the art of loving ; lord tewksbury

eight

"Don't you dare fall in love with me, tewksbury. I might have to kill you if you do."

Chapter Eight

  "You cannot be serious!"

  Daisy stood up from her spot on the floor and stared wide-eyed at the girl in front of her. To her right, she felt Tewksbury reach his hand up towards her to calm her down, but Daisy hugged her arms to her chest before he could touch her.

  "I know it seems bizarre," Enola said.

  "It doesn't seem bizarre. It is bizarre! Burning down my own home is out of the picture," Daisy retorted.

  "But think about it," Enola began. "What use would it have for you if you're going to run away? You're leaving and never returning to this town, anyway. People would actually believe you and your brother died in a fire."

    At the thought of her home going up in flames, Daisy felt an unexpected ache in her chest. She didn't think she would be this upset at what Enola had proposed—far too many bad things have happened there in the last sixteen years of her being alive. If it burned, all it would leave would be a pile of ashes. All the bad memories, all the tragedies? They would be erased just like that.

  Then Daisy realised. Even though she had endured so much pain, so much agony in that household, the good memories still existed. Her mother reading to her when she was merely a baby, her soothing voice putting her constant cries to rest and cooing her to sleep. Her brother playing hide and seek with her, chasing her around in their small garden even after he found her because she didn't want to be caught.

Those memories were the ones she cherished the most. Burning down her home would be equivalent to burning it from her mind, where it was deeply embedded. It would hurt so, so bad.

Daisy hated getting hurt.

  "It is my home," the girl protested. "I'm not going to let you destroy it."

"Maybe it'll work," Tewksbury piped up. "I mean, we've racked our brains to come up with options. It's honestly the best one we've got."

Daisy's mouth hung open at his words, unable to believe he would actually go through with this plan.

"Do you even hear yourself right now? You're asking me if I want to set the one place I call home ablaze? Are you sure you are alright up there?" she said, tapping the side of her head twice. "Even if I do agree to this, what would happen to my father?"

"You don't care about him," Tewksbury answered.

"I'm glad you noticed, Tewksbury," Daisy said, rolling her eyes. "I may despise him with a burning passion, I may want him out of my life forever, but I am not going to do so by leaving him to die. That is utterly inhumane."

"Oh, and him beating you to a pulp isn't?" Tewksbury countered.

At the boy's unexpected words, Daisy felt her whole body tense up. It was as if he had slapped her across the face. If it wasn't for the lack of an obvious handprint on her cheek, she would've believed he had actually done so.

Sure, they have never really acknowledge the matter of her abusive father. Not even during their little chat in Tewksbury's treehouse, where they both silently agreed to not speak about said topic. Daisy had a gut feeling he would ask about it one day, and maybe when that day came, she would finally be ready to talk to someone about it.