Daisy Darker(83)

Rose frowned. ‘What didn’t you see, Daisy?’

I could feel my cheeks start to burn. The cheap wine I’d been drinking made my head feel fuzzy. I didn’t know what to say. So I opted to tell the truth.

‘I just saw Conor and Lily having sex behind the rocks.’

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Rose laughed.

‘Daisy, you are a terrible liar,’ she said.

She didn’t believe me.

Conor started to laugh too. ‘Wow, Daisy. That is quite an imagination you’ve got!’

‘Do you even know what sex is?’ Lily slurred. She was drunk. They all were. ‘Look at the lies little Daisy tells when she’s had a couple of drinks!’

‘I’m not lying. Lily is in love with Conor,’ I said.

They all laughed some more. Then Rose stopped. At first, I thought she’d realized that I was telling the truth, but then she smiled. It was her puzzle-solving smile. The expression her face always wore when she had solved a difficult sum.

‘Was it you?’ she said, staring at me. ‘Did you shred my new blue dress on my birthday and pretend it was Lily? Have you been telling lies for years and getting away with it? Trying to start little fights between us?’

‘Oh. My. God!’ laughed Lily. ‘Daisy has a crush on Conor! That’s what all this is really about!’

Rose laughed again too. ‘Do you have a little crush on Conor?’ she asked, and her unkind smile made her beauty turn ugly.

‘No,’ I whispered.

‘As I said, you really are a terrible liar, Daisy,’ Rose replied, still smiling.

I stared at Conor and saw the look of pity on his face. The humiliation was worse than the heartbreak. Then Lily’s face turned dark. ‘Was it you who cut off my plaits when I was asleep? The night before my birthday? When everyone – including me – thought it was Rose?’

I ran before anyone could say or do anything else. Cutting off my sister’s hair was the worst thing I ever did to anyone, and the guilt was never a good fit for me. I still loved my family, even when I hated them. I just wanted them to love me too.

‘Daisy, wait!’ Rose shouted, but I ran and didn’t look back.

I must have been running – and crying – for over ten minutes, mostly uphill, along the coastal road to the cliffs overlooking Blacksand Bay. That was the fastest way home when the tide was that far in, above and around the rocks down below that prevented me from just walking across the sand. I felt so alone. I kept thinking about the boy who had kissed me, then called me a freak, and how he was right. I was a freak and nobody loved me. Nobody even liked me, not even my own family. My heart felt as though it was trembling inside my chest.

I was over halfway home when it happened. Right at the very top of the cliff, but so close to the sand dunes and the hidden path that would have led me to our part of Blacksand Bay, and the causeway that would have carried me home to Seaglass. All I wanted in that moment was to get back to my bedroom without being seen, close the door behind me, and lock myself away from the world forever.

I heard the music before I heard the car. I knew it was Conor’s because of the song: ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ I stopped in the middle of the road, thinking that maybe he had come to rescue me. That maybe he loved me after all. My imagination started working overtime, just like always, and I pictured Conor telling me that Rose and Lily had both been nothing more than mistakes, and saying that he too wished that he had been the first boy to kiss me.

But the car didn’t slow down.

‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ blared out across Blacksand Bay as the blue Volvo got closer. But I was worried, and I wasn’t happy. I remember how the sky was an inky black, and the stars were shy and sometimes hiding. I remember the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks below, and I remember how very cold I was. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.

All I had on was a denim dungaree dress, a stripy long-sleeved T-shirt, my rainbow tights and my daisy trainers, and it was a particularly cold Halloween. I had pulled my last-minute sheet costume over myself, trying to keep warm as I walked along the cliff road. I didn’t care whether I looked like a ghost; I already felt like one. Maybe a ghost was all Conor saw when he drove his dad’s car into me at thirty miles an hour. Otherwise I’m sure he would have hit the brakes.

I remember the sensation of flying through the air. So high, like a bird. It didn’t hurt a bit. Not even when I landed on the road. The white sheet flew too, then fell on top of me, covering my face as though declaring me dead. The car skidded to a sudden and violent stop, the twin beams of its headlights shining at the sheet, and me hidden beneath it. Then everything was perfectly still and silent and calm.

Until one of the car doors opened.

It was Lily’s voice I heard first. She sounded very drunk. ‘What was that?’

Then two more car doors opened.

‘Conor, I think you hit something,’ said Rose. ‘You should have been watching the road instead of playing with the stereo.’

‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Conor said, sounding even more drunk than my sisters. ‘It came out of nowhere.’

‘It?’ said Rose. I could hear her slowly walking towards me. The way she would have if I were an injured animal on the side of the road. ‘Is that Daisy’s ghost costume?’ she whispered. ‘Oh my god, did you hit Daisy?’