TANGLED PLANS

40

Brayden stares at me for a very long time before blinking. He takes a deep breath and says, "Okay." He then presses a kiss on Vanessa's head and walks away from the couch and toward the direction of the kitchen or bathroom. I'm not sure where he is going, but I do know that what I said resonated with him.

Vanessa turns her head toward me and looks at me for a very long time as well. I wondered why both of them had looked at me this way. First it was Brayden, and now it is his girlfriend. I wondered if I said something wrong.

Vanessa only smiles widely, her teeth showing, and I know the smile is for me. She leans toward me and says, "Oh, Daisy. That was the sweetest thing someone has ever said to... well, anyone."

I let out a nervous chuckle and said, "What do you mean?"

Vanessa only waves off my question and says, "Brayden is definitely crying in the next room over."

"He is not!" I shouted out loud because that was ridiculous. There was no way my brother had felt that much about my little spiel. Vanessa puts a finger up and says, "Watch." She then angles her body away from mine and puts her head up as she shouts, "Hey, babe?"

"Yeah?" Brayden shouts back, and Vanessa turns to me like she has proved her point. I only stare at her dumbfounded, and she has to try whatever she was doing again. "Babe!"

"What is it?" Brayden shouts back, and this time Vanessa claps her hands together. "Nothing," she shouts back to Brayden, and then focuses her attention on me.

"Did you not hear the softness in his voice?" Vanessa asks, and her green eyes pierce into mine as she does so. She was really trying to prove a point here, but I couldn't see it. "Oh, come on, Daisy."

I cross my hands across my chest and say, "Brayden is not crying. That's just weird."

"He is," Vanessa stresses, and then shakes her head at me. She moves on from the conversation and says, "You're blind or it's just a sibling thing; I don't know."

Vanessa was an only child (evidently).

"It's just, Daisy," she says, her voice softening with my name coming out of her mouth. "Was that how you told Max about your feelings?"

I only tilt my head in confusion and say, "Like what?"

Vanessa almost falls out of her spot as she leans more and more forward on the couch. "The way you did with Brayden. When I listened to it, I was thinking, If you told Max you liked him in so many words,

"I did," I admit, and then cringe physically. "I never really said I liked him. I told him that, well, it's kind of silly." I hide my face with my hands once my cheeks start heating up with the sudden embarrassment.

Vanessa only shakes her head and says, "No, tell me. I want to know."

"But like, it's embarrassing," I admit to her with a shake of my head. She only presses on, "Come on, tell me. I'm basically the closest thing you're getting to a sister. Come on!"

"Fine," I grumble at the mention of her using the word sister. She was thinking of me in such terms that it made it seem that she liked me well enough. That made me happy. I hadn't known she cared about me this much until I finally grew a little confident and talked to her. Of course, she was always sweet to me, but I hadn't known the length of it until now.

"I told him that when I was with Justin, I hadn't felt the way—like the butterflies and stuff—with him. I hadn't felt any of it until Max walked into the room. And you know," I say with another nervous laugh. This conversation was making me warm all over. "I basically told him I only felt something for him. Maybe he is the only one who can make me feel that much."