Letting someone lose their mind with their own thoughts is the greatest form of revenge, a self-endowed disservice, because you can't be blamed for what you didn't do. That must be what it was. Every crunch from a plump boy next to me brusquely devouring Wise potato chips was disguised as a crackling leaf. Insecurities made me believe someone was watching me desperately crane my neck from right making a U-shape left, either the boy or a pigeon. Kid must think I caught whiplash, that is if he was old enough to know the word. Anxiousness convinced me into thinking my phone was vibrating with a message from him, only a tingling numbness in my hand was the case. Paranoia had me thinking he was flaking on me. Most likely having fits of laughter and spreading lies in hysterical conversations about my naive heart and pitiful “obsession” to everyone. Someone worse than everyone; Denise.

I don't know, there's something aesthetic about how a person will take so long to stop themselves from going down the slide of inner turmoil yet complain about it the entire way down. It's like testing yourself to see how far you have to go until you crack, or saying you'll wait five more minutes when you said the same thing ten minutes ago. For a long time I thought I was the only stupid one making mistakes I had total control over and forcing myself to block out the parts of the truth I didn't want to remember. Then I realized everyone was stupid. Someone else in the world is constantly peeling their legs off a burning metal bench or leaning against a water fountain in a park waiting for someone who said they'll TRY to show up. Someone else in your country is freaking out over thinking about possible outcomes that most likely aren't happening. Some girl in your state is wearing a dress in their crush's favorite color or listening to their favorite band just to impress them, because they think being themselves won't be enough. One of your neighbors is doing what they want instead of what they need to do. Now we're a group of stupid people, not much better but a lot more comforting.

Denise Stafford was the quieter, Brazilian version of Gabrielle Solis on Desperate Housewives and roughly 20 years older, she's as stunning post-marriage and divorce settlements as she was prior. Her thick butterscotch hair illuminated with an even amount of lighter blonde laid down to the bottom of her shoulder blades. A brown eyed beauty she was, Daniel had a thing for true brown eyes. No chocolate and dark brown or hazel, just honest brown eyes. Aside from being a classic aging beauty, her forte was being a cougar. Nothing law suit or jail time worthy, all guys gravitated towards her but she only enticed the ones over eighteen and under twenty five. Her local community college boys, the checkout guy in the express lane at Wholefoods, and my Daniel are some of the only known victims that either bragged about it or don't know how to keep a secret. Denise met Daniel and it all went downhill from there.

Who would forget the day their boyfriend caught the attention of a woman who would later break them up? In '09 we were all at at Oscar Stafford's later-boycotted art gallery premiere, Gala de something. I curse the day he introduced us to his wife and the moment that I thought it'd be perfectly fine to leave him and Denise alone together. The provocative and artistically disturbing paintings interested me, so while trying to avoid make eye contact with the art longer than ten seconds, I noticed Denise being forward with Daniel. He was too concentrated on rambling about his favorite pieces to realize at the time that she had touched his cheek adoringly one too many times. Eventually he would, three years later she would wore him down with her persistent flirting and offers to help with groceries when I wasn't around and those expensive yet causal dresses she wore even around the neighborhood. At least I'd like to think it was her wearing him down, and him not giving in and putting himself out there as well. Often I wonder exactly what it was that made this whole fictional fatal attraction fantasy the reality of our lives. Was it that I loved leather leggings and wore plaid scarves all year around instead of frilly dresses? Maybe it was that her curves refreshed his memory of what a real woman should look like, maybe he was tired of making love to my slim body with a chest that resembled a prepubescent boy. Could've been because I refused to have children. Denise Stafford carried her baby gracefully.

“Hey lady!” I instinctively snatched my arm away from the kid tugging at my sweater with his greasy, grubby hands. “He's been calling you forever, what were ya thinkin' about? Musta been mighty-” I silenced his voice in my mind, half running and half walking towards David. He knelt on grass that couldn't be browner and red dirt by the base of a peach tree holding three greasy paper bags. Nothing about him had changed besides his hair, which was messy even for his usual bed head look.

“Forgive me, for I come bearing gifts.” His crooked smile formed words in a British accent that weren't very coherent to me. I know I should have been livid that he was over an hour late and that he thought he could buy my forgiveness, but I'm disappointed in myself that I would have forgiven him regardless. Daniel shoved his arms out motioning me to grab one. “Oh no, not that one. That's for Denise. She wanted three burgers off the dollar menu and some apple pies.” His chuckle didn't match my eye roll.

“Child bearing women are like men that way. No one can criticize you for eating six full course meals a day.” I grabbed a bag with two large french fries. My exaggeration came off as a joke but I was being spiteful. I had hope she'd been eating enough food for her plus twins, her post-pregnancy body would take ages to reform back. This fantasy that he would leave her and come back to me with another woman's baby came to mind. My only idea was to start scarfing down fries like that boy was potato chips to prevent any “accidental” comments from being revealed. “So how is she?”

“'In the worst pain of her life,' her exact words. I had to soak my hand in ice for a few hours. She didn't scream a lot though, they said she handled it like a pro compared to most women. I was kind of freaked out when they said they had to stitch-” Red dirt caked up on the tip of my white sneakers, I was planning to kick my way to China. Anything to hear him stop talking about her. “Oh, you meant Daisy?” The sympathy was evident in his tone. Daniel was an idiot when he wanted to be. What made him think I gave a damn about how she's doing? The “other woman” usually doesn't get sympathy from the ex-girlfriend.

“Her name is Daisy? Like the flower? I wouldn't have pegged Denise as a modern-day hippie.” By now my fries were lukewarm and I was breaking them up into pieces.

“Actually no. Throughout her third trimester she kept reading The Great Gatsby, wasn't that your favorite book back in high school?” The Great Gatsby was not my favorite book in high school, nor my second favorite. Assigned tenth grade curriculum is what it was, then I did an essay on it in eleventh grade only because we analyzed the hell out of it so there was guaranteed accuracy. “Anyway, she's hooked on this Daisy Buchman chick.” Denise can read, my third petty thought about her that day.

“Buchanan.” I corrected “Aren't you concerned with the values she'll have for herself when she gets older? Girls today idolize Marilyn Monroe who is basically a carbon copy of Daisy Buchanan. What if she asks where her name came from? Who will have the heart to tell her that she was named after a 1920's prostitute?” While I had word vomit I was unaware of how out of my league I was, a woman without kids giving a parent, parenting advice.

Daniel rubbed the back of his neck and forcefully made eye contact with the tree's roots. “Well luckily she's not your baby so...” Very dry and bitter mumbles were proceeded by the saddest grayish blue orbs he's ever displayed. Suddenly I was able to feel my heartbeat in my stomach and there was a hollow area where my heart should be. That moment I was convinced he resented me because of my refusal to even give him one child. A son of ours that he could take to basketball games and eat sugary cereals with on Saturday mornings. Or a little girl he could embarrassingly practice doing plies with for her ballet classes and pick up when she falls on her first bike. All the talk he did about buying a two bedroom house one day and how he was going to provide for his family never sunk in until now. I was only focused on him and myself. I thought I could be enough family for him to the point where he would forget about wanting to have a baby. “Gisabel, when I said luckily I-”

“No, no. Daisy is, um, it's a beautiful name.”

“I didn't plan for this to happen.”

“What didn't you plan for? To have sex with her or to have a baby?” I snapped.

“What are you talking about? I don't love Denise, why would I purposefully have a baby with a neighborhood housewife instead of my girlfriend of seven years?” He whispered to me. It would've been awful for one of Denise's minions, “friends”, to hear us and report back to her. Sadly I didn't care.

“Because your ex-girlfriend of seven years never wants kids.” After I shouted it just sounded like a stab in his heart to even the score with the knife he stabbed in my back. If that was the case I should've felt accomplished. “And what you just said makes me feel like you resent me for it.”

Awkward silence replaced our angry silence. What else was there to say?

“I think about you a lot,” Well there's that. “There was never one time when I thought I might've loved her.”

“Then she obviously must have feelings that you just can't reciprocate. So your sudden burst of confessions and integrity isn't doing you any good, or me, or her!”

“Gisabel, I didn't come here to talk about Denise, or everything that happened nine months ago, or Daisy really. If you want to finish arguing about everything I do wrong, do you think maybe we can pick this up on a day other than the birth of my first child?” Although maliciously phrased, his tone was begging me to drop it. That was one thing that Daniel had mastered about me. Most people get hurt by the things people say because it wasn't said in a way that was light on their self-esteem. In an instant I could become overwhelmed with guilt, not because of the way you say something but what you say exactly. Usually they go hand in hand but at the end of the day I'm going to remember the words and lies you told me, not the way you told me. He learned to say the right things to either make me happy or feel every bit apologetic. He was also really great at putting the spotlight on someone else when he didn't want it anymore.

Daniel plucked a peach off the tree, they reminded me of mini sunsets in an abyss of thick dark green leaves. Seven amazing years ago, Daniel and I met each other underneath the red dirt peach tree. We both separately left this party because it was getting lame and found each other, we had a peach eating contest. I don't remember what the loser had to do that night but I remember that he won with 8 to 6. Every year after that throughout our relationship we would meet up at the tree and have a peach eating contest right before the sun started to set and we'd bury the pits in a small hole. Kind of like making a mark, just to say “we were here.”

Rain began forcefully pouring down as the clouds turned white covering every bit of the sky. Distant buildings and houses turned gray, and they began to look like scenery backdrops. The only colors you could see from where I was sitting were the cars in the parking lot along with a vibrant yellow slide on the playground. Daniel pried the peach apart with his bare hands to locate the pit. “I need to get back before the Daisy wakes up. Would it be alright if I stopped by to drop off pictures of her some time next week? Maybe I'll bring her along.” He handed me the pit and walked from underneath the tree, letting the rain water rinse off the sticky fruit juice from his hands. His hair went straight down into a mop on his head. Thunder roared from somewhere above and was sneaking up on the city. We should've ran from underneath that tree. “June 15th, the weather channel didn't say anything about rain. Anyway, I know you probably don't want to be friends, because you hate me and everything.” He was shouting over the heavy smack of the rain, you could hear it hit his skin and jacket.

“I wouldn't be here if I hated you,” Daniel took a few steps towards me and I scooted away from him. Once I did it I realized it was the worst thing I could've done at that moment. “Happy Anniversary, Daniel. Congratulations on the baby.” Shock took over his body for a few seconds, but once it ended he grabbed the now damp paper bags with Denise's food.

“Bury the pit, Gis.” His jean jacket and khaki pants blended together with his sneakers into a black silhouette the further he ran away to his car.

At that moment I began to tear up a bit. The condensation from the rain and my tears combined made my glasses fog up. Daniel was right, the news said nothing about a storm that day. I was able to find the beauty in the day the longer I sat there crying. Rain itself was soothing, the clouds weren't a threatening dark gray color. The air was warm and the sky made it look like this weather should be accompanied by snow. Droplets of water fell from the branches onto me at full speed. It wasn't a messy storm, it was one of the kind that pass though quickly. You can tell because the ugly storms always linger around and the ones you should enjoy seem like a limited time only offer, but I appreciated it's beauty no matter how long I had to sit there and wait for it to stop. June 15th, not a bad day to be born.