Vanilla Chaos

Chapter 29: Daisy

We had moved to the south of the country when we were twenty-two. Nelly had found a job there as an art teacher so we had to leave our apartment in Paris. Our house was nice, it wasn't huge but it wasn't small, either. It was on the coast and a field of daisies lied in front of it. I was attending night-school which was where I learnt French (I needed it now I lived in France).

We were married by twenty-five and I was twenty-six when I fell pregnant with our daughter. We named her Daisy Paris Rouge, Daisy because of the flowers near our home and Paris because of where we shared our first kiss when we were fourteen. She was chubby, just like me. She had my natural light blonde hair but her father's blue eyes and slightly freckled cheeks.

We had a photo of her on the wall of our kitchen. She was smiling in the meadow on a sunny day, hair cut to her shoulders, two years old, a crown of flowers in her hair. Nelly told me that once he was at work and he forgot to turn his projector off, so he accidentally projected his desktop background onto the interactive whiteboard in his class. It was the same picture. He said that his students said she was beautiful.

I loved Daisy with all of my heart. Every time I looked at her, I saw her father. She had the same pear-shaped birth mark on her stomach, the same hyperactive demeanor and the same stunning deep blue eyes.

We were a family. A royal family. Everything was perfect.

But then I woke up.

And realised that I was just a lonely, broken teenage girl. I wondered to myself about how I had been able to dream in such vivid detail. Maybe this wasn't the end of my story, our story, quite yet. Maybe I was a starving artist and Nelly was my muse. I could paint a pretty picture, too, I just needed the right equipment.

I pulled out my phone and wiped the tears from my eyes. He was still my lock screen. Him, triumphant in front of the Arc de Triumph. He was so perfect, he seemed fictional. Too perfect to be true. I looked at my pictures and saw his artwork. I thought of all of the things he had done. I felt complete, I wasn't broken inside like before.

Nelly wasn't like anybody else I had ever known: he loved me but he respected me. He comforted me, but didn't belittle me. He meant the world to me. I remembered when he implied that we 'went all the way', but immediatly dropped it upon learning I didn't feel comfortable as I we were only fourteen. That was a real man, one who knew how to respect his girlfriend and love all of her flaws, not try to change them.

It occurred to me just how lucky I had gotten.

People were still mourning the metaphorical death of Oceané Bleu, he had changed the world and disappeared off of its surface like nothing had happened. The good thing was that people were obeying his last wish, "Please never let things go back to the way they were."

I walked to my desk and pulled out some notebook paper, I found a pen and started to write.

"Dear Mr and Mrs You-Know-Who-You-Are,
I am a girl who felt uncomfortable in her own skin, I am a girl who didn't know how to love, I am girl who was too afraid to trust. Your son changed that. He taught me how to love myself, he taught the world to love itself. You're punishing him for that. How do you feel? Is it because you made your fortune in cosmetics, the business that preys on people's insecurities? Or are just oblivious to the things that matter? Is that why you didn't notice your daughters depression until of was too late? Reconsider your choices and whether you're inclined to make them.
-Heidi."

I carefully folded the note and placed it at the back of one my desk drawers, I didn't know why but it had helped. It felt like I had released my feelings onto the paper, where they woud be trapped forever, underneath the desk. I balled up my fists and sat in the chair for a moment. My grandmother said she would contact me today, she never did.

It had been ten minutes, maybe twenty, I'd been alone with my thoughts. There was a knock at my door, I would who would dare venture out of their bedroom at this time, it was after nine, probably nearly ten at night, now. But then again, I supposed the term didn't officially start until tomorrow, some people wouldn't even be back until the day after.

Who was it? Was it that notorouis bitch, Phoebe? Quite possibly. I mentally prepared myself and walked over. I didn't look my 'best', I was in my dressing gown and slippers with my hair in a scruffy pony-tail. I opened the door.

It wasn't Phoebe.

It was him.

He kissed me without even giving me a chance to talk to him. I was frozen, stood still. Was it him? What? How? I had conditioned myself into pretending he wasn't real. But here was Avenelle-Jérôme Rouge, in the flesh.

"Quick, get in, before somebody sees you!"

He came into the room and quickly closed the door behind himself. My eyes were watering up, "What are you doing here, you French bastard?"

He smiled and said, "Oh wow, sorry, I'll go back to where I came from, then."

"You're such an idiot," I trapped him in a hug, "I love you."

He hugged me back, I think I might have gotten his shirt wet with my tears. I took in his scent: the aroma of bubblegum and cheerfulness. "I love you, too. I promise to never leave you, again."

"You better not, how the hell did you get back here?" I let go of him but took both of his hands in my own and looked up into his ocean blue eyes. Oceané Bleu. Ocean Blue.

"Oh, Heidi, it is all your doing! You made up with your grandmother, thank-you so much! She talked to my parents, she showed them the impact of what I have done. They hadn't officially unerolled me from this school, yet. I'm here to stay, I need you, Heidi!"

There are very few moments in life that you truly could live in for all enternity, but that moment was one of them.