I’d Give Up The World For You - Chapter 220

Daisy was becoming progressively more frustrated with her boyfriend as time went on. Therapy seemed to be in the ‘making things worse before making things better’ stage and he refused to talk about it, saying he had more than enough of that during his sessions.

She could understand that much. What bothered her more was that he never told her what was on his mind when he seemed a million miles away.

He grew more irritable and though he never took it out on her he frequently hurt himself. Not with a weapon but the marks on his arms, hands, and even knees from digging his fingernails into them were getting worse.

Leo’s behavior was starting to scare her. She was worried he would hurt himself on purpose next but the one time she brought it up he said “don’t be ridiculous” and declared the subject closed.

How was Daisy supposed to help him if he never told her about anything? He still hadn’t said a word about Juliet Gallagher though he looked like he wanted to murder someone any time they saw a movie poster while out and about.

He got a lot more attention from fans after the movie came out. It happened nearly every time they were out in public and he always told them quite furiously to get lost.

If looks could kill, a lot of people would be dead. He wasn’t the same polite person she had met back in January. Apparently, he didn’t have the energy to spare on that anymore. Taking him anywhere had become rather exhausting but she couldn’t spend her whole summer cooped up. She would go insane!

Daisy made an effort to go places that were largely out of the way involving nature where things were quiet and there weren’t a lot of people. That seemed to calm him down a bit but they were in a big city. Doing that took time so they were only able to do it on the weekends. During the week they were stuck relying on crowded public parks.

She hated catering to him like this. This was what she got for allowing herself to become involved with someone unstable.

She cared about him deeply, which was why she tolerated it, but she was getting close to reaching her limit. There were two reasons she hadn’t given up on him already. Fear of what would happen to him if she did and not wanting to be alone again.

Honestly, it was pathetic. She shouldn’t have let herself end up in this kind of situation in the first place but there was nothing she could do about it now.

Leo was in therapy. He was doing everything she had asked of him so she couldn’t fault him for it making things worse. That wouldn’t be fair to him. He was doing his best and she knew that but it was still so frustrating!

Things didn’t get any better when the new semester started because he was taking more classes and was spread even more thin. She tried telling him he should cut back on his hours or get a different job while he was in school but he shot that down.

“I’m not going to be able to help you if I do that,” he said seriously.

Daisy let out a heavy sigh. “Leo, I honestly don’t care about you helping me right now. I care about you helping yourself. You should be doing school full-time and work part-time instead of trying to do both full-time. You’re going to burn yourself out that way.”

“I’m used to it. I’ve had much more intense schedules before. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Yes I do! You weren’t in therapy before and clearly it’s taking a toll. You have to take better care of yourself. I don’t want things to be this difficult for you.”

“But I want to help you accomplish your dream. That’s important to me,” Leo insisted.

Daisy didn’t know what she was supposed to say to convince him. He was always more concerned with her well-being than his own. Maybe she could work that to her advantage. She would have to word this right so it didn’t backfire on her.

“You can’t help me if you don’t help yourself first,” she said gently. “Seeing you struggle hurts me, Leo. I want you to be happy and healthy. That’s important to me and is achievable much faster than my dream is.”

His face fell. Clearly he hadn’t considered it from this angle before. “Why would my having a hard time hurt you?”

“Because I love you.”

Daisy hadn’t realized exactly how true that was until she said it. She did love him. She wanted him to be happy, she wanted him to be able to get past his trauma, and she wanted him to stay with her forever. Crazy as it was, she had fallen in love with this human train wreck so she hated seeing him push himself until he broke.

Leo stared at her in shock for a moment before tears leaked out of his eyes. It seemed like he didn’t even notice because he wasn’t sobbing and continued talking as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

“You do? Really?”

She reached up to wipe his tears with a soft smile on her face. “Yeah, I do. So can you take care of yourself more? You should do it for yourself but if that won’t work I’ll settle for you doing it for me. That’s far more important than trying to buy some land. Got it?”

Rather than responding to what she said in words, Leo pulled her into his arms and kissed her fervently. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for but she wasn’t complaining.

And he did end up quitting his job and finding something that was only four hours a day instead of eight so he had more time to do his homework, sleep, and have a little time to relax as well. He planned to switch his schedule around so he didn’t have to take night classes anymore the following semester but for the time being he had to stick that out.

Daisy was relieved that he listened to her. He seemed to be doing a lot better after that though therapy still drained him and he was frequently off in his own little world. At least he wasn’t as rude to random passersby anymore.

Leo also perked up a bit because the timing coincided with her usual fall baking extravaganza where she made everything pumpkin or apple. They even went to an orchard to pick fresh apples themselves. He seemed especially excited about that, going as far as juggling eight apples at once.

“How did you learn to do that?!” she asked in amazement.

“My brother taught me but he could only do six. I kept practicing but this is still my record,” he replied with a shrug. Though his reaction was casual there was great sadness in his eyes.

He didn’t talk about his family much if at all. This was the first time he had done it in months.

Daisy figured it was best not to press him for further details. “Can you teach me?”

Leo laughed. “I can try but you’re going to be terrible. We should do it with actual balls instead of apples so you don’t end up wasting them.”

She scowled at him, offended that he thought she would be bad right off the bat. She wasn’t completely terrible at athletic things! Why was he so confident? He had a point about potentially not wasting apples while learning though. They did have to pay for everything they touched and bruised apples didn’t make quality baked goods.

“I’ll show you!” she huffed.

On their way home from the orchard they went to a toy store and picked up a set of beginners’ juggling balls. Daisy was determined to prove to him that she wasn’t as terrible as he thought he was.

Leo said they should do this outside to minimize the risk of things getting broken so they ended up going to a nearby park. He tried teaching her the basics by having her practice with one ball first. She had to hold her arms a certain way and try not to move her hands too much.

That wasn’t the problem. Neither was practicing scooping the ball out of the air. She was doing fine until it was time to introduce a second ball. Timing the throws was her biggest issue. No matter how many times he showed her how to do it she kept dropping them!

“How did you know I would be so bad at this?” Daisy moaned after more than thirty minutes of trying and failing to get two-ball juggling down.

A small, oddly sad smile made its way onto Leo’s face. “Call it intuition.”

“Your intuition sucks. I refuse to give up! I’m going to learn how to juggle even if it takes me forever!”

“You’re going to give up in less than a week.”

“Is that a challenge?” Daisy asked with a raised eyebrow, feeling an unusual surge of competitiveness kicking in. “I’m going to prove you wrong!”

Leo snickered.. “Whatever you say, Daisy.”