Chapter Text
5:45PM: You’re not going to believe the day I’m having.
Dani fires off the text to Owen without much thought.
If there’s one person who can make today a little bit better, it’s Owen.
He’s been her best friend since she took her gap year in England. They’d met at work, when she was an au pair for a charming little family at their summer home for a few months. She still misses the children sometimes.
Her time at Bly was so lovely, Dani wished she could’ve stayed there forever. But she had a life to get back to in the states.
An Eddie.
So she went back. Back to endless cornfields, back to brutal winters, back to Eddie.
She hasn’t left since.
Dani’s not stuck, strictly speaking. She likes to think of it as biding her time. She attends the state university, and is three and a half years into a four-year degree in education. She got an apartment with Eddie for their last year, because he asked, student dorms are awful, and she can’t really afford a place on her own.
They’re happy together (or at least not miserable like Dani’s parents were in the first decade of her life). She’d be lying if she said she didn’t dream of a life away from here, but there’s plenty of time for that later down the line, right?
All in all, it’s not a bad life. Except for days like today.
Days like today are filled with screaming children who need more than Dani can ever give them as a student teacher. Days like today force her to lose her patience and seek solace in a bathroom stall while she tries to calm her breathing, stop her hands from shaking as she pushes off a panic attack.
Days like today that culminate her dropping her freaking phone in the toilet.
Her first reaction, surprisingly, is to laugh. It’s the cherry on top, really.
The first person she thinks of telling, as she watches her phone sink to the bottom of the bowl, is Owen. She knows he’ll find it hilarious. He teases her constantly for being a technologically challenged klutz.
“A recipe for disaster,” he’s called her on more than one occasion.
He’s told her she should back up her contacts and photos, to use the “cloud,” but Dani’s never seen a need for it—until today, of course, as her phone falls into the toilet with a hefty plop.
It should send her over the edge, really, but as she watches it sink she thinks of Owen, imagines his reaction, and before she knows it laughter is bubbling out of her. She leans her head against the bathroom stall door—too short for an adult, a shortsighted design in her opinion—and laughs.
When she finally has enough control of herself to pluck her phone out of the toilet water, it won’t turn on.
Figures.
She makes it through the rest of the day without any more fits of laughter or panic, and after school, she goes right to the store.
They can’t do anything for her phone except tell her to try putting it in a bag of rice, and sell her on the cheapest smart phone they have. It doesn’t have any bells or whistles, but it’s not hundreds and hundreds of dollars that Dani doesn’t have.
After she gets in her car and makes the call to activate the new phone, she types off her message to Owen and presses send, glad she’d memorized his number over the years.
Or at least, she thought she had.
//
Eddie is already home when she gets there. He looks up from his spot at the kitchen table, a bowl of yesterday’s leftovers sitting in front of him. He never waits for her for dinner, unless she’s the one cooking, and she doesn’t mind. She told him a long time ago that she likes to eat later, unwind first—but he still looks guilty whenever she comes home and he’s mid meal.
“Hey! Where were you?” he asks.
Dani glances at the clock. Forty-five minutes late. “I dropped my phone in the—well, it broke. I had to get a new one.”
“Shit,” he says. “How much was it?”
Eddie, studying to be an accountant, has them on a pretty tight budget.
“Two-fifty,” she says.
“Jesus, Danielle.” He sounds annoyed, but he shouldn’t be. They have separate accounts—it’s not like it’s his money she spent. “You should’ve told me. Maybe I could’ve helped you get a better price.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t exactly have a phone to call you with.”
“You could’ve come home first.” He goes back to eating, though a small pout stays on his face.
“Anyway, it was the cheapest they had. Were you going to haggle with Best Buy?”
He shakes his head, then takes a large bite of his casserole. “Phones these days. Remember when they were half that?” The frown is gone from his face as quickly as it came. That’s good, at least. She really doesn’t feel like fighting tonight.
“Crazy, right?” Dani agrees, even though she didn’t actually have a smart phone until her senior year of high-school. Her mother never saw the point, so she couldn’t get one until she could afford it herself with money saved up from babysitting.
“I’ve got some papers to grade if I don’t want to work over the weekend,” she says. So I’m going to need you to leave me alone gets left unsaid, but this is part of a routine they have down pat.
When she looks back at Eddie, he has an oddly guilty look on his face. “I’m going out, actually. Matt’s having a party.”
Dani isn’t mad that she’s not invited. Eddie probably knows better by now. He’s asked her to join him and his friends enough times, but she has little interest in sweaty bodies in a tiny apartment where the music is too loud and the only thing to drink is cheap beer.
“Have fun,” she says.
He kisses her forehead on the way out.
She settles down on the couch, spreading out her papers on the coffee table. She makes herself a cup of coffee with the Keurig machine Eddie had gotten her when they moved in together. She thinks it was probably more for him than her, judging by the face he made every time she brewed a pot of coffee for him.
She’s halfway through the pile of tests when her new phone makes a high-pitched trilling noise.
“I’ll have to figure out how to change that,” Dani says to herself in the empty apartment.
When she pulls it out, she finds a new message.
Owen 8:06PM: try me.
Dani grins. Owen is just the sort of distraction from her terrible day that she needs.
Dani 8:07PM: Let’s just say I’m texting you on my new phone after my old one took a bath in a toilet.
She expects an immediate response, but doesn’t get one. She checks her phone after five minutes, frowning when there’s still no message. Owen is nothing if not a fast texter. Then she remembers that it’s six hours later over there. Weird. What’s Owen doing awake at this hour anyway? Maybe he woke up in the middle of the night to her message, responded, and promptly fell back asleep.
She’s just getting back in the groove of grading when it dings again.
Owen 8:15PM: a clean one, i hope?
Dani 8:17PM: Ew. Yes, thank god. I was having a bit of mental breakdown and the toilet stalls were the only place to hide. Don’t worry, all good now.
Dani 8:18PM: How’s Hannah?
Another half a test graded, another obnoxiously loud ding! Dani tries to find the settings, but gives up after a minute. She’d much rather be talking to her friend than getting frustrated with her cheap phone.
Owen 8:21PM: hm, don’t know one of those.
Ah, a joke. Not a particularly funny one, but she’ll forgive him.
Dani 8:22PM: Very funny, Owen.
Five minutes, this time, then ding ding! Two new messages pop up on her screen.
Owen 8:26PM: owen?
Owen 8:26PM: hate to tell you this, but i think you have the wrong number
This isn’t Owen’s usual brand of humor. He’s more inclined to puns and wordplay. Dani scans over the number—once, twice, then… oh no.
It’s with a gasp she realizes she messed up the last two digits, switching them around.
Dani 8:28PM: Oh god. I’m so sorry.
She feels like an idiot. She had been so confident of Owen’s number, so proud of herself for remembering the obnoxiously long list of digits that she hadn’t even checked to make sure her stupid fingers typed it correctly on the smaller-than-she’s-used-to screen.
Owen 8:28PM: my fault, i should’ve told you right away
Owen 8:28PM: to be fair, I did think you were a robot
Dani 8:29PM: … a robot?
Owen 8:29PM: yea, a scammer, you know?
Owen 8:29PM: hot singles in your area type of thing
Dani snorts. She doesn’t know from experience, but she’s heard enough about the weird ways people will try to trick each other into forking over their money on the Internet to understand the concept. She’s sure most of them don’t lead off with saying they dropped their phone in the toilet, but anything is possible.
Dani 8:31PM: Not a hot single, unfortunately. Fortunately? I'm not sure.
Owen 8:32PM: fortunately, i’d say. you seem a lot nicer than the last robot i talked to
Dani smiles at her phone, fingers hesitating before typing out another message. Even if it’s not Owen, this person seems nice enough to be a welcome distraction from her grading.
Dani 8:33PM: So, not-Owen... Why are you so bored on a Friday night that you're responding to texts you yourself admit you believed to be from a scammer?
Not-Owen 8:35PM: excellent question. for one thing, it’s nearly three a.m. here, so i guess you should be asking what i'm doing awake when I need to be at work in three hours?
Oh, right—the time difference.
Dani 8:37PM: I hope I didn’t wake you…
Not-Owen 8:39PM: not a chance. i just run best on empty
Dani 8:40PM: That can’t be true. Humans need sleep!
Not-Owen 8:41PM: well, maybe i’m the robot then
Not-Owen 8:41PM: by the way, what’s your credit card number?
Dani misses the notifications for those last few messages. It’s not until forty-five minutes later, when she’s finished grading papers, that she sees the message waiting for her on her screen.
Dani 9:28PM: You better be asleep by now, robot or not.
She’s not sure what to make of her disappointment when her message doesn’t get a response.
//
On Saturday mornings, Dani wakes up and makes french toast. It’s part of her weekend routine ever since she moved in with Eddie. First, she sneaks out of bed while he’s still asleep—this morning, he’s completely knocked out. She isn’t even sure what time he’d gotten home from his party the night before, but he still smells like beer when she first opens her eyes.
Next, she trots downstairs to grab the newspaper from the row of mailboxes on the first floor while the coffee brews, and reads the headlines while she drinks from the steaming mug.
“Mm,” she hums through a smile on her first sip. How does Eddie drink this stuff black? It tastes like poison. But with cream and sugar, it’s palatable, sometimes even enjoyable.
It all feels very adult, very normal, and Dani likes that most of all.
When she’s done with her coffee she’ll usually start on breakfast. She’s tried pancakes, which were a messy flop, and omelettes, which somehow always turned into scrambled eggs. She was delighted when Eddie suggested french toast one morning and it turned out to be the only breakfast food she could actually cook.
Now, she makes it every weekend.
It was the life she’d dreamed about as a kid, one her mother never could—or never tried—to provide for her. Dani would do just about anything to distance herself from her mother—even waking Eddie up with breakfast waiting for him on the weekends. It’s old-school, traditional. the sort of thing most girls would probably scoff at, but Dani wouldn’t give up her Saturday mornings alone for anything.
Today, she’s halfway done making bacon when Eddie emerges from their bedroom.
“Morning,” he says, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. He stays there for a moment, nuzzling her hair before he looks down at the stove. “Oh, you’re making French toast?”
“Yeah,” Dani says, sensing something unsaid in his voice. “That okay?”
“Yeah, of course.” Dani knows it’s not, so she waits a few seconds. Sure enough, Eddie starts to talk again. “I just thought we talked about maybe trying something new for breakfast?”
Dani shrugs, trying to rid herself of the sudden tension in her shoulders. “I wanted something simple. I have a lot to do today.”
“Well hey, maybe next weekend I can help you with pancakes. I can ask my mom for her recipe if you want.”
“That would be nice,” she says. Judy’s pancakes were always delicious, and a lot better than whatever Dani had made that came out of a box mix. “What are your plans today?” she asks.
“I was going to have the guys over to watch basketball,” Eddie says. Dani freezes. She’s told him on more than one occasion that she would like a warning when he plans on having people over. It’s the sort of thing she has to prepare for with anyone, but especially with Eddie’s friends.
“Did you already invite them?” she asks. “I had a long week, and I was kind of hoping —“
“Sorry, babe,” he says, picking a piece of bacon off the plate. It crunches as he puts it in his mouth, but he speaks around it anyway, as if Judy hadn’t tried to scold that nasty habit out of him from day one. “I totally forgot. Last time, I swear.”
“Eddie —“
“They’ll be here at four,” he says, shutting down the conversation. “I can come shopping with you, if you want?”
He offers it like consolation, and she supposes it is. There isn’t much parking at their apartment, and with him there she won’t have to make two trips. Besides, if he comes with her, there’s little chance she can forget something he asked for. She’d rather skip that argument for the day.
//
Eddie’s friends are obnoxious.
Dani doesn’t usually like to have such strong negative opinions of people—there’s always something redeeming, in her experience, no matter how hidden—but Matt in particular gets on her nerves.
He’s always making jokes about her that he thinks will go over her head, and Eddie rarely pushes back at all. Just laughs along with him, apologizes to her later.
It’s for this reason that when Matt and two of his friends walk in, Dani excuses herself into the bedroom to read. She doesn’t want to spend the evening trapped in the bedroom, but it’s preferable to being out in the testosterone-filled living room.
She’d worked all afternoon preparing a couple of different foods for the boys to snack on in place of a big dinner—a cheese dip, some wings, and far too many pigs in a blanket—so she fixes herself a plate before she disappears behind the closed door, knowing if she waits it’ll all be gone in an hour.
The food, to her credit, is pretty good. She’s had plenty of practice for these game-day snacks, but she’s still impressed every time when they turn out all right. One less thing for Matt to tease her about.
“He’s just messing around,” Eddie has said too many times in the past. In Dani’s opinion, a joke isn’t funny if it’s at someone else’s expense. At the elementary school, they’d call Matt a bully. Here, he’s Eddie’s best friend.
She sets about trying to read the book she’s been looking forward to all week, on nights when she had too much grading to do to relax, but finds that the loud cheering coming from the other room every other minute is much too distracting. She sighs, leaning her head against the wall as she stares at her ceiling.
Her headphones are in her purse, by the door in the kitchen. She supposes she could go get them, but…
A loud roar comes from the other room.
“Yeah, that’s my boy!” Matt’s voice is clear through the walls. Dani decides at once that she does not want to go out there.
There’s only one thing to do.
She opens Netflix on her phone. Nothing calms her nerves like judging people as they cook things Dani can barely begin to imagine being able to make.
//
“He just said he doesn’t like lavender,” Dani says, shaking her head.
It’s been a few hours, but she can still hear Eddie’s friends in the living room. She’s surprised to say it hasn’t ruined her night after all. She even made a little throne of pillows for herself against the wall to curl into as she binge watches an entire season.
A message notification interrupts her screen seconds before they announce who is leaving for the week.
Not-Owen 8:28PM: hope today was a better day
Dani clicks immediately. She hadn’t expected to hear from the mystery person again—the elimination can wait a few more minutes.
She hesitates as she tries to think of something clever to say.
Dani 8:30PM: Didn’t drop any phones in any toilets, so that’s something!
Dani 8:30PM: Still swearing off a normal sleep schedule?
Not-Owen 8:32PM: always
Not-Owen 8:32PM: sorry for not answering. wasn’t sure if it would be weird to text you again
Dani 8:33PM: Why would it be weird?
Not-Owen 8:34PM: because we’re strangers?
Dani 8:34PM: Hm.
It takes her a full minute to find the handshake emoji.
Dani 8:35PM: Hello. I’m Dani.
Not-Owen 8:35PM: i’m jamie
Dani 8:36PM: Hi, Jamie!
Dani 8:36PM: There. Not strangers anymore.
Dani waits for the dots to appear, signaling Jamie is typing a message, but none come. She frowns as she opens Netflix back up. Suddenly the show seems a lot less interesting.
She manages to leave it for ten minutes before she scrolls back to her messages and sends another one, hoping to get a response.
Dani 8:45PM: How was your day?
She hopes it doesn’t come off as desperate. She’s not lonely, just bored. If she were lonely, there’s a room full of loud, rowdy boys just one wall over she could be spending time with, but that’s the last thing she wants.
Jamie 8:49PM: sorry, went out for a smoke and left my phone. it was ok, boss is a twat but that’s nothing new
Dani 8:49PM: What do you do?
Jamie 8:50PM: i’m a gardener. not my ideal choice, at first, but I love it now… except for the boss. you?
Dani 8:51PM: I’m in school to be a teacher. Right now I’m student teaching.
Jamie 8:52PM: ah, my nightmare. what year?
Dani 8:52PM: Fourth grade, so ten-year-olds.
Jamie 8:54PM: i was picturing teenagers. kids are not as bad. but still, if i had to spend another minute in a school i think i’d die
Dani 8:55PM: Not a star pupil, I take it?
Jamie 8:58PM: ha ha
Dani wonders if she’s offended Jamie and rushes out a quick response.
Dani 8:58PM: It’s not for everyone. I definitely know I couldn’t work in a garden all day. Too many bugs!
Jamie responds with a picture of a spider that has Dani throwing her phone across the room.
//
It becomes a bit of a habit, texting Jamie. It helps that Jamie’s sleep schedule is terrible. No matter what time of day Dani texts, she almost always gets a response, even if Dani is just sharing stupid pointless details of her day. It’s nice—almost like having a penpal.
Dani 4:15PM: One of the kids just asked if I have any children.
Jamie 4:17PM: not totally out of the question. do you?
Dani 4:19PM: NO!!!!!
And—
Jamie 6:42PM: so you’re a student teacher? how old are you?
Dani 6:44PM: I turn 23 next week.
Jamie 6:45PM: huh.
Dani 6:47PM: What?
Jamie 6:49PM: nothing, nothing. you just… you text like an old lady.
Dani 6:49PM: Excuse me?!
Dani becomes so preoccupied with convincing Jamie that she’s the furthest thing from an old lady—she still has her childhood stuffed bear, for goodness sake—that she burns dinner.
“You need to pay more attention—this could’ve been bad,” Eddie says as he fans smoke away the screaming fire alarm.
“Sorry,” Dani says, though the usual guilt isn’t riding up her throat like it typically does, prompting her to apologize at least a dozen more times. She eyes the irredeemably burnt monstrosity on the stove. “Pizza?”
At this, Eddie grins. “Pizza.”
//
After a month, talking to someone she’s never actually met feels so normal that Dani almost forgets it’s something a bit out of the ordinary.
She snaps a quick picture of her stack of pancakes—“as big as my head!” she writes—and sends it off to Jamie before she turns back to her conversation with Theo and Trish. They both work at the school Dani’s been teaching for the past few months, and have taken her under their wing, so to speak.
Trish rolls her eyes at her wife, but a fond smile is on her face as she finishes her story. “Anyway, she still insisted that she wasn’t the romantic type—she kept that up all the way until she proposed.”
Theo huffs something into her coffee that Dani doesn’t quite catch, but she’s pretty sure it wasn’t something meant for her to hear by the way Trish leans back and laughs, sipping her coffee just a little slower.
Dani smiles, looking between the two of them. They make being in love seem so easy—though to hear Trish tell it, it wasn’t always that way.
Dani wonders if that’s the stage that she and Eddie are in now, the bumpy road before they sail off towards happiness, into the rest of their lives together. Things just don’t feel like they’re clicking, not the way she expected them to. Living together was supposed to bring them closer, but...
Her phone buzzes on the table. Without thinking, she checks the message. She has to try to stifle a smile at the reply.
Jamie 11:52 AM: must be a lot of pancakes
Dani 11:52 AM: What are you trying to say?
“Who’s that?” When Dani looks up, Theo is watching her with a small smile.
“Oh, um, just a friend,” Dani says, waving a hand. Jamie is too complicated to explain over brunch.
Her phone buzzes on the table, and Dani stares at it for a second before picking it up.
Dani's lips turn up into a smile before she can stop them as she reads Jamie’s response, but when she looks at Theo and Trish, both are watching her with raised eyebrows.
“A friend, huh?” Theo says, though there’s something teasing to her tone that Dani doesn’t quite understand yet. “Tell me more.”
“There’s nothing to tell, really.”
“You always smile that much at nothing?” Theo asks.
“Leave the girl alone,” Trish says. “You’re making her blush.”
“I am not!” Dani says, despite the feeling of heat on her cheeks. “I don’t know much, really. I went to text my friend Owen one day and texted the wrong number, and… met Jamie.”
“Jamie.” Theo drawls out the name like it has meaning.
“Yup,” Dani says, pushing pastTheo’s suggestive tone. “We talk a lot. It’s kind of like having a penpal that you talk to like, every day.”
Theo raises her eyebrows again. “Every day, huh?”
Trish lightly smacks her arm. “Stop it. Dani’s allowed to have friends.”
“Friends,” Dani repeats. She hadn’t thought of it that way, to be perfectly honest. She hadn’t really tried to define it at all, but she supposes if she has to… friends fits best. “Right. We’re friends.”
“Or not friends?” Theo is still wearing a grin. “Maybe more than —“
“Tell us about this Jamie,” Trish cuts her off, and Dani chews her lip as she thinks.
“I don’t know what there is to tell. She’s just… Jamie? But I also feel like we… we get each other, you know?”
“Wow, a mystery. How romantic.”
Trish glares at Theo again. “Hey. She’s taken, remember? Practically married, to hear him tell it.”
The four of them had gone out to dinner just once. The conversation had been painfully awkward. Eddie didn’t seem to know how to act around people who were different from him, and kept talking about his gay brother who Dani knows Eddie hasn’t seen in almost a year.
Practically married. Dani hates the description.
“We are not.”
Theo tilts her head. “Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?”
“Theo,” Trish warns again. “Don’t torment the poor girl.”
“I’m just saying. A little romance is nice every once in a while.”
Dani rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, Eddie’s idea of romance is folding his clothes without me asking him to.”
“Oh, god.” Even Trish seems to find this repulsive. “What are you, his mother?”
Dani sighs. “I wish. Judy has her shit together. I’m…” She shrugs. “You know, I’ve tried not folding them before. I’ve tried asking him to do it. But if I leave them for too long he just throws them back in the hamper and I end up washing them all over again.”
“Dani.” Theo leans against the table a little so she’s looking Dani directly in the eye. “Listen, you’re too young to be settling for someone who doesn’t make you happy. I’m not gonna say any more than that, because it’s none of my business, but you need to know. You deserve to be happy.”
“I am happy,” Dani says.
“Because of Eddie, or in spite of him?”
The question leaves Dani deep in thought for the rest of the afternoon.
//
She’s still thinking about what Theo said when she pulls out her phone to text Jamie that night.
Dani 7:20PM: How’re things?
Jamie 7:22PM: not so good
Jamie 7:23PM: boss was a nightmare today
Dani 7:25PM: I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to put up with that.
Jamie 7:26PM: i do though, and he knows it. that’s part of why he’s such a shit
Dani 7:26PM: Why do you have to?
Jamie 7:26PM: long story
Dani: 7:27PM: I have time.
Dani 7:29PM: No pressure though.
Jamie 7:32PM: for starters, no one wants to hire an ex-con around here
Jamie 7:33PM: and even if they did… it’s a small town, not exactly a lot of work
Dani 7:33PM: I know the feeling. Iowa is full of small towns.
Jamie 7:34 PM: how was your day?
Dani hesitates, wondering if she should get into this conversation with Jamie. Her day, in truth, wasn’t bad. She saw friends, she relaxed. But she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling brought on by the conversation with Theo, that something in her relationship isn’t right.
Dani 7:34PM: It was okay.
Jamie 7:35PM: wow. just ok? not even an exclamation point
Jamie 7:35PM: must’ve been miserable then
Dani frowns. Is she really that transparent that someone who she barely knows can read her feelings so plainly halfway across the world?
Probably, she thinks.
Dani 7:36PM: Hahaha. You’ve got me.
Dani 7:36PM: I just have a lot on my mind.
Jamie 7:39PM: sorry, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to
Dani 7:40PM: No, I just… I don’t know. Have you ever been in love?
Jamie 7:42PM: wow, big question
Jamie 7:42PM: yeah, I have. once
Jamie 7:43PM: wasn’t for me. sworn off it ever since
Dani reads the message over a few times. Sworn off love? She didn’t know that was possible. Love was always something that was expected of her, especially with Eddie. Her whole life, everyone expected her to love him, and she had fallen right in line.
Jamie 7:45PM: why?
She struggles to answer, unsure of where she was going with this line of questioning. Jamie can’t tell her if she’s in love with Eddie. Neither can Theo or Trish. She chews her lip as she tries to think of an explanation.
Dani 7:48PM: I guess I just was wondering what it felt like for you.
Jamie 7:50PM: pain. loads of it.
Jamie 7:51PM: but it wasn’t the right kind of love
Dani 7:52PM: The right kind?
Jamie 7:53PM: yeah, you know
Jamie 7:54PM: when two people love each other the right way, it makes both of them better for it
Dani 7:55PM: and that wasn’t what it was like for you?
The dots appear and disappear several times over the next few minutes.
Jamie 7:56PM: no.
Dani stares at the single word, wondering how many others Jamie had typed before erasing them and leaving just this one.
Dani 7:57PM: I’m sorry to hear that. How did you know?
Jamie 8:01PM: found out the hard way
Jamie 8:02PM: what about you?
Jamie 8:02PM: ever been in love?
Dani doesn’t know how to answer that question. She does love Eddie, or at least she thinks she does. She had been relieved when she first realized it back in high school—that life could put Eddie right in her backyard, that things could really be that simple, that she could be happy with him and not have to go through any of the bullshit she’d seen countless others suffer through.
But sometimes, she can’t help but wonder…
Dani 8:03PM: Which kind?
A deflection.
Jamie 8:05PM: either, I suppose
Dani 8:06PM: I think so… but I’m not sure which.
Dani 8:07PM: I just sometimes can’t help but wonder if this is it, you know? Things are fine, they’re just… it doesn’t feel like the sort of thing anyone would write a song about. Does that make sense?
Jamie 8:10PM: makes perfect sense
//
Dani is still feeling a bit weird about it when she wakes up the next morning.
She drags herself out of bed long before Eddie wakes up. She stands in the doorway for a minute, watching him as he sleeps. The steady rise and fall of his chest comforts her, and she considers for a moment crawling back into bed next to him.
That’s love, right? The easy comfort that Eddie brings her—like coming home, or maybe like never having left it—that has to mean something, doesn’t it?
Dani shakes her head and pulls the door shut, turning the knob so it doesn’t click and wake Eddie before she has to leave.
//
School is exhausting. Her students are antsy for spring break to start the following week, and they were nearly out of control by the time the final bell rang that afternoon.
Then there were parent-teacher conferences. Thankfully, Dani didn’t have to say much to the parents during those, but she needed to be there to observe. By the time she leaves the school at seven, she’s looking forward to nothing more than her bed.
If today was tiring, she doesn’t know how she’ll get through tomorrow. It’s the last day of classes before spring break, and if today was any indication, the kids will be a handful.
She supposes if there’s any light at the end of the tunnel, it’s that tomorrow is her birthday. Dani figures she’ll get Eddie to take her out for a nice dinner, maybe rent a movie and relax on the couch by nine o’clock. A nice, laid-back birthday—just her style.
Then she walks through the door to their apartment to a cacophony of cheers.
“Surprise!”
Dani skims the small crowd gathered in her living room and plasters on a smile.
“Happy birthday,” Eddie says with a grin as he emerges from the group to walk over to her. “You’ve always wanted a surprise party, right?”
She’s not sure where he got that idea, but she nods anyway. “Wow! This is—you got me!”
“Good,” he says, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Now let’s get you a drink, we all have a head start.”
A drink turns out to be shots—three of them in quick succession—and by the time Dani is mingling with Eddie’s friends in the living room, she’s pretty sure she’s more than caught up with everyone as she sways on her feet.
“I had no idea you were a leap year baby,” Matt is saying. “So what are you really then, four?”
“Five,” Eddie answers before she can do the math.
“How do you decide which day to party?”
Dani shrugs. “Well, I figure I was born the day after the 28th, so I usually celebrate on the first of March.”
“But that’s not until tomorrow,” Matt points out.
Dani giggles. “I try to tell him every year that I celebrate on March 1, but…”
“Men, huh?” Matt’s girlfriend says, and Dani laughs, a little too drunk to notice the way Eddie stiffens beside her.
Eddie laughs along with them, but as soon as the pair walk away, he turns to Dani with a frown. “Did you have to say that in front of them?”
It takes a moment for his words to catch up with Dani’s drunken brain. “Oh, that? It was just a joke, I—“
“It was embarrassing. I mean, they’re going to think I don’t know when my own girlfriend celebrates her birthday.”
You don’t. Thankfully, that thought stays in her head.
Dani’s smile slips. “Eddie, I was just kidding around. I’m sorry, I’m sure they didn’t think—“
He shakes his head. “Whatever, Danielle. Let’s just… enjoy the party, okay?”
“Okay,” Dani says, feeling more like she’s five than the twenty-three years she’s lived should allow for.
“Time for flip cup!” someone—Matt, Dani thinks—shouts.
Eddie pushes off the counter and moves towards the living room, but Dani hesitates. He notices after a moment that she isn’t following him.
“I think I’m gonna get some air,” Dani says. “You go have fun though.”
Eddie hesitates. “You sure?”
“Kick Matt’s ass for me, would you?”
Eddie smiles. His grin is full of that boyish charm that Dani loves and his ears are tinged pink from the alcohol. The tension from their spat falls away as quickly as it came.
“Definitely.”
That’s the way things are with Eddie ever since they moved in together. Strained one moment, fine the next. It reminds her of the time she spent in the O’Mara household growing up, watching Eddie bicker with his siblings.
Dani is grateful for it most of the time. It’s nice that none of his bad moods last very long. Still, sometimes it feels like she has to walk on eggshells to not set him off.
Dani moves off towards the small balcony, where it’s just her and the sounds of laughter from inside. She inhales the smell of the flurries and fresh air. She doesn’t close the door behind her, figuring the room could use some airing out from the twenty or so bodies packed into the tiny apartment.
She leans against the railing, watching as the ground below her spins and turns. Had it been three shots, or four?
Her phone buzzes, playing a sound that she figured out how to set just for Jamie. In her rush to answer Dani fumbles as she pulls it out of her pocket, nearly dropping it twenty feet off the balcony.
She sighs in relief when she catches it by the corner of the screen.
“Definitely four,” she mumbles to herself.
But when she holds the phone up to her face, she squints in confusion. Why is Jamie’s name on her screen with a big red button? It almost looks like—
“Oh, shit,” Dani says, realizing what’s about to happen. Just as her finger hovers over the ‘end call’ button, a voice comes through the speaker.
“Hello?”
“Sorry,” Dani says instead of a greeting. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to call.”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Sorry,” Dani repeats again, but then a warm laugh bubbles through the speakers.
“I’m messing with you, Dani. I just texted you. Of course I’m awake.”
“Oh,” Dani says. Then, “you have a really nice laugh.”
“That so?” Jamie sounds amused, at least. The thought does nothing to stop the blush from spreading across Dani’s cheeks. A nice laugh and an even nicer voice. That thought is kind enough to stay in her head, thank god.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m—I’m a little drunk, to be honest.”
“Oh really?” Dani barely hears her over the roar of cheers coming from the living room. Someone must’ve won. “You at a party?”
“Mhm,” Dani says.
“You didn’t strike me as the sort—what with you being an old lady and all.”
Dani nods as if Jamie can see her. She’s right, after all. Dani doesn’t really do parties. That’s more Eddie’s scene.
“I’m not usually. But, it’s my birthday, so….”
“Ah, shit. I’m sorry,” Jamie says. Dani is confused as to what she has to apologize for, but Jamie clears it up just a moment later. “I totally forgot you’d mentioned it was coming up last week. I meant to ask the day.”
“Oh, no. No, it's fine. It’s not really until tomorrow, and I don’t like to celebrate it anyway.”
Her birthday always reminds her of—
There’s another round of cheers from the living room, and Dani closes the sliding door to block out the sound. “Well, it sounds like a big party for someone who doesn’t like to celebrate.”
“It’s… yeah. Eddie threw it for me. A surprise party.”
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
“It was nice. Really, I just… they’re his friends more than mine, and like you said, I’m not much of a party girl anyway.”
“And this Eddie is…”
“My boyfriend,” Dani explains. Has she really never mentioned him?
“Ah,” Jamie says. The silence hangs in the thousands of miles between them for a few seconds, and Dani wonders if she’s said something wrong.
“It’s just— it’s the wrong day,” Dani isn’t sure why she’s telling Jamie this. “I was born on the 29th, so I celebrate on March 1 and he always forgets. We’ve known each other since we were ten years old and he still doesn’t remember.”
“Does he know it bothers you?” Jamie asks.
“I don’t know. I think so. I’ve told him, or… at least I think I have.” Dani squeezes her eyes shut as she leans back against the brick wall. “Sorry, I’m a little drunk.”
“You mentioned,” Jamie points out.
“Sorry,” Dani says again, and Jamie laughs.
“You apologize one more time and I’m hanging up,” Jamie says, though she doesn’t sound the least bit angry. She sounds lovely, really.
Dani bites down the urge to apologize again.
“So,” Jamie continues, “what are you doing talking to me if you’re the one being celebrated inside?”
“I mean, I kind of called you on accident. I was trying to check your text and almost dropped my phone off the balcony. Next thing I know…”
“Christ. You and destroying phones, I swear.”
“It’s not my fault. They gave me shots. Multiple.”
“How cruel,” Jamie says. “You’re having a good time though, right? Not doing anything you don’t want to?”
Jamie’s voice is tinged with something that sounds a lot like concern, and Dani immediately feels bad. She hadn’t called Jamie to make her worried. Well, she hadn’t meant to call her at all, but still.
“A great time, yeah.”
“Then I should probably let you get back to it, huh?”
Dani doesn’t want to hang up, but she nods anyway. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for answering.”
“Any time,” Jamie says. “Have a good night. And try to keep a good grip on your phone. Two in a month would be downright impressive.”
Dani laughs. “I will. And you get some sleep.”
“Never,” Jamie says, and Dani gets to hear her laugh one more time before the line goes dead.
//
Owen 4:02 AM: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
//
Jamie 5:52AM: happy (official) birthday
Jamie 5:53AM: now take some advil, you old coot
//
Her mother doesn’t call.
Dani keeps her phone on her all day, hoping for at least a text. She’s not sure why, after this all time, she expects anything out of Karen Clayton.
She should know better than to be upset by it. Her mother has been letting her down at just about every opportunity ever since she was a kid.
Her aunt had gotten too drunk at a family party once and told Dani that she was sorry that her dad had died so young, that it had changed Karen, that she must miss the woman her mother used to be. She still remembers the sad look in her Aunt Liz’s eyes as she said it—like she was pitying Dani. Dani thought, even at fifteen, that it was wasted on her. She didn’t remember her mom being anything other than the woman she was at that moment.
She couldn’t miss what she never knew.
Still, forgetting Dani’s birthday is a new low, even for her mother. Dani has half the mind to call her, to check if she’s okay, but she knows what she’d find on the other end of the line would most likely be a wasted, miserable woman.
There was a good reason why Dani spent most of her childhood sleeping on the lumpy down couch in the O’Mara’s living room.
By the time she gets home from work, she’s ready to climb under the covers and forget how awful this day was.
But she doesn’t. Because once she finishes hanging up her purse and taking off her jacket, she finds Eddie standing in their kitchen in a stained apron.
“You cooked dinner?”
Eddie grins. “Chicken Francese. Your favorite, right? I called my mom for the recipe. We didn’t have any lemons, so I added some limes, but I think it’ll be—oof!”
The force of her hug knocks the air out of him.
“Sorry, sorry,” she says when he coughs. “I’m just—today was—bad.”
She hates that there are tears gathering in her eyes. Eddie pulls back, eyebrows pinched as he examines her face. “What? What’s wrong?”
“My mom, she uh—she didn’t call, or text, or anything. I think she forgot. I don’t know why I care so much,” Dani says. “She’s never been… she’s not —“
“She’s your mom,” Eddie says. “You’re allowed to care. Supposed to, even.”
Dani can’t bring herself to agree.
“Look, why don’t you go take a shower, relax a little? Dinner will be done in... forty minutes, if everything goes right.”
The shower doesn’t fix things, but it does help. Dani’s found that there’s not much a nice, warm shower can’t wash away.
When she gets out, she can smell dinner, and she’s surprised that it’s not burning. Eddie has never been much of a cook. He always tries to make something far beyond his skill level, and it always ends in disaster. She’s glad he called Judy for advice.
She gets dressed and goes out into the living room, where she can see Eddie watching dutifully over his frying chicken. She stands in the doorway for a moment, observing him with a smile, until a knock at the door surprises her.
“I’ve got it,” she tells Eddie, not wanting him to leave his station and risk burning his carefully crafted meal.
“Dani Clayton?” A man stands in front of her, holding a large arrangement of flowers.
“That’s me,” she says, grinning. Without even looking at the bouquet she knows who the flowers are from. When the door closes behind her, she turns to Eddie.
“Your mom sent me flowers! They’re beautiful.”
“Sometimes I think she loves you more than me,” Eddie says. “I don’t blame her, though.”
Dani shakes her head as she puts them on the table, mood suddenly lifted. Judy has always found a way to do that. It makes the whole thing seem almost silly. The O’Maras are family. Karen… not so much. That’s the way it always has been.
Dani’s not sure why she lets Karen get to her like that. She supposes it doesn’t have much to do with her mother at all. Maybe she’s been more stressed out than she’d like to admit lately. Work is a struggle, and graduation is nearing. To make matters worse, things have felt weird with Eddie. Different, somehow. Tense. It’s not what she expected when she’d moved in with him.
After all, they’d practically lived together their entire lives. Why does it feel so different now that it’s just the two of them?
It’s unsettling, the sensation that the foundation she’s built her life on might not be as sturdy as she once thought. Of course she’s going to be thrown by the reminder of the life she left behind, of the mother that barely raised her, and of the unhappiness that awaits her if she follows down the same path Karen did. A loveless marriage, getting stuck with a kid... She can’t let that happen with her and Eddie. She won’t.
She just has to focus on the positives. The O’Mara’s are her real family. They’re the ones she chose, and they’ve chosen her right back. And Eddie…
Well, Eddie is trying.
The “dinner” he’s created is interesting, to say the least, but it’s the thought that counts. Sure, it may not be the classic meal she remembers Judy making from her childhood, but it’s made with love, and that’s more than good enough for Dani tonight.
//
They make small talk over dinner, and she can almost pretend that, in this moment, everything is perfect. That there’s no such thing as the “right kind” of love, and if there is, that she’s in it.
After he’s cleared the plates, Eddie sits back down at the table and takes her hands. He lets out a big sigh, like he’s got something heavy weighing on his mind, but when he opens his mouth it’s to apologize.
“Listen, I know I messed up yesterday,” he says. “With the date and the party and all. But it got me thinking — what if from now on, we celebrate your birthday on both days? We can celebrate with friends on February 28, and then do something just us on March 1.”
Dani scrunches her nose. “Two birthdays?”
“If anyone deserves it, it’s you,” Eddie says with a soft smile. “Look, I, um—I wanted to say I’m sorry. I know I’ve been on edge the past few months. And I’m trying to work on it, I am, we’re just so close to graduation and I’m getting stressed. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
She doesn’t know what to say. ‘It’s okay,’ doesn’t feel quite right.
“Thank you,” she decides on. “Is there… anything I can do to help?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not your problem.”
She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she just smiles. They sit there for a few seconds before he sighs, this time contentedly.
“This is nice. I’ve missed you.”
“I’m right here,” she says, giving his hand a tight squeeze.
“I know, I know. I just miss being… you know, like lovesick teenagers. Can we go back to that?”
The question should be easy to answer, she thinks. She should be able to say ‘yes, of course,’ or ‘I’d love that,’ like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Instead, her heart stalls painfully in her chest.
“Um, yeah. Yeah,” she manages after a few seconds have passed. “We’ll work on that.”
Eddie’s hand covers hers, and it feels heavy, too large and unfamiliar. “Together,” he says, with a warm smile.
The warmth of it does nothing to thaw the chill in her heart. “Together.”