Starstruck

Convinced

My name is Daisy Peterson. My mother named me after her favorite flower, but my middle name is also her first: Marie. When I was 15 years old, she was institutionalized due to schizophrenia and other mental issues. My brother, Dean, was 19 at the time and he promised he would take care of me. My Aunt Mary took legal custody, but she allowed me to live with Dean until I was 18 and no longer under her guardianship. I was thankful for that for many reasons, one being the fact that Mary had 6 daughters and 2 sons, and I was only ever used to it being my mom, Dean and me. I’m sure I would have adjusted eventually, but the truth is I like my home to be quiet and peaceful. Mom would have very large, loud parties frequently when I was little, and I grew to hate the noise and chaos. Dean would sneak us out of our “bedroom” which was actually a walk-in closet with 2 toddler sized mattresses in it, and out of the window of my mom’s adjoining room when things got too hectic there. We used to just roam around town until one day we found a park a few blocks up the road that we could play in to pass the time. I remember countless hours spent in that park in the dim moonlight, just me and Dean and our imaginations. We could be anything we wanted in those moments.

Dean was determined to keep me safe and happy when Mom went away, so he gave up his dream of going to Aviation School and worked 2 jobs to pay rent for the crappy downtown apartment Mom had previously rented. Luckily, one of the jobs was maintenance for that very apartment complex, so he was very close to home when he was working there. After I graduated High School, my aunt Mary hired me as an “Input Specialist” for the Temp Agency she owned with my uncle Darron. My job consisted of entering hand-filed paperwork into the computer, running errands for Mary and Darron, and making sure no one ran out of coffee.

After 6 months of working and saving practically all of my money, as Dean downright refused to accept any from me for rent or utilities, I moved into a small apartment in the suburbs of Garner, North Carolina with my best friend Dani, and Dean moved a few miles up the road to Raleigh. Dani and I met in the 4th grade when I complimented her My Little Pony lunchbox and we’ve been thick as thieves ever since. She was working as a receptionist for her parents’ law firm in Raleigh and taking classes at Meredith College. She planned to attend UNC School of Law in Chapel Hill after gaining the required prerequisites at Meredith. She often questioned my motives for not going to College, but I convinced myself when Mom was sent away that a college degree wasn’t everything, considering that a Masters in Biochemistry didn’t keep her from being sick.

When I was younger, I dreamed of being a famous singer, so Dean learned guitar just so that he could teach it to me. It took me a few years to get the hang of it, but with persistence and many complaints from Mom and the neighbors, I finally learned how to play and began writing my own songs. As I grew older, though, I realized that I never wanted to be famous. I thought life was hard enough as is, and I didn’t think I could handle being under the scrutiny of the media, nor by extension the rest of the world.

A couple of weeks after I moved in with Dani, a guy named Christian Jones walked into Aunt Mary’s Temp Agency in search of a job and left with my phone number. We began dating and quickly fell in love. Dean and Dani both approved of him, and his family liked me as well. But Christian was sick, much like my mom. He fell into a deep depression about 6 months after we started dating and ended up overdosing by mixing prescription anxiety pills with an entire Liter of alcohol. I still remember when Christian’s brother John came up to the Agency to tell me about it. I felt as though my heart had been savagely ripped out of my chest and pulverized. After that, I purposely avoided men until I hooked up with Jason Sanders on my 23rd birthday.

Jason had been a classmate of mine from Kindergarten all the way through High School and we often hung around with the same friends. I hadn’t planned on my one-night stand with him becoming a relationship, but he kept pursuing me, and after a few weeks I decided to give us a shot. Jason was controlling and obnoxious, but also insanely hot. He had soft blonde hair and baby blue eyes, and he was the star athlete at South Garner High School when we had attended. I never thought he would have been interested in me, but I learned after a couple of months that he was not the awesome guy every girl in our school had thought he was.

Jason wanted me to do everything he did: work out, go to college, party practically every single Friday and Saturday night and play video games. In truth, I didn’t like any of those things. Dean wasn’t very fond of Jason, but as he had finally achieved his dream job of being an airline pilot, he wasn’t home much anymore to protest in person. He did, however, have a close friend named Aaron that ran in Jason’s group and kept Dean well informed of Jason’s whereabouts. This seemed to ease his worrying, if only a little. One windy August night, Jason took the time to bug the s**t out of me until I finally agreed to go to his favorite bar with him and his friends. He knew I hated going out but he had been trying to make me feel guilty a lot lately for never showing interest in his friends or hobbies. I took my time getting ready and decided to scrunch my already curly hair because I always got compliments when I styled it that way and I knew it would annoy Jason. If I was going to let him drag me to a noisy, sleazy bar, I might as well have fun with it.