Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing: Book 4 (Magnolia Parks Universe)
Daisy Haites: Chapter 30

Nothing happened with me and Daisy the other night. I think maybe, possibly, if I wanted it to, it could have.

‘If I wanted it to’ — like I fucking want anything else in the world — I just don’t want to fuck it up again.

Which is why I’m here.

At Vanna’s hotel.

I knock on her door, she opens it and she’s in this tight red dress; I know her pretty well at this point.

The colours she wears are indicative of her state of mind and I’ll give you three guesses as to what it means when she’s wearing red.

She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me inside — closing the door behind me and then pushing me up against it.

“We have some time before dinner—” she tells me, reaching for my top button.

“Actually—” I hold her hands out away from me and give her a quick smile as I walk further into her room.

She’s got a residence in one of the penthouses at the Corinthia. It’s a nice room. A bit white, cream and gold for me, but then again, Daisy’s house is all those colours and that’s my favourite place in the world, so take that to mean whatever you want it to.

She’s why I’m here. Because I can’t get Dais out of my head, because I feel like shit about it, like I’m doing the wrong thing by everyone — by Vanna, definitely, even by myself. And I feel like I’m doing wrong by Daisy too, and that’s the one I care about.

I don’t ever want to do wrong by her again.

I don’t know what she wants or how she feels about me, whether there’s anything more than what we are now on the horizon for us, but either way, I’m being shit with Vanna, staying now that I know I want to spend all my time with someone else.

Haven’t called her in a week.

Kept her at bay with texts, the promise of a dinner soon.

I can never fully tell what she thinks we are.

Together, depending on the day. Sometimes, the papers say I’m her boyfriend, other times they say we’re exclusive. For the most part we have been. I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t aware that whenever she’s with Rush Evans, she’s shagging him, and they’re together a lot. They’re in the same film franchise. Probably half the reason Magnolia hates her. She’s territorial like that. A couple months back Parks saw an article about Vanna and Rush in a shop window we walked by. She went in, picked it up — Henry made a face at me over her head. Funny timing, now that I think of it. She would be been with Jack-Jack. Doesn’t matter to Magnolia though, unless she has BJ’s, she wants everyone else’s attention on the planet to be entirely focused on her. Anyway, the article was photographs of Vanna and Rush on set, not filming, his hand up her dress.

The day I worked that out was the day I realised how fucked all this was. Because I didn’t give a shit.

Made me feel fractionally less shit myself for being in love with someone else our whole fucking relationship.

“Vans,” I push my hands into my pockets. “Listen — we’ve gotta talk.”

She gives me a bored smile. “Yeah?”

“I can’t do this—”

“What?” She looks over at me, confused. “Dinner?”

I shake my head and gesture between us.

Her face shifts a bit and she blinks a couple of times.

“What are you talking about?” she says quickly.

“I don’t—” I shrug. Why is breaking up hard even if you’re not actually into the person? “I don’t know what this is, Vans, but I don’t want to do it anymore.”

She blinks quickly, like her mind is rejecting what I’m saying. “Sorry, what?”

I don’t say anything. Not really sure what to say.

“Is there someone else?” she asks, shaking her head, not understanding, and my face falters suddenly. I feel like shit because all this time, I thought I was to her what she was to me — a distraction. That she was trying throw Rush Evans by chilling with me and that I was distracting myself with her, but how she’s looking at me now, I feel like maybe I misread the situation.

I think she likes me.

I frown a bit and I wonder if how sorry I now actually am shows on my face.

“Vans, there’s always been someone else.”

There’s a lot that you could say about Vanna Ripley, and yep, okay— a lot of it’s bad. She’s vapid, she’s self-involved, she can be rude, she can be selfish — kind of everything you expect from a child star. She can’t totally fathom that the entire world isn’t just about her. But then, you know how when you spend more time with someone, you get to peek through the shit and they make more sense?

Being famous from five years old, it was crippling for her. Emotionally, relationally, socially. She’s got a shit relationship with her dad and a complicated one with her mum. She’s been an alcoholic since she was about sixteen. In and out of rehab, though people don’t really know about that. Fame isn’t easy, it fucks you up. It’s fucked her up.

She’s probably less fucked up when she’s in London, but she’s only here some of the time. All those stories you hear about what LA does to a person? They’re about her.

Vanna dated a lad from school, Thatcher Hendry, used to knock about with BJ sometimes, so I’ve known her for a bit, but we were really sort of thrust together at Cannes this year. Parks and Rush were doing whatever the fuck Parks and Rush were doing — in some ways with that whole thing, Parks got on a track she couldn’t work out how to get off of. Or she didn’t want off it. I don’t care what she says, I think she was into Rush. Or as into him as she could be while being completely fucked about Beej still.

I’m pretty sure she thought having me and Henry there with her might have thrown England off the scent of what she was doing with his best friend.

It didn’t.

Them on the red carpet of that movie, where his hands were on her body, this one photo of her smiling as he whispered something to her — it would have pulled you apart if you loved her. Beej was shattered. Fully, properly wrecked. Can’t even imagine for Tom, not just seeing her like that but with his best mate? Fucked up.

Guess I’m not one to talk.

That was when Rush and Tom had their big blowout. Unfortunate timing for Rush Evan’s face that the England Family were on their boat in the Riviera when The Sun ran a series of photos of Magnolia and Rush lounging around together on a yacht, kissing and shit.

Total disaster, but anyway, me and Vans were on the same flight back to London after all that and we hooked up on it. And then — bang — we were hooking up. And I thought that’s all we were doing until I saw my face with Vanna’s on the cover of The Daily Mirror. NEW COUPLE ALERT.

Only that no one had alerted me.

I texted it to Vanna for a laugh and she wrote back “we kind of are” with the shrug emoji.

I didn’t know what to say so I sent the shrug back and here we are.

Vanna shifts on her feet, pulls her shoulders back then pushes her hair over her shoulders.

“You know some people would kill to be with me.”

“I know—” I nod. “This isn’t about you, Vans. It’s me — I just love someone else, that’s all.”

“Love?” She scowls.

I nod.

“Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”

“Yes—” I fold my arms over my chest.

“Then—”

“Vanna—” I push my hands through my hair, breathe out of my nose, tired already. “I’m not calling this with you so I can be with her, I’m calling it because I feel like shit.”

She reaches out, touches my arm, her face sporting an immaculate display of concern that I can’t tell whether is real or not. “Why do you feel like shit?”

“Because I am shit, Vans — I don’t call you, I don’t think of you, I think of her. All the time, and I don’t want to feel guilty for that, but I do, and I don’t know how to stop, so something’s got to give. And I’m not giving her up again.” I shrug, a bit helpless.

I’ve got both eyebrows of LA’s darling up and unimpressed, her jaw’s gone tense in a way that means that for the first time in however long we’ve been whatever we are, I replace myself thinking she’s unattractive.

She dismissively gestures towards the door and I give her a tight, uncomfortable smile and leave without saying another fucking thing.