AUGUST 1922

It was the best of times, the worst of crimes

I struck a match and blew your mind

But I didn't mean it

And you didn't see it

The ties were black, the lies were white
In shades of gray in candlelight
I wanted to leave him
I needed a reason

As soon as I am alone in my room I throw myself down to the floor, as if I was the one who was hit by a car.

What am I doing? I am allowing the man I have cheated my husband with, body and soul, to take the blame for the cold blood on my hands. I am now leaving that same man to stay with a husband whom I both love and hate to the edge of madness. I am mad! Oh God I am a mad woman in an even madder world!

Poor Jay! Poor Jay for what I have done to him and what I am about to do. I was so ready to leave Tom and begin the life I had always dreamed, but given up on, with Jay.

But when Jay has been there, begging me to tell Tom I never loved him, I couldn't. I couldn't tell his pretty lie. After all, I have loved Tom. And what I dreamed of with Jay, was just a dream. As I discovered, life is much more cruel.

I've never felt so lost. I've never felt more of the fool I always wished I was.

It was the great escape, the prison break

The light of freedom on my face

But you weren't thinkin'

And I was just drinkin'

While he was runnin' after us, I was screamin', "Go, go, go!"

But with three of us, honey, it's a sideshow

And a circus ain't a love story

And now we're both sorry

I find myself performing a manic medley of hysterical laughter and crying. I pour myself another drink. I have been drinking since I got some. The only relief I can find tonight is in the bottom of a glass. I have broken the hearts of both the loves of my life in one terrible scene.

Jay was my first love. The sunlight to my flower. Tom, was the husband to my wife. That cannot be underestimated. I am not the Daisy Jay met five years ago either. She died with the flowers that winter, when he left. I am now Daisy Buchanan. Wife to Tom Buchanan. Wife to Tom.

Did Jay really believe he could show up five years later and pick up the pieces where we left, as if it was as simple as it was for eighteen year old Daisy Fay before the war.

But there was a war, and there was a wedding. How could he expect me to go off and marry him as if I was a first time bride. I am not. And I can't just take Tom out of my life and my past like I am plucking petals from a flower. It would be as easy as taking stars out of the sky.

"Oh Jay." I murmur to myself. "Oh Daisy Fay. What do we do now?" I ask her. But she has slipped away into the past. Gone forever. I cannot reach her. For one cannot repeat the past.

You were drivin' the getaway car

We were flyin', but we'd never get far

Don't pretend it's such a mystery

Think about the place where you first met me

Ridin' in a getaway car

There were sirens in the beat of your heart

Should've known I'd be the first to leave

Think about the place where you first met me

In a getaway car