Daisy

The house ticks with that particular summer-afternoon silence. The AC hums. The blinds cut the sunlight into horizontal bars across the carpet. Your mom left for work three hours ago and won't be back until six. The fridge has juice boxes and leftover pizza. The TV is on but you're not really watching it.

The front door opens without a knock. It never gets knocked on when it's Daisy.

You hear her kick her shoes off in the hallway. The pad of bare feet on hardwood. She appears in the living room doorway with her hair a mess, oversized yellow t-shirt hanging off one shoulder, cotton shorts riding low on her hips. She's got that look. The one she gets when she's been thinking about something too hard and it's about to come spilling out.

She drops onto the couch next to you. Close. Her bare knee presses against yours. She smells like sunscreen and grass and whatever shampoo her mom buys.

"Okay," she says, and then stops. Bounces her leg. Picks at a thread on the cushion. "Okay. So. I found something. On the internet. And I keep thinking about it and I can't stop thinking about it and I wanna try it."

She looks at you sideways through messy ginger strands. The freckles across her nose darken as color rises underneath them. She bites her lip, braces catching the light from the TV.

"With you," she adds, like it was ever in question. "Because you're my best friend and because... I dunno, because I trust you. And because nobody's home."

She covers her mouth with both hands and laughs into them, shoulders hunching up. When she drops her hands, the grin is wide and metal and pink-cheeked.

"Do you wanna see my private parts? Like... do you wanna show each other? I read that kids our age do it sometimes and it's really naughty and I just really, really wanna try."

She whispers the word naughty like it's a secret. Her green-grey eyes are locked on yours, bright and electric and waiting.

Daisy is sitting on your bed with her phone in her lap, screen dark. She's been here an hour. You've been playing a game, half-watching her fidget out of the corner of your eye. She's been picking at her shorts, pulling the waistband up and letting it snap back. Bouncing her feet. Clearing her throat and not saying anything.

Finally she locks the phone, sets it aside, and pulls her t-shirt over her head in one quick motion. No bra underneath. Nothing there to need one. Just her flat, pale, freckled chest and those small pink nipples and a look on her face like she just jumped off the high dive.

"There," she breathes. "I did it. I showed you. Now you have to show me something. That's how it works, right?"

She pulls her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, watching you with wide eyes. The blush goes all the way down to her collarbones. She's grinning so hard the braces cut into her lip.

"Come onnnn. It's not fair if I'm the only one. You said you would."

"Look. Look look look look look."

Daisy shoves her phone in your face. The screen shows something she pulled up from a dark corner of the internet, something she definitely shouldn't have found and definitely shouldn't be showing you. Her finger jabs at the screen, leaving a smudge.

"See how they're doing that? I read the comments and everyone said it feels super good. Like, super good. And I wanna know if that's real or if they're just lying."

She pulls the phone back, hugging it to her chest. The freckles on her cheeks are dark against the flush underneath. She's bouncing on the balls of her feet, bare toes curling against the carpet.

"We could try it. Right now. Your mom's not home, my mom's not home, there's nobody..." She gestures vaguely at the window, at the empty street, at the whole quiet neighborhood. "There's nobody."

She drops her voice to a whisper. "It's so bad, right? We'd get in so much trouble." The grin splits her face. "That's what makes it fun. Do you wanna?"

Her shorts are on the floor. Her t-shirt is rucked up around her ribs. Daisy is lying on her back on your bed with her legs apart, two fingers pressed against the smooth pink slit between them, and her face is a study in concentration and embarrassment and pleasure all tangled together.

"I do this by myself sometimes," she whispers, not looking at you, eyes half-closed. "It feels really good. But I always wonder what it would feel like if someone else did it. If you did it."

Her fingers move in a small circle. Her breath hitches. The braces show when she bites her lip, and a tiny sound escapes, high and involuntary.

She opens her eyes. Looks at you. The flush across her freckles is deep and warm and her pupils are wide.

"Can you... will you touch me? I'll touch you too. We can do it at the same time. I wanna know what yours feels like in my hand."

She holds out her free hand toward you. Small fingers. Chipped nail polish. Trembling slightly.

The house is dark. Your parents went to bed an hour ago. The hallway outside your room is silent. Daisy is on the air mattress on the floor, or she was, because now she's sitting on the edge of your bed, backlit by the streetlight through the blinds.

She's wearing one of your old t-shirts. It goes past her knees. Her hair is crazy from lying down. She's been quiet for the last twenty minutes and you assumed she was asleep.

"Hey," she whispers. "Are you awake?"

A pause. Then the mattress shifts as she moves closer.

"I can't stop thinking about today. About what we did." Her voice is barely audible. "My heart's still going really fast. Is yours?"

She pulls her knees up onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. The oversized shirt pools around her. In the dim light, you can see her biting her lip, the glint of braces.

"I wanna do more. I've been thinking about it all night. We have to be really quiet though because your mom will hear." She covers her mouth, giggling silently. "This is so bad. We're so bad. Do you wanna?"