TANGLED PLANS

34

It wasn't fine.

After I finish my crying session and Brayden walks us out of the place again, it only grows worse. Max was gone from his spot, which I guess made sense considering he had been standing out here for a long time. He must've called an Uber.

I look behind us when we get to the car and say, "Where's Vanessa?"

Brayden's eyes glaze over once again, and he says, "In there."

"And she's not going to come with us?" I'm still having a hard time speaking. Bryaden shakes his head and says, "We broke up."

I spin around in my heels like I'm going to find him saying that it's a joke when I turn back. Or maybe I will find Vanessa walking to us and telling me that I was being pranked. None of those things happen. I turn back to Brayden with my eyebrows pulled together and say, "What?"

Brayden looks away from me, and I find his hands fisted when he says, "We broke up."

"Like what? I'm not understanding."

"Vanessa and I are no longer together," Brayden says, throwing a hard glare at me. "What do you not understand about that?"

I'm taken aback by his anger towards me, and he doesn't answer as I slip into the car. Once I get in, I cross my hands across my chest and look out the window. I hear my brother get into the car as well, and he pulls out of the parking lot very quickly. He drives us back home, and as I look out the window, I try not to cry more. Max had rejected me. Not in many words, but that much was clear.

Okay.

The one word is enough to make me want to rip my hair out. Okay? What did that even mean? Okay, Daisy, I heard you, and I think you are pathetic. What the heck? It troubled me. And maybe I should've left it at 'okay' and at the fact that he didn't want me to be close to him. Instead, I pushed, and I pushed until he said some things that I hated even more.

That was my own doing.

"Daisy," my brother's voice calls out from the driver's seat. I turn to him with a look, and he pulls his lips together in a thin line. After a second, he says, "Vanessa and I were talking about something dumb. Well, about how next year is our last year. I was acting like it wasn't a big deal, and Vanessa was thinking so far into the future that I was like, 'Can you stop thinking so far?'

And then other stuff was said, and then she concluded the conversation with, 'Okay, I get it; you don't think we will make it that far.' And to save me the trouble she suggested, we broke up." Brayden finished it off with a long sigh, and I stared at him dumbfounded.

"So, Vanessa cares about you a lot, and you are dumb enough to not realize it," I conclude, and my brother rolls his eyes at me. He taps his finger across the steering wheel, and I wondered if Max and he picked up on the same fidget. That was common between the both of them.

"I just," Brayden says, and then shrugs. "We were at prom! I just wanted to enjoy the night instead of thinking of the future."

I give him a nod and then add, "But don't you ever wonder if she will be the girl who will be with you in the future? Don't you wonder if she will be the girl you marry?"

"Of course," Brayden answers with a smile on his face. "Often, but it's just—the future is unpredictable; I want to live in the present."

"Understood," I say to him, and then Brayden turns to me with a look, one that leanse more toward suspicious.

"So what did Max say to you?" he asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Um just that he made fun with the fact that I said I felt something whenever he was around", I say and decide to keep the last part to myself. I didn't want to talk about the horrible statement. It was dumb for him to say that to me anyway. I wasn't a child and he had to know that, considering he wanted to kiss me last week. I don't think Max went around kissing little kids. That would be...well, that's just a no.