To Live Again

Chapter Five: New Goals

After dinner the adults moved into the conservatory, and the younger generation headed for the entertainment room, but Daniella pulled Jesse aside.  “Will you bring me home now?”

Jesse scratched his head and nodded.  “Yeah, sure.  Let me just grab my keys.”  He ran up the stairs two at a time, and came back a few seconds later with their coats and the keys to his truck.  He held out her coat for her to slide her arms into before he lead the way back to the garage.  When they were buckled into the truck and out on the dark roads, Jesse finally broke under the silence.  “Daniella, what the hell is going on?”

Daniella winced in the seat.  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Yes you do.  You’ve been like… super weird since your birthday.  I don’t mean weird in a bad way, but you aren’t yourself either.  What happened at dinner?  Duke finally shows some interest in you, and you blew him off?  Do you have a fever or something?”  There were other things he’d noticed too.  Like the fact that she kept referring to things in the past tense.  It was subtle, but kind of creepy at the same time.

“Maybe I’m not really interested in Duke any more.” She said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive posture.

“Oh come on, every human with a v****a is interested in Duke.” Jesse said bitterly.

“Maybe that’s because nobody really knows him.  Even you don’t REALLY know him, Jesse.  You see him on school vacations and for a couple months in the summer, but you two have never been close.” She tugged impatiently at her hair.  “Have you ever thought that maybe he comes off as TOO perfect?”

Jesse gave a humorless laugh, “I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“Oh yes there is.” She said with startling certainty.  “Its all a façade.  Behind that gorgeous smile…” She suddenly clamped her mouth shut on whatever she was going to say.  There were some things that Jesse didn't know, and couldn't know yet.  “I had a silly school-girl crush on Duke, but I’ve outgrown it.”

“Really?” Jesse wanted desperately to believe his ears.  If she wasn’t all wrapped up in Duke, maybe he would finally have a chance.  It still seemed weird that so much had changed, just because she’d rolled over her 18th birthday.  He drove carefully into her driveway and parked.  He turned off the ignition and turned to her uncertainly.  “So about tomorrow… were you just saying that to get Duke off your back?”

She grinned at him, “Oh hell no.  We totally have plans tomorrow.”

“We do?” He echoed stupidly.  “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” she said lightly, opening the door and sliding out of his truck.  “But you’ll think of something.”  She blew him a kiss, and slammed the door, leaving him alone in his truck, flabbergasted and confused.

Daniella shut the door against the cold and leaned back against it.  Her heart was racing and she felt a little giddy.  She toed off her boots and passed through the living room to head up to her bedroom.  Bev was on the couch, reading a book on her tablet, and David was zoned out on the TV.  “You are back early,” Bev commented without looking up from her device.

“Yeah I guess.”

“How was it.”

“Totally boring.” She started to move on toward the stairs.

“Boring?  Duke Hardigan is home, and all you have to say is “boring”.  You aren’t going to regale me with all the details of how wonderful and perfect he is?” Bev said in a teasing tone.

Daniella shrugged carelessly.  “Maybe he’s not really so wonderful after all.  Oh, and I’m going out with Jesse tomorrow.  G’night.”

Bev lowered the tablet and watched her sister’s back receding up the stairs.  It was good to see that she seemed to be over her infatuation with Duke.  She’d never really liked that boy.  Jesse on the other hand… Jesse was a nice boy, and he was so good to Daniella.  “Good night Danni.”

Daniella went up to her room and turned on the light before she flopped across her bed on her stomach.  She felt like she’d accomplished a major victory.  If there was never a first date with Duke, then all the rest should unravel.  There would be no engagement, no wedding, no…. ugh.  She grabbed ahold of her head as a wave of vertigo hit her and pushed her head down into the mattress. 

She was making new memories now, over-writing the old life-story.  What had happened to her, six years in the future was NOT going to happen again. She picked up her diary and flipped it open.  She looked at the list of goals on the first page, and picked up a pen.  She scratched out “Kiss Duke Hardigan” with so much force that she almost ripped through the paper.  She also put XXXX through “Lose 50 pounds.”  She didn’t know how much time she had in this second go-round, she wasn’t going to waste it being miserable and hungry.  She wrote some new goals on the list.

-Live to see my 19th Birthday

Yep, that was a good one.  She smiled and twiddled the pen in her fingers for a moment before she wrote the next one.

-Kiss Jesse Hardigan.

All these years she’d been chasing after Duke, somehow she’d missed out on the fact that the perfect man was right there under her nose.  Sure, he was just a boy right now, but she'd seen what he was going to become.