Page 1 of Where Daisies Breathe (Star Meadows #2)

AVA

“ D o you think if we never move, we can stay this way forever?” Clover mumbles from beside me.

“Probably not forever,” I reply with my eyes closed. “We’d die eventually from starvation or dehydration.” It’s a nice idea, though; wanting to stay in this single moment, never moving forward and never going back.

Never haunted by the past again and never having to face an unknown future.

“I guess so,” she mutters. “But we could exist for a while. Even if our bodies and minds were starving, we’d still breathe. It’s instinct for the lungs to keep seeking oxygen even when every other part of us pleads to give up.”

My eyelids open. We’re lying on the yellowing grass in front of her house, a blanket is underneath us, and the sunlight is warm across our faces. But despite the warmth the sun is trying to whisper across the earth, the air is screaming with a winter chill.

I rotate my head to look at Clover. She has her eyes shut, her blonde hair is spread out around her head, and her hands are resting on her stomach, similar to the pose my grandma was in when she was in her coffin.

I’m unsure why I think about that right now.

It seems so morbid. But what Clover said about breathing…

“I… Wow, that’s dark, Cloves,” I say with a ball of uneasiness forming in my stomach.

It’s a similar feeling I got when she told me about her diary, and all the dark words she stained upon the pages in permanent ink.

And when she sank underneath the freezing lake water and briefly quit trying to exist.

Without opening her eyes, she gives a lazy shrug. “Then I guess human nature is dark because I’m just stating the truth. Lungs will keep seeking oxygen until the very fucking end, even if we don’t want them to.”

The wind grows quiet as my mind floats backwards to when my lungs almost never breathed again. And yet they kept fighting not to quit.

She cracks her eyes open and looks at me. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “Are you?”

Her lips kick up into a grin. “I’m always okay, my daisy friend.” She closes her eyes again.

So do I.

But I can’t stop thinking about what she said. And not only about the lungs' will to breathe.

She constantly says she’s okay. But that can’t be the truth. No one is always okay. But it’s simple to lie about, like I just did.

I want to press her further, ask her what’s wrong. But like usual, I keep my lips sealed as the fear that she’ll return the favor swallows me up and suffocates me until my lungs stop working ? —

My eyelids fly open. I blink repeatedly, attempting to get a grasp on my bearings.

Slowly, my surroundings come into focus.

I’m in a bed, lying on my side. The wall in front of me is decorated with a strip of wallpaper dotted with trees, and the leaves on the branches coordinate with the forest green walls. A door is located near the foot of the bed, and it appears to lead to a bathroom.

Where am I?

How did I get here…

Suddenly, everything comes rushing back to me.

Getting drunk. Telling Ellis about the woods and how his sister was there with me.

After that, things become murky, but I’m pretty sure I’m in Ellis’ hotel room.

I lift the blanket, and relief washes over me.

I’m still dressed in the shorts and shirt I had on yesterday.

Not that I believe Ellis would’ve had sex with me in the condition I was in, but the holes in my memories are absolutely terrifying.

And where is Clara?

Biting back a groan from the throbbing in my skull, I roll over and glance around the room. Relief cascades through me. She’s on a sofa with a blanket draped across her, and Bailey is curled up by her feet.

So where is Ellis then?

As if reading my mind, the room door swings open, and he enters.

He’s cleaned up, his hair is styled, his shirt and pants are wrinkle-free, and he’s recently shaven.

He’s also holding a cupholder with three coffees in it and is also carrying a brown paper bag.

It’s odd to see him like this after what I confessed last night, or that he’s even here at all.

Why did he let me crash here after what I told him?

He kicks the door shut, tosses a set of keys and keycard onto a desk, then sets the cupholder and bag down on a table before pulling out a chair. The moment he starts to lower himself into the chair, his gaze collides with mine. He startles and then releases an unsteady breath.

“You’re awake.” Before I can respond, he shakes his head. “Well, obviously.” He hesitates before cautiously making his way to the bed. “How are you feeling? I have coffee and breakfast sandwiches that are super greasy and good for hangovers.”

“I…” My voice is all scratchy, so I clear it while I sit up in the bed. “You got me breakfast?”

How is he even okay with being in the room with me?

He nods, a crease forming between his brows. “I got breakfast for all of us. Why do you seem surprised by that?”

My mind is heavy with billowing fog that’s refusing to let me see clearly, so maybe I am missing something.

Fuck, what if I dreamt telling him?

“Did we… Did we talk last night?” I ask, raking my fingers through my long brown hair.

The spark of rage in his eyes gives me my answer.

“We did. And I’d like to talk to you more about it, now that you’re sober.” He pauses. “If you’re okay with that.”

I stare at him, unsure what to say or do next. “Why aren’t you freaking out on me right now? Or arresting me? You’re just being nice…”

The corners of his lips quirk for some reason, but the moment is a whisper of a breath before it fades into nothing.

“There you go calling me nice,” he mumbles, then sighs as he sinks onto the bed. For a moment, he stares at me, his gaze so searingly intense it takes all of my willpower not to squirm. “I know you feel guilty about what happened, but it’s not your fault, Aves. You need to know that.”

“How can you say that?” I hug my arms around myself. “I kept what happened a secret for years. How is that not on me?”

“You went through a traumatic event, and your mind blocked most of it out to protect you. And it had to do that because the people who were supposed to protect you failed you.” He reaches out as if to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear, but then withdraws, probably remembering my twitchy reaction toward being touched.

“You were young, scared, and alone, and your parents used that to their benefit. And I want to know why.”

I wet my chapped lips with my tongue. “Do you think they had something to do with it?”

He carries my gaze. “Do you?”

I want to shake my head. I want to lie. I want to do everything I can not to face that thorn of doubt that’s been lodged in my side since the day my mother locked me in the basement after I confided in her what happened in the woods—when I told her we needed to send help for Camilla and Zoey.

Although at the time, I wasn’t aware Zoey was there.

In the end, she never sent help.

She did nothing but lock the truth away. That truth being me.

“I don’t know.” I pick at my chipped fingernail polish mostly to distract myself from his penetrating gaze. “They may have, but they might’ve only been aware that Trystan was part of it. They could’ve been protecting him.”

Silence stretches between us, and it feels endless when in reality, it’s probably a few heartbeats.

“You said last night that you weren’t positive it was Trystan,” he finally says. “But that you had this feeling it was him.”

I blow out an uneven breath. “It’s hard for me to see most of the details when I try to remember that day.

Most of the images are hazy, and the voices are murmurs.

It’s like I’m trying to see and hear everything through a cracked mirror, if that makes any sense.

And not everything is connected. There are holes in my memories.

Although lately some of those have started to fill in, and that’s why I… ” I trail off.

“Why you realized Zoey was there,” he finishes for me, his voice cracking.

I nod, guilt clenching my chest. “I’m so sorry. That had to be hard for you to hear.”

“It was,” he admits. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t need to hear it. All those years thinking she overdosed, but the truth is, I don’t think I ever fully believed the story the police told my parents.”

“Evidently Clover didn’t either,” I utter, recalling the words in her diary about how she was looking into Zoey’s death.

“I know. I wish she had told us back then. Perhaps she’d still be alive.”

“You think that’s why she died?”

“If she was murdered, then yes.” He drags his fingers through his brown hair.

“It’s a convenient coincidence that she overdosed while she was looking into Zoey’s alleged overdose.

And then it turns out that Zoey didn’t overdose.

I feel like this all has to be connected.

” He fiddles with his watch band. “I hate saying this, but I don’t trust some of the officers in this jurisdiction. ”

“My uncle Stephan said the same thing when he found out I was going to talk to you. But he implied that the cops here are the trustworthy ones, and outsiders, like you, aren’t. Not that I believe him.”

He considers something. “That’s your dad’s brother, right?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He bobs his head up and down. “And your uncle’s a doctor.” It’s not a question. He’s looking into my father’s case, so he has many details on file about my family.

At least ones that can be put down on paper. It’s the secrets he has no clue about, which leaves me to be the one who has to tell him. I’m unsure I can just spill all of my family secrets.

But if I don’t tell him, then who will?

Reality lands on my shoulders, and my bones beg to break under the weight. Part of me wishes I could let myself break into pieces, and then let the fragments get lost in the cracks of the floor, the air, the light.

“Why does that matter?” I ask while scratching at my wrist.

“Because it means he knows the coroner,” he answers.