You Did It This Time, Daisy May!

By Kelly Aimes

15000+ words

 

     Meet Daisy-May Lynn, fifteen years old. Bright and motivated, starting goalie for her high school's soccer team. The kind of young woman who often hears, "You've got so much going for you!" The kind of young woman who  doesn't believe a word of it.

 

     In less than a week, Daisy will celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Before that can happen, she will have to make it through a long, lonely and torturous night that will tell her some important things about who she really is.

 

     If she can make it through the night, she's going to discover that she is wrong about a lot of things. If she can make it through the night, she will understand the importance of letting go of things you cannot control in order to find yourself.

 

sample:

 

     But life is cruel. I used to tell Tim that I didn't care how my life turned out and that I wanted bad things to happen to me. He was always calm and reassuring no matter how many times I bitched this line at him.
     "You know..." he'd always say, "the thing about that is..." Usually he'd take a few sips of beer in between these words of reassurance, to build some tension. "...bad things are going to happen to you, whether you want them to or not. So wishing for it is pretty much a waste of energy." He had a point.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Aimes
• Release date: Dec 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215940075

Book preview

You Did It This Time, Daisy May!

Kelly Aimes

Published by Kelly Aimes, 2022.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

YOU DID IT THIS TIME, DAISY MAY!

First edition. December 24, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 Kelly Aimes.

Written by Kelly Aimes.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

You Did It This Time, Daisy May!

Also By Kelly Aimes

Br-br-br-br-BEEP...Br-br-br-BEEP...Br-br-br-BEEP...

My hand darted out from underneath the covers to turn off the alarm. I double-checked the display, just to make sure this wasn’t a dream. I've been living for this moment, wanting it in the worst way possible, for a long time.

I hopped out of bed, turned on the lamp that sits above my dresser, and retrieved the box from the first drawer.

As I set my plan in motion, I caught myself staring out my window, gazing at the night sky. Everything was so placid and serene. It was perfect, really. This is the way I wanted things to be. I suppose there was some cruel irony in how well things were working out, considering the messiness of my day-to-day life. Soon it would feel like a distant memory. At least, that's the way I imagined it. The way it would be once the moment arrived wasn't something that concerned me. I felt calm and prepared.

But my hands started to shake a bit as I carefully removed the small digital scale from the box, gently opened the baggie containing the powder, opened the can of soda as discretely as possible, and then weighed out an amount of the powder that I thought should do the trick.

I had a brief moment of self-doubt just before I drank from the can. What if I had put too much in? That might be painful, and that is not what I wanted. So I took a deep breath and cleared my mind. Then, without thinking, I forced myself to drink the entire soda in a succession of hurried gulps. It tasted terrible. Well...it was supposed to. Everything, so far, was going exactly according to plan.

Honestly, that worried me a bit. Almost nothing in my life turned out the way I wanted  it to. The good moments were either absent or fleeting...or, worse, undone by some unpleasantness that overshadowed them completely, the way the moon sometimes eclipses the sun.

I closed my eyes and waited.

Pretty soon, my heart started beating faster, I felt warm, and an odd sense of, well, extreme happiness started welling up inside me. It made me nervous, because this was not at all what I expected. I tried to relax and let go, reminding myself that it shouldn’t be much longer. But I have always carried this kind of odd self-consciousness around with me. My senses were always tuned to what could go wrong. I guess that's because so many things had not gone right for me.

Last week, my mother asked me what I wanted for my sweet sixteen. I told her that it didn't matter. I did not tell her why it didn't matter. When I think about it, what I really want more than anything is for her to burn in hell for an eternity right next to me. Stupid bitch.

***

Hi. I'm Daisy. My full name is Daisy-May, but most people just use the first part. When I was born, the connective tissue in my right ankle wasn’t fully formed. I needed thirteen operations before I was three years old just to be able to walk, which is something  I still have trouble with to this day.

Operations cost money, and neither my mom nor my dad had much. So, that made things tough on both of them. So tough that my dad left before the tenth operation. The only thing I have to remember him by is the second part of my name. He wanted to name me May because that was the month I was born in. My mother insisted on Daisy because that was her favorite flower. They compromised with the name I was given.

Like most things about me, I absolutely hate my name. I wish I had been born later and I wish my dad had been able to stand up to my mom, because then I could have the name Julia, which sounds so much better. I've told a few people about my preference, but nobody ever calls me by that name, except for one person. Even that didn't last long.

Nothing in my life lasts long. Except the memories. And the pain. Too often they are the same thing.

***

I crawled into bed and lay my head on the pillow. My mind was racing. Life is hard. I've worked hard to be the best person I can be, but always felt like I came up short when it mattered. Pretty soon, none of this is going to matter. In these last moments, though,