Daisy Weed

Chapter One

Chapter|1

How come when people talk about "the love bug" they make it out to be this cute little lady bug with hearts on its back instead of polka dots or a fly that, like, nips your upper arm and makes hearts float around your head and shoot out of your eye sockets? Because when you're bit by that little sucker, it's nothing like that. You get these huge, itchy bumps that live beneath your skin. Every part of you itches for this other person, and you sweat profusely when they're around, and your tongue either gets stuck at the roof of your mouth or it ties up into a French knot. And none of that matters anyway because even if you could speak, you wouldn't be able to remember your government name let alone form a coherent sentence. It's annoying just like those real love bugs that fly around connected by their butt; all in your face all of the time until something or someone comes along and squashes it.

For me, that someone is Marisol Venus and that something is the fact that her hair doesn't turn into a shower poof in humidity and even after P.E. she smells like the embodiment of the word "allure". Her name fits here because she's—

"A fucking Venus fly trap, fucking hell!" Normandy is laughing into her backpack while trying to find the Spanish homework we both know she didn't do. "The irony. The cheesiness. Ha, I can't!"

"Well, please find a way to 'can' because I really can't and we can't have two people who 'can't'," I sigh.

Normandy stops rustling through her bag to stare blankly at me. "What?"

"Never mind." I slide down my locker and stare into the void that is the janitor's closet with the missing door.

"Screw it, I can't find this work. Can I please—"

"It's in my red folder." See?

"Thank you, Based God." Normandy slides down the locker next to mine and begins copying my work. "But to be real, Olivia, don't let all of that get to you. I mean, he's not even that cute. He reminds me of an ant."

If I stretch my mouth any wider, I'll break my jaw. "An ant?! Ants are too small for you to even see!"

"Nah, they have the close-ups in documentaries," she laughs. "They're like little aliens. But it's cool that they have some that can create body bridges that float on water..."

"You watch...ant documentaries?"

"I have trouble sleeping at night."

She stops copying my work, and we stare at one another until we can't help but burst out laughing. The knot between my chest and stomach loosens a bit, but when the bell rings, it tightens back into a coil of thorns and hot metal. He has homeroom next door to my own. I nearly rip the back of my shirt as I inch my body back up the lockers like a snake that's been hit at with a rake. I snatch my still opened backpack up from the floor.

"Wait, wait, wait! I'm not done copying!" Normandy begins scribbling fast enough to rip a hole in her paper.

"Just keep it. You don't have Spanish until third period anyway. You're good," I say. I'm already walking towards homeroom.

"I know I am, but are you?" She's trying to gather up her things, power walking to catch up with me. "Breathe woman!"

I feel like if I do, my heart'll stop because it's overloaded. "I'm trying to—"

"Beat him to the classroom?"

"Well, if you know, then why are you acting like you don't know what's wrong?"

"Because I don't! I don't see why you're letting that tart even control you like this."

I stop just outside of the classroom. My heels squeak as I spin around to face Normandy. "I am not!"