Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing: Book 4 (Magnolia Parks Universe)
Daisy Haites: Chapter 58

I haven’t spoken to Christian in a day. I don’t know whether I should have called? He looked really sad1 when he saw Rome and I, but I swear — nothing happened. He was just there. He’s always just there. And Julian’s a fucking head case, he can’t help me, he can’t even help himself. He’s on a bender for the ages and I can’t go outside — it’s literally everywhere.

I can’t turn on the TV, I can’t open my phone.

I just wanted someone by me to help navigate all of the insane shit the internet algorithms think is appropriate to show me because I’ve googled Christian in the past.2

As soon as I got home from my fight with him I gave Romeo every device I own that has access to the internet.

My phone, my tablet, my laptop. All I have left is Apple TV and even then, I don’t turn it on — just in case.

He should have called me. Instead he just showed up and that made everything worse, because I know what Christian thought we he saw me with Rome.

Rome left not long after that. Said he was sorry, that he should probably go see Tavie anyway and left me there on my own. I kind of hate that. He’s never left me when I needed him before.

And then, nothing from Christian.

I feel funny in myself that he was sad, that I made him sad. I hate that, I never want to make him sad— but then, he was mean when he left, telling me to fuck Romeo, how he did. And what about his awful indifference? Why the hell does Christian not give a shit that there’s a video of him having sex on the internet with someone who isn’t me?

Not that I want to be on the internet having sex with him. Or anyone!

I want him to care that he did it, I want him to care that I saw it, I want him to care that other people have — but he doesn’t, and I don’t understand him at all.

So I’m sitting on my bed — alone! — stewing, reading a magazine3 angrily, turning the pages so aggressively that I rip every second one.

I get sweaty hands when I think about how I sent him photos of me and Tiller, and Rome and I, because I know it was callous, and if he sent me photos of him with Vanna I’d probably throw myself off a bridge. But then I remember how he apparently has his sex tape with her saved on his computer and I don’t feel so bad. Nor do I feel better, but anyway.

Then there’s a knock on my door — two light taps.

I know immediately it’s neither Christian nor Julian, because neither of them knock, they just waltz on in like they own the place. They’re both so shit. Men are shit.

“Knock, knock!” says a familiar voice I’m not at all expecting.

Magnolia Parks pokes her head through my bedroom door.

I frown.

“Hello!” She sing-songs. “That Declan boy let me in, I hope you don’t mind.”“What are you doing here?” I glare over at her.

She slips inside my bedroom and gives me a curt smile. “I’m going to assume that the hostility in that sentence is less to do with me and more because you’ve just spent the last 72 hours watching your boyfriend having sex with someone else—” She shifts her skirt, even though it doesn’t need shifting; it sits on her perfectly.4

“Then you’re an idiot,” I say, looking over at her, unimpressed and unfazed. She perches on the edge of my bed. Ankles crossed, hands in lap.

“Well.” She smiles, brightly. “What a week.”

I roll my eyes.

“Firstly, can I just say, congratulations! Truly, mazel tov.”

I blink a thousand times. “What?”

“Despite the ever enduring rumours amongst our friends that Christian and I had sex, we truly did not, and it seems as though he’s rather spectacular at it, so well done you—” I give her a dark look. “Not the time? Right, okay, well, that’s fine.” She clears her throat.

She peers over at me, eyes softening.

“Those boys are fuckwits, Daisy.” She nods apologetically.

I eye her, suspiciously. “Did he send you here to apologise?”

“He didn’t send me — well, he sort of did, but I’m here of my own volition, as a sort of diffuser, you might say.” She gives me a delicate smile. “I’m known to have a very calming presence.”

“You don’t.” I shake my head at her.

She shrugs. “Well, lots of people say I do.”

“No,” I tell her firmly. “Literally no one says that.”

“Lots of people—” She nods, resolute.

“Name one.”

She gives me a smug smile. “BJ.”5

“That’s called dopamine.” I roll my eyes at her. “He’s high off of loving you. There’s nothing calming about you—”

She flaps her hands to silence me. “Well, let’s agree to disagree.”

“Why are you here, Magnolia?” I ask her, over-annunciating my question.

“Because,” She tucks some hair behind her ears. “I’m somewhat familiar with the feeling of losing the person you love to somebody else—sexually—” She eyes me. “Even if you haven’t actually lost them—”

“What—?” I toss her an impatient look. “BJ has a sex tape somewhere out there?”

“Probably.” She rolls her eyes. “But not yet that we know of—”

I turn away from her. “Then you don’t get it, do you?”

Her face frowns as her mind wanders.

“I’ve walked in on BJ having sex with someone else at least once. He also had sex with my best friend, in a bathtub. At his house. They’ve moved house, but I haven’t taken a bath since.”6 She flashes me a quick smile. “He slept with a very slutty celebrity who gave a very vivid account of it to Rolling Stone. I’ve seen him hook up with girls in clubs, in cars, on boats, on planes—” I stare over at her, horrified. “When I asked him, and he did the math, we suspect that the amount of women he’s had sex with is in the high hundreds.”

My mouth falls open.

“That’s people, not times. Which puts the times tally well into the thousands.”

Magnolia looks a little shaken up, but she continues. “All that’s to say, I do understand that that’s not exactly the same as a sex tape being released of your boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend, but I think I’m possibly in the neighbourhood.” She gives me a pointed look before it goes soft again. “Daisy, I can’t even imagine how horrible that must have been to see.” She reaches over and wipes a tear from my face I didn’t know was there.

“Here’s the thing. All of those boys are undeniably cavalier about sex. Except for when they’re in love—” She breathes out her nose and gives me a little shrug. “Somehow, they’ve managed to distinguish sex with other people from sex with us—”

I swallow heavily and take a breath and stare at my hands. I can’t even look at her as I say what I say next. “It looked the same. Him with her. It looked like… us.”

She gives me a sad smile and I would have rather died a year ago than have Magnolia Parks look at me like she’s sorry for me, but here we are.

“Maybe it did.” She shrugs. “But it isn’t the same Daisy, because he’s never loved her, he just loves you. And to them that’s the only part that matters.”

I pinch my lip absentmindedly.

“Come on.” She nods her head towards the door. “I’ll take you to see him.”

She pulls me to my feet then stares down at me in my black tracksuit set from Olivia Von Halle,7 unimpressed.

“Let’s get you changed first.”8

1 Kill me.

2 Sue me.

3 This month’s New Scientist.

4 Annoying.

5 And Julian, if I’m honest. Never seen him calm down mid-fight except with her.

6 So I guess we both hate baths.

7 Gia Berlin silk and cashmere-blend hoodie and track pants set, to be precise.

8 To further clarify, she tried to make me wear a plunging floor-length gown to see Christian. We had a fight and then I put on the mid-rise cut-off shorts from Denimist (“They’re very short,” she frowned when I put them on.) with the navy cropped flocked cotton-jersey hoodie from Balmain (“—oh, are you going for a run after? No? Oh. No. Cool! You look…nice.”). And then I threw some shoes at her (Bijoux 70mm double-strap sandals; Gianvito Rossi) which she used as a segue into saying those are the shoes I should wear with the following outfit: the Jude printed crepe mini dress (Emilia Wickstead), the black feather-cuff cropped cardigan (Sleeper) and monochromatic black Envelope leather clutch bag (Saint Laurent). And do you know what? I look fucking fantastic. She’s so annoying.