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Daisy’s head started pounding when her alarm went off.
“Oh man, turn that off,” John muttered.
They had fallen asleep early the night before to the sound of rain pattering against John’s window after splitting a bottle of wine.
“I have to get up. My dad wants me home for a brunch thing,” Daisy muttered, crawling over John to get out of the bed. She felt sore and tired, and she groaned when she stood up.
“I want to sleep all day. Come back to bed,” John muttered, reaching for her. Daisy took a deep breath, knowing that she didn’t want to see John again after today.
“Listen, John, I ... You know, I’m leaving for college in a few days, and I think maybe—” Daisy cut off when John sat bolt upright.
“Are you — are we breaking up?”
“Were we ever really dating?”
“I mean, we never talked about it, but I thought that maybe we ... would at some point. I tried to say something yesterday, but with the water fight and everything ... I just didn’t get a chance.”
“Look, I’m sorry if you thought this was more than—”
“A rebound?” John asked. Daisy winced and started looking for her clothes to buy herself time. She didn’t know what to say, but whatever it would be she didn’t really want to be doing it in a pair of John’s boxers and one of his shirts. She cursed herself for forgetting to bring a change of clothes the night before when she remembered that all she had to change into was a swimsuit and a sun dress.
“I guess. If that’s what you want to call it,” she said, walking out of his room to change in the bathroom. She folded the borrowed clothes before going back to him. When she handed him the pile, he took it from her hands and tossed it carelessly towards a pile of presumably dirty clothes.
“So that’s it?” he asked.
Daisy nodded. “I just ... I’m not ready for anything after Hana. I didn’t realize it before, and I’m sorry things ended up like this.”
He scoffed and looked down to try to hide the tears in his eyes. “Are you?” he asked incredulously. Daisy didn’t know how to respond, so she just walked out of his room and left his house as quickly as she could.
It was a beautiful morning, and there were more people out enjoying the morning than Daisy would’ve liked. She hoped she didn’t look like she was on a walk of shame, but she was sure she did. When she climbed in her car, she put on the radio and tried not to cry. If she went home now, she could sleep for an hour before her dad insisted they leave for brunch at the Holm’s house.
She flipped between radio stations, and every song made her think of something she wanted to forget. Love songs and breakup songs and hopeful songs and hopeless songs all cascaded over her until she finally shut off the radio and started her drive in silence. All her emotions and relationships were tied up into each other, and she didn’t know how to unwind them. It was all too much and not enough, and she realized she was using John as a placeholder, as if being with him was like being with Hana. As if going to parties with him was anything like that weekend in New Paltz, anything like having a love that she would so desperately want to talk to once she was gone that she would see her ghost.
“So, you finally dumped him?” Hana asked, appearing suddenly.
Daisy barely stopped herself from jerking the wheel. “Yes. Congratulations, I still miss you so much that I can’t move on even though you’re never coming back.”
“I know it’s not the same, but you have to find out who killed me or else you’ll never get over me. I’ll always hang over your head like this,” Hana said, desperate.
“I get it. I’m trying.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Hana intoned drily.
“I’m going to the water tanks again today, starting over and retracing all the places you might’ve hidden the note.”
“That’s a good start. If it’s not there, then what?” Hana asked.
“Then — I don’t know what then. I’m trying to figure out who killed you, but there’s only so much I can do right now. I don’t know enough, and everything is a dead end. You hid your tracks too well.”
“I left enough clues. You can figure it out. You just have to read into things.”
“I’m trying, okay?” Daisy shouted.
Hana’s ghost was silent for a beat, and when she spoke again it was soft and quiet.
“I know you are. I’m sorry, Daisy. Have fun with my mom,” Hana murmured before disappearing once again.
Daisy should go home, but she decided not to nap before brunch and took a detour to the water tanks instead. She worried that their graffiti would be gone since the month before when she visited with John, but she was also overwhelmed with the sudden need to know.
The park was quiet since it was early on a Sunday morning, and Daisy easily avoided the few people walking around the reservoir across from the trail head. She hiked the trail to the tanks quickly but wound slowly around the curve towards the spot where their graffiti was.
When she discovered that it was still there, she gave the painted words a watery smile.
It hadn’t changed much in the past month. Her dripping daisy drawing was gone, covered by a new piece of art, and she was glad she had written their initials so high up. The new piece of art below it was a pastoral scene of a river flowing between some reeds, and Daisy stood staring at the small details for the next ten minutes before she snapped herself out of it. The sun was starting to peek over the trees, and she needed to get home soon. Her dad still somehow believed her lies about spending time with her high school friends, and she wanted to keep up the ruse even though she wouldn’t be going out again before leaving for New Paltz.
She poked around the outside of the tower more, using a stick to dig at any spots that looked like they could hide a note, but there was nothing there. No matter how much Daisy thought this was the right place, she was wrong.
When she got home, she was relieved to hear her father singing in the shower. She rushed to her bathroom, afraid of what would happen if Henry somehow saw the way she looked right now.
She used her time in the shower to scrub all evidence of the person she was with John from her body. She wiped away the lightness of being unknown from her shoulders, the gentleness from the way he held her hands from her fingertips, and the last lingering taste of him from her lips. She felt like it was the day after Halloween, and she was rinsing away the remnants of an elaborate costume down the drain, colors swirling until the water ran clear and she was left with just herself again.
When she started drying off, her skin was tinged pink from the heat of the water and the pressure of her scrubbing, and the tough shell she’d developed since Hana’s death was gone. She was raw and exposed and out for blood. She would find out who did this to Hana — she was done putting it off and distracting herself from what she needed to do.
She got ready for brunch quickly, and she realized she felt like herself for the first time since Hana had broken up with her. She skipped the more complex makeup she learned to do that summer to impress Jackie and Nina and picked clothes for the experience of wearing them rather than for the experience of other people seeing her in them. She was freer than she felt since she visited Hana in New Paltz, and the freedom felt dangerous, like she was going to forget to hold her tongue when she was supposed to. She needed to remember to be smart. Then again, Hana was always smart, and she still ended up dead.
“Daisy! We have to leave in a minute if we don’t want to be late,” Henry called.
“Sorry, all ready to go,” Daisy said, coming downstairs to see her father already waiting by the door.
“Great! We’ll be right on time,” Henry said, and Daisy left the last remnants of who she was with John behind to go to Hana’s old home.
Noriko was happy to see them when they knocked on the door, as she always was. “Hi you two! Come on in, I just finished the pancake batter.” She stepped aside to let them in. “How’re you doing, Daisy? Are you still enjoying working at the camp?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s nice to spend time outside and enjoy the sun. Plus, the kids can be pretty funny,” Daisy said. The thin layer of joy Noriko had covering her face would fade away in an instant if Daisy even thought to reveal how her summer was really going.
“And she’s almost ready to leave for school. She’s got her whole dorm picked out and packed up,” Henry said. Daisy plastered on a smile, thinking of the random dorm materials she ordered online so Henry would stop nagging her. She couldn’t even remember what color the sheets were that she would be sleeping on for the upcoming year.
“What an exciting time. Have you decided on a major yet?” Noriko asked as they walked towards the kitchen. Daisy opened her mouth to speak, but Henry beat her to it.
“She’s thinking about teaching. Daisy would make a great elementary school teacher with her always-happy energy, wouldn’t she?” Henry asked. Daisy smiled tightly, thinking of all the not-child-friendly things she’d done in the past twenty-four hours alone.
“Yes, I can see that. New Paltz has a great program for that. I was always telling Hana whenever she stopped that philosophy nonsense, she should switch over to teaching,” Noriko said. A quiet settled over them, and Daisy turned away to get plates and glasses out of the cupboard.
“Oh, thank you, Daisy. Want to go set the table?” Noriko asked. Daisy nodded and balanced what she could in her arms while walking into the dining room.
“Daisy, don’t forget about Dennis!” Henry called.
“Oh, I didn’t know he was coming,” Daisy said, returning to the kitchen to get more dishes. In the brief moment she was out of the room, Henry had taken over the stove and started on the pancakes.
“Yes, he’s just running a little late,” Noriko said. “Here, why don’t you bring the coffee to the table? I’ll follow you with the cream and sugar.”
“Make sure there’s enough in there. Daisy loves her coffee sweet,” Henry said.
“No, I don’t,” Daisy muttered. At the kitchen table, she made her coffee with a small dash of cream and took a sip.
“Men always think they know best, don’t they?” Noriko whispered conspiratorially.
Daisy smiled even though her chest ached from the maternal moment. She wished her own mother was still around so that Daisy could ask all her questions about growing up and losing Hana. Even though Noriko was always there for Daisy, she wasn’t Daisy’s mother and never would be.
The sound of the front door opening caught their attention, and Dennis’ voice boomed down the hall a second later. “Hello! I’m here. Sorry I’m late.”
“Hey, Dennis! Want to get in here and help?” Henry called back.
“Sure! Be right there.” Dennis came into the dining room and kissed Noriko on the cheek, almost absentmindedly. Daisy wondered when they had started dating and if Hana knew before she died. Is that what Hana’s letter meant? Was she warning her mother away from dating Dennis because she thought he was dangerous or because she didn’t like the thought of her mother and uncle being together?
Brunch was uneventful. They didn’t talk about anything important, and Daisy was on autopilot the whole time. Her mind kept drifting back to Hana and the investigation Daisy inherited after her death. Once they finished, Daisy and Henry helped carry things into the kitchen, where Dennis was already getting ready to hand wash dishes.
“Thanks, Daisy. Do you mind loading the dishwasher?” Dennis asked. Henry was already walking back to the dining room, so Daisy nodded.
“Are you excited to go away to college?” Dennis asked.
“Yeah, it’ll be different for sure. It’s going to be weird not living in Rochester,” Daisy answered reflexively. Every adult in her life already asked her this.
“I bet. I suppose it’s nice you know some people at school already, though, isn’t it?” he asked. The weight of Daisy’s grief fell against the front of her chest, urging her to rip her heart out and give it to him as a reply.
“It would’ve been better if Hana was there,” she said. Dennis paused for a moment, and Daisy hated the way that when he started moving again, his movements were measured, careful, like he was trying not to spook a wild animal.
“I’m sure she would’ve just held you back. Noriko told me about you two.”
Daisy nearly dropped the dish she was holding, and she dropped her voice to a whisper to respond, though she could barely hear her own voice over the pounding in her ears. “What? She said she wouldn’t — You didn’t tell—”
“Your father? No. I don’t understand your ... lifestyle, but Noriko told me in no uncertain terms not to do that.” He was still too casual, too calculated in how he answered, and though his response should’ve been reassuring, her heart was still pounding. She always knew that Hana and her uncle didn’t get along, but something felt off. She loaded the last dish into the dishwasher and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
When Daisy got back to the dining room, Noriko mentioned again that if she wanted to grab any of Hana’s dorm stuff, she was more than welcome to it. Noriko had moved it from the basement to Hana’s room, and Daisy took the escape that she desperately wanted after her conversation with Dennis to look through Hana’s things.
Hana’s room was the same as it was last time she was in there, though now there was a large trunk next to the closet door. Daisy opened it and tried not to breathe too deeply, worried that Hana’s perfume would be soaked into whatever was in the trunk, but it only smelled like Noriko’s preferred laundry detergent. Daisy looked through the trunk, only taking a few pictures of her and Hana and the framed print she had given Hana as a gift a few years earlier before closing the trunk back up and sitting on top.
Daisy glanced around the room when her eyes caught on a plastic bag in the closet, one she wrote off repeatedly during her past trips that contained a pair of muddy boots. Daisy pulled it out of the closet and reopened the bag, staring at the boots as if they would solve a mystery.
They smelled musty, like they’d been put in the bag while they were still wet. Hana was messy, but she was never a slob. Normally she would’ve cleaned off these boots as soon as she could, and the fact they were left muddy was unusual. Daisy poked around in the bag and pulled out Hana’s favorite pair of jean shorts from beneath the boots.
Hana wore this pair of faded jean shorts almost every day in the summer. Daisy hadn’t wondered where they went, but now that she saw them here, caked in mud and forgotten on the floor of Hana’s closet, she knew that Hana must have put this bag in her closet the day she died. Which meant that most likely wherever she hid Daisy’s note was somewhere muddy.
It didn’t rain the day Hana died, and the dirt paths around the water tanks had dried up before mid-June. Then, it clicked where Hana hid the note, and Daisy threw the bag back in the closet, grabbed what she was taking for her dorm, and rushed downstairs.
“Dad, can we go home?” Daisy called, not even leaving the foyer to go find him.
“Sure, just give me a minute,” Henry responded. Daisy felt like an exposed wire, and if she stayed in the house she would explode.
“Okay, I’m going to wait outside. Bye Dennis! Bye Noriko, thank you for breakfast!” Daisy said, already out the door and heading towards her father’s car. Henry came out a moment later, walking briskly and looking irritated. He got in the car and started it silently, and Daisy turned on the radio in hopes of diffusing the situation. Only one bar of “Heaven is a Place on Earth” played before Henry slammed his hand on the power button shut it off.
“What was that?” Henry asked.
Daisy tried to remember what she did that would have angered her father. “What are you talking about?”
“Just leaving like that? Barely a goodbye? Do you know how rude you were being?” Henry got louder with every word until he was nearly shouting, and Daisy flinched.
“It — it’s just weird being in Hana’s room. I just wanted to go home.”
“There’s still no need to be so rude. You think Noriko isn’t suffering, living in the house where her daughter died?”
Daisy stared at her lap where she held the first photo she ever took with Hana. “That isn’t what I was trying to do.”
“Well, you’ll be happy to know that she was worried she upset you. I spent the last minute calming her down before handing it off to Dennis to take you home.”
Normally, Daisy would back down, but she was tired of her father dictating what she could and couldn’t do at all times.
She was sick of pretending to be someone else so he wouldn’t be upset. “Sorry, do you want me to just get over Hana dying? Do you expect any of this to be easy for me?”
Henry shook his head, taking a hand off the wheel to sharply wave Daisy off. “That’s not what I—”
“Yes, it is. I’m sorry if I’m not grieving in a more acceptable way for you.”
“Daisy, that isn’t what I meant.” Henry gripped the steering wheel, glaring at the street in front of them. “Stop twisting my words.”
“I’m not a kid anymore!” Daisy shouted. “You can’t distract me like you did when mom died. I have complex emotions now; grief isn’t going to look the same as it did when I was four years old and didn’t understand death. I’m going to grieve, and I’m going to hurt, and I’m not going to be pretty while I do it. I’m so sick of trying to be the person you convinced yourself I am, and I can’t hide what I’m feeling and pretend like I am okay for you anymore!”
“I don’t expect you to be okay, but you don’t need to lash out at the people around you.” Henry took a deep breath to calm himself. “I’m worried that you’re taking Hana’s death a little too hard, okay? Sorry for being worried about you.”
“Yeah, right. You want to hear how I’ve really been grieving?” Daisy laughed harshly, and she spoke without thinking. “I’ve been going to college parties and getting drunk with a bunch of twenty-year-olds. There you go, no more blissful ignorance that your perfect daughter is so innocent!” Once Daisy finished shouting, silence filled the car, thick like syrup.
“Seriously? Have I taught you nothing about how to be responsible?” Henry asked, his voice calm but barely masking the anger he had a moment earlier.
“What does it matter if I’m responsible?” Daisy threw her hands in the air and let out a hysterical giggle. “Hana was responsible, and she’s still dead. Mom was responsible, and that didn’t stop some idiot drunk driver from killing her!”
“Daisy Grace Polo if you don’t stop right now—”
Daisy turned to look at Henry, wanting to read every ounce of his reaction. “You’ll what? Ground me? I leave for college in four days. What do you want me to do?”
“You’re done with the car. You can take it to work and back until your brother gets home this week, and then he has to drive you,” Henry shot back.
“That’s a real punishment. A few days without a car after I already decided I was done with the parties? You really got me, dad,” Daisy said. She might have been pushing too far, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t measure her tone when she was bleeding out with the weight of her grief and her panic at the thought of not being able to go to the water tanks right away to look for Hana’s note.
“I know you’re grieving, but you’re putting yourself in dangerous situations. Is this what Hana would’ve wanted for you?” Henry asked. At his words, it was like the last shreds of Daisy’s self-control snapped.
Daisy laughed, and it sounded cruel. “Hana would’ve hated this actually. Because I was in love with Hana, and she was in love with me, and we dated for three and a half years, and we broke up a week before she died. And she would’ve hated that someone else was making me happy, so you’re right. Hana would’ve hated this, but Hana is dead, so her opinion doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
It was like all of the air was sucked out of the car at once. Daisy regretted coming out like that, but she was oddly relieved at the same time.
“You can’t be serious,” Henry said. Luckily, they were back home. Daisy stared at the photos in her lap, her chest heaving. Was her mistake telling him in this way or telling him at all? Either way, there was no stopping this conversation now.
“We were in love, and I was going to New Paltz so we could finally be together without having to hide. Or that was the plan before she left me.”
“I can’t believe you lied to me all this time,” Henry said. Daisy opened the door and the late August humidity rushed into the car, slinking like a python and wrapping around her just as tight.
“I can’t believe you never noticed.” She got out of the car and slammed the door behind her.
When she got inside, she locked herself in her room and blasted her angriest playlist loud enough to hide the sounds of her father in the house. She pulled out a bottle of wine and stared at it. It was too early to drink, but she didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t like she could go back to the water tanks like she planned. She had no one to call, no one who would drive her there no questions asked. Her best friend was dead, and she broke up with a perfectly nice boy and lost all his friends in the process. She hadn’t spoken to anyone from high school since the day of Hana’s funeral, and for the first time Daisy realized how isolated and alone she really was.
Hana appeared in front of her. “Daisy, come on. Just lay down, take a breather. You’re okay.” Daisy hadn’t realized she was crying until Hana spoke, but now that she noticed the tears in her eyes, she broke. Her sobs wracked her chest, coming deep and unfiltered in a way they never had before, not even when she found out Hana died.
The music served as a silencer for her grief, ensuring her dad wouldn’t be able to hear her. These were the kind of tears that weren’t meant to be seen by any other living being, though she was glad for Hana’s ghost. She was a sign that this was real, that the hole in the middle of Daisy’s chest wasn’t always there, that she didn’t imagine the love and the loss and the absolute devastation of knowing she made so many mistakes with Hana that she couldn’t fix. She didn’t open the bottle of wine, and she ended up sitting on the ground curled around it, clutching it like a lone rock keeping her from being swept downstream by the current. Hana’s hand was a comforting weight on her back, anchoring her down so she didn’t drift away.
Eventually, she fell asleep on the floor next to her bed surrounded by a sea of used tissues and woke up once the sun was already low in the sky. Her playlist was done, and her room was silent around her. Her body ached from laying on the ground, though she managed to clear away the signs of her breakdown.
When she opened her still-locked door, there was a bottle of water and a warm grilled cheese. She wondered if her dad had knocked, if that was what woke her up from her slumber. She took the food and closed the door, and she ate while staring blankly at the journals on the floor. She would have to reread them if she was wrong about the note being inside the water tank. She hoped that the reason she hadn’t found the note yet was because she wasn’t looking in the right places and not because Hana’s murderer killed her and destroyed it before she had a chance to hide it. Daisy needed to hold onto the hope that Hana’s last message for her was still out there.
Before work the next day, Henry was waiting for Daisy in the kitchen, a cup of coffee as a peace offering on the island across from him. Daisy picked it up and took a sip, barely hiding her wince at the sickly, chemical sweetness.
“I talked to your brother. He changed his flight, so he’ll be getting in this afternoon around one. Can you pick him up after you get out of work?” Henry asked.
“Oh, uh, yeah. No problem,” Daisy said. She took another large gulp of coffee and left the kitchen as quickly as possible to avoid having to talk to Henry more.
The worst part of all of this was that she didn’t know what upset her dad about their conversation. Was it the fact she was partying with college kids without telling him? Was it the fact she dated Hana and never told him? Was it the fact that she dated Hana at all? Daisy wondered if Henry was upset that she hid something from him or that he never figured it out.
Daisy didn’t have time to stop at the water tanks between the end of her final lifeguarding shift and when Will’s flight was coming in. While she waited outside of the airport to pick him up, she was scribbling down notes on how she could reinvestigate her cold leads if Hana’s note wasn’t where she hoped it was. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice how much time had passed until there was a knock at the passenger side window, and she startled before looking up to see Will.
“Hey, wanna pop the trunk?” he asked with a smile. Daisy squealed and got out of the car, shoving her notebook in her back pocket before running to the sidewalk to hug her brother.
“I can’t believe you changed your flight,” Daisy said, laughing and still hugging him. He held her tight for another few seconds before letting her go, and she went back to the driver’s side to pop the trunk for him.
“Well, Dad made it sound like you’re on the verge of a psychotic break, so I thought it might be a good idea,” Will teased. He put his bags in the trunk, and Daisy took a few deep breaths while waiting for him to get in the car. They were going to talk about her fight with their dad, and she didn’t want to.
“So, I heard you’re a party girl lesbian now,” Will said, casting aside any pretense. “Some big developments considering I was only gone for a month.”
Daisy laughed and joined the stream of other cars leaving the Rochester airport. “I ... may have let years of pent-up aggression out on Dad in the span of a few minutes.”
“On the bright side you’re going away to school in a few days.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll find out if absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Daisy said. Even though it was supposed to be a joke, Will saw through her casual facade immediately. The silence hung between them, and she waited for him to ask her what happened. What had Henry told him? She didn’t really want to know.
Will pulled down the passenger side visor to look at himself in the mirror, and Daisy saw his eyes flick to her face in the reflection. “So, you finally told Dad about Hana.”
“Yeah, and it went about as well as I hoped.” Daisy pointedly kept her eyes on the road, not wanting confirmation that her brother was upset with her.
Will flipped up the visor, and it snapped back into place with a thump against the roof of the car. “To be fair, you were using it as ammunition against him.”
“It wasn’t ammunition, he told me I was overreacting to losing her. I was making him understand why I wasn’t overreacting,” Daisy said.
Will flinched. “How come you didn’t tell me about the college parties?”
Daisy shrugged, trying to act nonchalant even though she was sure Will was annoyed she didn’t tell him. “I didn’t want you to worry. I was fine.”
“Were you? You, like, freaked out on dad on a random Sunday afternoon and came out after years of hiding it.” His stare was burning a hole in the side of her face, but she still didn’t want to turn to see the disappointment she was sure would be written across his face.
She gripped the steering wheel when they came to a red light, watching cars speed through the intersection instead of turning to Will. “I was meaning to do it soon anyways.”
Will laughed shortly. “Sure, but you didn’t plan to do it like that.”
“You can’t tell me how to come out. I love you and I respect your opinion, but you don’t get to do that,” Daisy said.
Will sighed. “Are you relieved?”
Daisy paused for a minute, trying to figure out the truthful answer to his question. “I’m not yet, but I think I will be.”
“Okay. But still, the partying wasn’t a good idea. What did I tell you before I left?” He sounded so much like their dad, her hackles rose again.
“You gave me hypocritical advice then peaced out to Barcelona after my best friend killed herself, so sorry that I didn’t follow your instructions,” she snapped.
“She was my best friend too,” Will snapped back.
Daisy was silent for another long moment. “I wish I left things off better with her. She was my best friend, and the last time I saw her I was just ... so angry at her.”
“I understand,” Will said, all the fight draining from him. “The last thing I said to her ... it wasn’t right.” Daisy finally looked over at him, and he was staring straight ahead, looking haunted.
“Did you talk to her after we broke up? I thought — didn’t you say you wouldn’t talk to her?” Daisy asked.
“I — well, it’s not —” Daisy looked at him sharply, and he changed direction immediately. “I just wanted to talk to her about what happened.”
Daisy wished they weren’t in the car so she could throttle him for keeping this from her. “When the hell did you talk to her, Will?”
“It ... maybe a few hours before? I don’t know if ... I might’ve been the last one to see her alive,” Will admitted.
Daisy was glad they were on a familiar road because the only thing that kept her from crashing the car in her shock was muscle memory.
“What did you talk about?” Daisy asked, almost a whisper.
“I’ll tell you when we get home. Just focus on driving,” Will said, sounding defeated.
Daisy never sped as fast as she did on the last few streets to their house, and for once Will didn’t comment on her terrible driving.