What Hurts The Most-Rascal Flatts
Watching her walk away was the hardest thing I ever did. "Daddy was right. Everyone was right, Daryl. You and me won't ever work. Not really. I love you, but we're.." I remember the way she trailed off, her voice cracking and eyes watering. "We're done, Daryl." It took everything I had not to beg her to stay, to not leave me. The best thing that ever happened to me. It's what I told her all along, I'm no good for her. I'll just drag her down. She's going places. She's got her singing career in front of her. A family that loves her.
I can't go anywhere in this town without memories of me and her haunting me. Like, the post office where me and her shipped a care package to my piece of shit brother in the military, that she insisted we make and send that day. I can't go to the river, not without remembering the night I took her down there, blankets in the bed of my pick up and we lay in the bed, watching the stars, making up our own constellations and talking the night away until we both fell asleep, probably mid sentence even. There's not a place in this fucking town that doesn't remind me of her, or something special didn't happen for us. Like our first real kiss was in front of the damn elementary school. She dragged me there to pick of the Sheriff's kid when her car was broke down and she was supposed to babysit the munchkin. Being around our mutual friends is shitty. They always brought her up and then gave me this look like I'll break or some shit.
I act like it doesn't matter, like it didn't nearly break me in to a thousand pieces, watching her walk away. I keep dreaming about what our life would have been like if I hadn't pushed her away, if she hadn't said goodbye. I wouldn't have been able to give her the life she would have deserved, but I'd give e very thing for her to be happy. Each night I see what our future could have been, little differences each time. In one, she's that world famous singer she always wanted to be, me following her around, supporting her. In another she's a small time singer, doing it for fun, but staying home and raising our kids, a blonde little boy with my eyes and a brown haired little girl with her mama's eyes, and I've got the garage I always wanted, Dixon Mechanics. Different dreams, different nights, but in them all we're together. Then I wake up and I remember I let her walk away. I remembered that I loved her and let her go.
One of the things she taught me when we were together was that it was okay to cry. Every now and again I let the tears fall, gaining a couple more days that I can be without her. It gives me the ability to put some of it away for a little while longer and keep going. I can let the tears fall, when I'm alone. I can handle that. The nights are lonely without her here by my side, in my bed, in my, our home. Rainy days the worst of them all. The rain echoes against the tin roof reminds me just how empty it is without her filling the house with her presence. I haven't filled her side of the closet, spread my clothes over. Not that I have a lot of clothes, but there's still a hole where she used to be in my house.
I can deal with most of that, most of it. All I wanted to do was show her how much I loved her. I wanted to give her everything. I know I couldn't give her anything she wanted or needed though. I'm not the one for her.
I heard rumors not too long ago that Jimmy and Zach, Jimmy a high school friend of hers, and Zach a co-worker at the diner, have both asked her out. Heard she turned them both down and Jimmy gave up, but Zach kept asking her out. She finally said yes. My worst fears after our break up wasn't to run into her, but to run into her with a new boyfriend. I saw them walking down the street, hand in hand, walking straight towards me, that first time my worst nightmare came true. I wanted to turn around it hightail it out of there. I kept walking trying to act like I didn't even notice them. I fucked up, looking up and meeting her eyes as she got close. Saw so much there in her blue eyes. I could see regret there, pain, and the worst of all, genuine happiness too.
That moment before she walked past me told me more than I had wanted to believe about us really being over.
I still cry every now and then. Nights are the worst, falling asleep to an empty bed. When it rains I leave and go to the bar, drowning myself in a bottle of cheap whiskey.
Two of my dreams eventually came true. I threw myself into working at Dale's Garage for a couple more years, until he passed away. Heart attack that came out of nowhere. Dale's will left the garage to me. I changed the name after a lot of debate and re-opened it as Dixon Mechanics. The other dream came true, just not the way I hoped it would. Found out a year after I re-opened the shop that she's pregnant with Zach's kid and they are getting hitched. She came in with a swollen belly and a jacked up car, and an apologetic smile on her face. "Yours is the only place in time town that does a good job," She had said.
I handed the job to a worker and left without a word. I wandered across the street that day and went into the bar, not leaving until the bar closed that night. I left the shop for my workers to close up and take care of things.
What hurt the most was knowing that it could have been me with her, making her happy and being the one to make her dreams come true.
A/N: I listened to What Hurt The Most on repeat. And I listened/watched the YouTube video "10 yrs. I miss you Daddy," set to the song Heaven by DJ Sammy on repeat.
I'm going to rec a fic, which I don't often do, but I wanted to: Aren't We All Walkers Here? by pancake-potch.
Shout out to Beyondmythought-s for listening to me bawl my eyes out as I wrote this and listened to 10 Yrs. I miss you Daddy.