Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Daisy wrapped both hands around the teacup and stared into its amber depths. “There’s not much to tell. My mother raised me, mostly alone.”
“Mostly?”
“I have a dad, but I haven’t seen him in years. He was never really a parent. Just a stranger who believed himself entitled to stop by unannounced. My mum raised me. She worked at the same laundry where I work now. She…” Her words seized in her throat as the familiar paralysis that always accompanied her grief returned. “She passed away…two years ago.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“Pulmonary fibrosis.” The medical term was clinical enough to act as an emotional shield. “The doctors said it was most likely from the chemicals at the laundry, from decades of breathing in bleach and solvents. We wear masks now. But when my mother started, those rules didn’t exist.”
“Losing her must have been difficult for you.”
Difficult.
Such a small word.
Not enough to describe how horrific it had been watching her mother drown on dry land.
Daisy could still hear her wet coughs. Still smell the eucalyptus mixing with the copper scent of blood. In the end, those stringent smells were all that was left of the soft woman she’d known. Her mother couldn’t speak without hacking, and it became a waiting game.
The kind of smell one never forgot. Sometimes, Daisy caught the same sweet-rotting stench of death on others. It was enough to make her knees buckle, the memory of loss so painful it could physically take her down with no warning at all.
“Yes,” Daisy said, clearing the lump from her throat. “It was difficult.”
Dr. Kawanja made a few notes. “Tell me more about your father.”
“He wasn’t around much, only showed up here and there, when I was little.”
“Do you wish he’d been around more?”
Daisy could almost smell the whiskey and motor oil that always clung to his clothes and skin. As an adult, she sometimes caught a whiff of those things in other places, reminding her of him, always giving her that same uncomfortable pit in her stomach.
“No.” He’d always shown up out of the blue, bringing chaos the moment his boots set foot in the door. “My mother moved differently when he was around. Carefully. Like her body hurt.”
“Was he violent?”
“I never saw him hit her. But I saw the bruises.”
Daisy remembered the yellow-green marks on her mother’s arms, a few split lips she’d blamed on a cabinet door. Once, she even had a bandage wrapped around her forearm. She said it was from work, but when he would come around, she missed work most days.
She never understood how anyone could appear to despise someone but also crave their undivided attention. “I was too young to understand what kind of man he was.”
Emotional detachment made it much easier to discuss her dad. But anger always surfaced whenever she thought back on the ways he treated her mum. He would always be her first impression of man.
“Do you understand now?”
She thought for a moment, then confessed, “No. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what makes a person inherently mean.”
Her answer made Dr. Kawanja smile. “You have a good vocabulary.”
“I like to read.”
“Me too.” She wrote another word down in the notebook. “When did you last see him?”
Daisy shook her head, struggling to calculate a loss so irrelevant in comparison to the loss of her mother. “I was maybe nine or ten.”
Dr. Kawanja was quiet for a moment. “Daisy, the experience you’re about to have is intense—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Participants are placed in situations designed to make them feel vulnerable. Do you feel prepared?”
Her stomach twitched as if swallowing back a laugh. How could anyone prepare for an experience designed to make them feel anything but? “I’ll be fine.”
“Will you? Because I need to be certain that you’re entering this with realistic expectations. That you understand you may be chased, caught, restrained, and touched intimately by strangers. Tributes often experience emotions such as fear, arousal, shame, and exhilaration. Sometimes all at once. I want to warn you that the emotions won’t stop when the hunt ends.”
Daisy didn’t take her warning lightly. Meeting her kind, dark eyes, she confessed, “I’ve been scared my whole life, vulnerable since the day I was born. The only difference is, this time, I’m choosing to put myself in the situation. Nothing is forcing me. I know what could happen. I’ve imagined the worst scenarios. But I still choose this—whatever it ends up to be—because I believe there’s something on the other side worth reaching for.”
Dr. Kawanja studied her for a long moment. Then she smiled, the expression warm enough to soften her professional features. “You’re stronger than you know, Daisy Burdan.”
“I hope so.”
“I believe so.” She clicked her pen closed and withdrew a small card from her clipboard. “Here’s my personal number. If you ever want to talk after all this is over, you call me.”