Identity [ON HIATUS]

17. Rose & Liam

I smoke and smoke and smoke because it's the only thing that feels like me anymore. God, if cigarettes didn't kill you, I'd be a full on chain smoker with an ashtray tucked into my pocket and smoke coming out of my mouth and my nose and my ears. People would think my mind had fried, that it was smoke coming from the burnt out pieces of my brain.

But I don't go that far, not when I have the body and Daisy is staring at me like a kicked puppy.

I sit on the curb of the school parking lot and Daisy is sat on a bench on the other side of the road. She's hugging herself and close to rocking. She doesn't want to have control right now, and so I take over, so I become her when she can't be her. It's annoying; I am myself but I'm also not.

I've still got Daisy's blonde hair, and I'm not allowed to have black nails or heavy eyeliner. But I'm allowed skinny jeans and cigarettes and so it's a compromise.

"You smoke now?" I don't even recognize the voice and I've never stubbed out a cigarette so fast in my life. Daisy doesn't smoke, therefore right now, I don't smoke. I blow it all from my lungs and fan it away. Daisy's eyes are bulging, leaning out of her seat and staggering over like she might get herself back in time. She won't, not when I won't let her.

"Liam Litnicky." She speaks quietly, her eyes not daring to tear away from him as he makes himself comfortable on the curb next to me. He's so lanky that his legs make wiry triangle shapes jutting to the floor. He looks at me, although it doesn't feel like he's looking at me, but more at Daisy.

I can hear Daisy's unsteady breathing and the picking of her nails.

"It's medicinal."

He laughs, showing his teeth. "I see. How have you been keeping? ...If you don't mind me asking...."

"Uhh...yeah, great. Sound even." Does Daisy say words like 'sound?' I've only ever been around her when it's just the two of us. I have no idea how she acts around friends or crushes or strangers. I sit up straighter, thinking that posture might be important to her. My voice sounds coarse and rough and almost sarcastic. I can't help that, I can never help that; it spews out of me like a fountain of annoyance.

He nods. "Good, I'm glad. I was beginning to worry about you."

"Really?" Daisy whispers in the corner of my mind. I don't look at her. "Really?" I decide that she wants to speak, but I can't let her have control, and so I speak for her.

"Course! You know I care about you. There's something really different about you since...everything. I want you to think that I'm on your side in all of this, that you can talk to me whenever." I feel his fingers inch towards mine, my perfectly manicured, clean fingers that are nothing like mine. Daisy reaches out, and so I do too. He entwines our fingers, and Daisy lets out a little sigh of delight. I look up at him as he looks down.

I don't like him; I don't like him at all.

"Are you going to Kim's house party next Saturday?"

"Who the fuck's Kim?"

He laughs, leaning back slightly at the sheer force of it. When he looks back at me and my expression is deadly serious, he stops, clearing his throat.

"Kim, from double Bio? She's got that big house at the top of the hill and is friends with pretty much  everyone?"

"I wouldn't get invited to something like that." Daisy says to me more than to Liam."I don't get invited to shit like that." is the best thing I can come up with. Liam raises an eyebrow at me but it's the whole hearted truth, according to Daisy. I can't see much up here, but I can feel the ache in her heart when she thinks of parties and social gatherings that she wasn't invited to.

They would have been shit. I say to her in my head, telepathically, if that's what you call it when you're both inside the same fucking head. Are we telepathic? Is this magic what we're doing? I come back from the dead in the form of a new person inside of my sister?

"Well, I'm inviting you to shit like that. You wanna go with me? You don't have to talk to anyone you don't want. You can just talk to me."

"What if I don't want to talk to you either?" I look up at Daisy and she's waving her hands about manically. "I mean...sure. That sounds great." One thing's for sure, I will not be the one going to this fucking party.

Liam smiles, looking at my lips, making me feel uncomfortable. Seriously, what does Daisy see in this dweeb? "Great." He confirms, rubbing his palms on his legs, taking his hand from mine. Daisy feels cold. "I'll see you then, on Saturday. At the party." He starts to stumble over his words and reminds me of something like a drowning cat. I keep the laughter in my mind and Daisy frowns at me.

When he leaves us, I look to Daisy for a form of approval, but then I remember myself, and flick my lighter on and off, watching the flame dance. Daisy curls inside of herself, still not ready to come out just yet.