’t know what to do with it.

That’s not true.

I know what I want to do.

I want to take her phone, block every person asking her to make the seating chart of her own humiliation, and tell Liam—calmly, reasonably, with only a moderate amount of violence in my posture—that if he ever makes her feel small again, he’ll regret having knees.

The problem is that doing so wouldn’t help me get hired as a high school hockey coach.

It would also not help Daisy.

I’m learning those two things are not always the same as what I want.

“Why are you planning it?” I ask.

Her eyes lift to mine.

“For the character growth.”

“Daisy.”

“For the money,” she says, too fast, then presses her lips together. “And because my mother asked. And because I’m good at it. And because if I say no, the story becomes ‘Daisy can’t handle it. Daisy is still upset. Daisy is fragile. Daisy is bitter. Daisy ruined the engagement, ran to Boston, and still can’t be gracious.’”

There’s that word again.

Gracious.