Love Like Daisies Don't Die

It was obvious that he loved me. He told it to me at every chance he could get. Before bed, in the morning when I woke up, and at any time when we were face to face. “I love you, and I always will,” he would say to me. I felt flattered, honestly. It was nice to feel loved, appreciated, and enjoyed.

But all that started to crumble.

**

JUNE, 2006, DAYTONA BEACH, FL.

We were visiting the beach during the summer, because unlike the senior citizens in our time, we stayed for the snow but really wanted to have our toes in the sand.

We drove for ten hours to get to the beach, from our house in Asheville. The drive was actually fun, which was nice for a change. He got a little annoyed when I brought up the topic of gas prices, saying that I was listening to The Daily too much. I changed the subject.

He’d only said ‘I love you’ one time that day, when we woke up at the crack of dawn to get into the prepackaged car. We’d been face to face. I’d given him some silence to say it, but he didn’t.

I sound terrible. I sound stuck up. It sounds like anytime he doesn’t say ‘I love you’, I get worried. I sound so bad. So very bad.

But I grew up with parents who didn’t say I love you. Does that change anything? No. Right?

I don’t know anymore.

We got to the condo that we always stay in at around midnight, and the lady who checked us in looked like she was running just on coffee and energy drinks. I made a silent note to pray for her when we went to sleep. She looked like she needed it.

It’s not like I would, though.

Everything was falling apart.

No, I’m being dramatic. Disregard everything, black it out. I don’t deserve to feel that way. I have a home. I have a loving husband. I have so many things, so I shouldn’t feel like this. I can’t feel like this. I won’t feel like this.

“Let’s get on the beach soon,” he said, “I want to start relaxing.”

I smiled and agreed. We placed our stuff down, settling in a little bit, and he looked at me for a second, grabbing my face in his hands. I could feel my heart racing. He smiled and laughed a little bit, feeling how tense my shoulders were. I laughed too, as I always do. He kissed me, quick, and then he walked away. Saying nothing. The way he never does.

I put on a new bikini that I had gotten a couple of weeks ago at Target with my sister, who was getting something for a party she was going to. She was always the life of the party, but I stayed home, reading on my Kindle.

Kindles.

My parents never got divorced, but they fought all the time. I grew up running away from fights, because the loud voices scared me.

I was a child. I was 11.

I had wanted a Kindle, and my father had one. He updated it for me, but then said something about my mother’s books being on there. She said something about not knowing why he was giving it to their 11-year-old daughter. I never even got the Kindle. They had fought before, were in marriage counseling, but this was the first time she had cried while fighting. I could hear it in her voice from my room that I had ran to, an escape route.

I remember sitting in my bed, my head pounding as my fingers shook.

This is all my fault, I thought. I still think about that today. I still can’t get it off my mind.

It’s all my fault.

Stop it. Stop it now. I have pleasures. I live free. I have a loving husband. I do not feel this way. I do not.

We walked out of the condo, him carrying the beach chairs and the umbrella, and me carrying the beach bag with all the essentials. He opened the door for me, saying ‘ladies first’, as he always does. As we were walking on the boardwalk, he bent down to pick a flower. I looked at the flower. It was pretty, and it looked to be a daisy flower. Classic yellow center, with white flowers.

“That’s a really nice daisy,” he said. I agreed, and then asked him how long they lived for.

“About two weeks if we take really good care of them in a glass, and up to five years if we just leave them alone, but still take care of them.” he replied.

“That’s a long time,” I said.

“No it isn’t.” he said.

I stood there for a second, and then he got up, handing the daisy to me. I smiled, feeling flattered.

He loved me. He did.

We set up our chairs near the water, but still close to the nice sand that we could dig our toes into. I pulled out my book that I was reading, and he went ahead with his surfboard into the water. I glanced at his phone, his screensaver the picture that we had taken for Christmas cards last year. His arms were around me, and we were both glowing. He was wearing a blue shirt, matching my blue dress. We were the envied couple, the ones who you would catch a look at and whisper ‘couple goals’. It all just seemed too good to be true.

I stopped reading my book, deciding to go find him. He wasn’t out too far, and had just come in from catching a wave. I waved at him, my honey hair blowing in the wind. He waved back, and then came over to me. I had sunscreen in my hands, because he had forgotten to do it on his back. He thanked me for reminding him, and then we walked back up to the chairs and umbrella and I rubbed the sunscreen on his back. I could see that his face had gained some freckles. Mine had, too.

He liked to kiss my freckles.

I had one on my cheek that he especially liked.

He hadn’t kissed it in forever.

He took my hand and asked if we could walk down to the pier. I said yes, and then we walked down, steps in unison, and letting the tidal waves splash over our sandy feet.

I was genuinely happy.

We finished walking, and then swam in the water for a little bit, and I could feel my shoulders burning ever so slightly. At the beach, I always somehow managed to get sunburned, but almost never tanned.

Soon after that, we packed our chairs and umbrella up and headed towards the condo.

Suddenly, his phone rang, and he scrambled to pick it up, his pace quickening as well as his shaking hand.

“Why are you calling me again?” He mumbled angrily. Somebody replied, and I could see his brow soften. “Oh, okay,” he said, warmer now. “Yes, I’ll let her know. Okay. Yep. Yeah. See you. Bye.”

My mind went fuzzy. Who was he talking to? Was he talking about me?

I searched his face, looking for answers. I found none.

“Babe, I have someone who I want you to meet,” he said. I smiled as I always do, and bit on my lip. Worst case scenarios started pumping in my head, filling in like blood.

We went up into the condo, and then changed out of our swimsuits. He put on a shirt and some shorts, and I put on a sundress with flowers on it. Again, we looked like the perfect couple. Though I had to ask: were we really?

I need to stop now. He treats me like royalty, and I repay him with doubt? I am one hypocritical asshole.

“You’re gonna meet this woman who works with me in HR, her name is Kat, short for Katrina. You can call her whichever you please. We’re going to all meet up at a restaurant downtown, does that sound okay?” he told me, and I immediately went into lock-down mode. It’s always the women from HR who your husband is sleeping with. It always is the person who he’s friendly with.

When we got together, we said that it would be okay to have opposite gender friends, but this just seemed like more than friends. Besides, it’s always HR.

“Yeah, that sounds great, babe,” I said back to him.

He smiled and then we got prepared to leave, and I noticed the daisy that he gave me earlier. It was sitting on the kitchen counter, and I grabbed a cup and put some tap water in it, and placed the daisy in it. I was no botanist, but I could tell that the poor little flower was just in such a depressing environment, so I made a mental note to get it a real home later. Later.

Suddenly, he appeared out of nowhere, grabbing my waist and pulling me in for a kiss. I settled into it as I usually do, but he’s always the one to pull away.

“You like that, don’t you?” he asked, playfully twirling my hair.

“Sure,” I said, laughing a little.

But what if I didn’t like it? What would happen then?

We hopped into the car, and he placed his hand in mine as we rode for a short distance to a brewery downtown.

Katrina, because I refuse to call her Kat, was obviously more than a friend. They didn't even try to hide it. I sat across from them because they decided to sit next to each other. They touched their hands. She called him "hon". He wasn't even refusing it. I ordered a burger, and since I don't drink, I had lemonade. He got some weird cider, with a steak, and she had the audacity to second that order. She just wasn't gonna quit, was she? And she asked me all these weird questions. Did she need to know every little thing about me? She is not the one living my life, but she sure as hell could replace me if she wanted to.

I made up an excuse to leave, telling him that I had a cramp. He knew I was on my period, so he let it go. I waited just a little bit outside, where I could see them but they couldn't see me.

He kissed her the way he kissed me.

He held her hand the way he held mine.

He twirled her hair in the way he had done to mine just an hour ago.

Five years of trust, broken by one kiss.

It's always the ladies from HR, isn't it?

**

PRESENT DAY

I divorced him a couple of months later. You should've seen his face when I told the judge what he'd done. He never knew that I knew, did he? Nope.

Katrina is still around. From what I heard, she moved in almost the second we divorced.

All those Christmas pictures, cocktail parties, and whispers of couple goals led to this.

Oh, and yeah, that little daisy? It died, a long time ago.

I told him, in a whisper, after he'd stopped kissing me, to love me like that daisy wouldn't die, to love me like all daisies didn't die.

He couldn't love me like daisies didn't die.