Falling Daisies

Chapter 22

I dropped Scott and Maggie off at her small town house, where he would be spending the night and then drove Hazel and I back to mine where Ben and Daisy were both already waiting for us in the driveway. The moment I stepped out my car, I could feel how thick with tension the air was and judging by the steely look on both their faces, they had had some kind of argument or disagreement on the journey home.

I opened my front door and everyone piled in, making their own way to the sitting room without needing me to guide them. I shouted up the stairs to Mum that we were home and went to join my friends in living room. Ben and Daisy were sat at opposite ends of the sofa and their bodies were turned sharply away from each other.

What the hell happened in the car?

I put a movie on but I knew noone was really focused on it; we were all just pretending to be deeply engrossed so we didn’t have to confront the unease that was ripe all around us, from whatever had gone down between the two. When the film was over, Hazel hurriedly made her excuses and left and I was alone between the two disputing lovers. Not my dream position I had to admit.

Everyone was meant to be sleeping over tonight but somehow it had ended up this twisted threesome, where I felt like an intruder in my own home. I needed to get out of there and so I made my own excuses and went up to shower.

I turned on the water, leaving it to run hot, as I discarded my damp clothes into the washing basket. I stepped inside the shower, gasping at the sudden sensation of heat on my skin.

Then I let the water immerse me, like I had done in the sea. I showered off the salt water and the sand and then the dirtiness I felt, knowing Daisy knew and then the shame I felt, for what I had said to Ben.

How could I have been such an idiot? How could I have just come out with it like that?

I didn’t even think it was true!

But it was... Fuck.

I was in love with Ben.

But how could I be in love with him? He wasn’t even mine. He never really ever had been.

How did I let this happen?

How did I let things get this far?

I should have never...

What should I have never done?

Was there time to go back through all the mistakes of the past year and correct every one where I had fallen that little bit deeper into loving Ben?

I wouldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t. Even knowing that this acknowledgement of my feelings was now going to consume me and kill me everyday little by little; chipping away at my existence. Knowing that it would be a constant reminder that I had given my heart to someone who wasn’t going to accept it – I wouldn’t have traded this emotion for the world.

I understood why they called it falling in love now. It’s because you don’t choose to fall. It just happens, you’re tripped, you stumble or maybe you are even blown over by a strong gust of wind that knocks you flat on your face. You don’t decide to fall... I wish you could control who you fall in love with but honestly, I think the outcome would have been the same. I’d of still chosen Ben. Because yes, he wouldn’t love me back, but to love Ben is like a force I’ve never known before. It’s like a reality better than my dreams.

Only that is silly. Because this is reality and in reality emotions take a back seat to hard fact, and in this reality; the hard fact is: I’m on my own here.

My skin was raw pink and I felt like I’d scrubbed every inch of my naked body possible to prolong the shower. To prolong the imminent moment from coming, where I would have to go back downstairs and sit like everything was normal, with the guy I loved and his dying girlfriend. I turned off the faucet and wrapped my big fluffy towel around myself, breathing in the still present aroma of jasmine and camomile from my shampoo. The touch and smell was comforting and I sat on the side of the bath for a moment; just thinking.