(Whoops, I was so organised and had this in the Doc Manager for so long that I forgot to actually upload yesterday :D)
Hello, it is Wednesday, and I am back with a new chapter! This is a bit of a lengthy one and it feels like a long time coming. I remember I got this idea because I was driving back from visiting my Nan and listening to Taylor Swift's song called All Too Well and the lyric "not weeping in a party bathroom, some actress me what happened - you" put this idea into my head. Hence the title! It took a little bit for me to write this - and actually, for a rare occasion, I wrote the first part months before finally finishing it off. In this story we see the break up of Justin (Jessie and James' eldest son) and Eli (Misty's father's uncle) from their summer of love and the ending of Misty's naughty fling with James many years before - and we see Misty's sister, Daisy's, role in both those moments. Shout out to my mum for listening to me read this story over and over to perfect it! She was hoping she would get a mention and here it is :P I hope you enjoy!
Ages:
Justin: 22
Daisy: 42 (23 in Part 2)
Misty: 18
Just a heads up that the word queer is used here and it is used to describe Eli's sexuality but there is also hints of trauma from that word being used as a slur which I of course do not condone. That happens in the first half of the story so feel free to skip it if you need to!
As Justin's arms became great wings, swooping and gesturing to the crowd gathered around him as he continued telling his tale, he could see that everybody was hanging onto his every word. They might have had a drink in one hand – or a box of cigarettes as they had been heading outside before they became allured by this young maestro – but their main goal of the night was listening to what Justin had to say.
Forget collecting an award or watching their friend or colleague accepting one!
It was as if this young man with his hair now cropped above his ears but still with the same fire in his belly as when he hid long locks with a fedora hat was an interesting being who travelled from town to town, telling stories.
In some ways, I knew Justin as this person. He went from city to city, region to region to tell tales of his own in the form of song. But I know Justin better than most. Still not as well as others. But I had watched him closer than this crowd over the years. This is why I know from him telling me in future reflection that he knew that the bubble of people was hanging onto his every word.
But he did not really care.
You would have thought that he might judging how he was still talking, reaching to fist bump somebody who offered their closed hand of respect in the middle of him chatting. You could have thought that he felt the same as when he was on stage, singing melodies that he had constructed. Sometimes out of the whisper of a dream and sometimes by watching mouths fall agape, thousands of people falling in love with him just for one night before they went on with their lives - then strangely changed by the connection of artist and consumer. Changed by the thrill of the atmosphere.
In reality, Justin felt as though he did before he had even hit his twenties.
As he humored the crowd, wrapping up the story, he knew that in some ways he was still the same as he was back then, despite the ways in which his life had changed.
He would always be that. Desperate for someone to take a chance on him. To remember him. He still felt like that wide eyed, elfin eared boy with a hat on his head and leaving the empty bar feeling more invisible than when people had chatted through a chorus he had worked hard to concoct.
Justin was that boy on that day backstage at the awards show. He might have been putting on as good of a show as he did on stage but for some reason, he felt like an invisible barrier stood between them and him. It was not even because, although some of these people stood with smiles on their faces, their eyes darted, signaling something else.
It was impressive that at barely in his twenties he had been invited on stage with those rock legends that were one of the most anticipated acts being awarded on that night. He must be good for them to wish to share the spotlight with him, their attention acknowledged.
But something disbelieving existed in their gazes sometimes. Like they were happy that he had succeeded for a moment. Because it meant that he could soon fail.
Justin did not care. Had never been afraid of failure. Or, at least, had told himself that he was not. And truthfully, as he finished his story and was glad that somebody picked up on a tale right as he finished his, he could not have cared less for the crowd gathered around him.
And not because they did not belong to him in a way that his ticket buyers were so sure that he was as much of a piece of them as they were of him. Justin had a crowd of admirers hanging onto his every word, but it had not been enough.
There may have been all kinds of faces peering back at him and listening – duplicated expressions on their faces – but none of them belonged to...
Justin had a chance to grab his drink from the window ledge that he had previously rested it against. He was able to scoot off to the toilet now that somebody else's tale was in full swing, that invisible wall growing higher still, distancing him from whoever he passed in the corridor.
One leg moving in front of the other, following directions to the toilet, Justin realized that last swig of beer had been a bad idea. He discarded the plastic cup into a bin on the way. But that would not rid himself of the effects.
His ankles and his calves encapsulated tightly in his black skinny jeans felt both hot and cold at once. He could feel temperature rising in his porcelain cheeks. But his heart was as cold as it had been before. Cold as it had been since...
No.
He could not think like this. Not tonight.
But it was too late. He had only ordered one beer, but it was too much.
Draining the last of the dregs had been foolish. He could feel that horrible black cloud grinning at him, winking because he had fallen into the trap.
No. No, he would not.
He would lock himself in the toilet, splash some water on his face, take some mouthfuls from the tap and sober up. He was not that drunk. He just felt a little funny. He would soon feel better and be ready to face people again.
As Justin at last found the toilet and slammed the single cubicle door behind him, he realized how much he was lying to himself. Alcohol always made him honest with himself. With his desires. And with the parts of his heart that felt barely sewn together.
He did not think that he could face any more people. It was as if that crowd had drained him of all enthusiasm and all energy, even though it at been him to gladly tell a story when the opportunity came about.
But he had always been like that. A performer. Even a jester sometimes, just like his father. Plodding along and putting on all kinds of masks and performances to leave other people with a grin on their face.
Justin did not know how to do that anymore. Did not even care to. To tell you the truth, he had been dreading coming to this award show. It was not like he even had to go on stage and collect or present anything, but this night had been soured long before the bartender mistakenly put a lemon wedge in his drink.
He tried to tell himself that it was because of something else. But he knew deep down that it was because he was meant to come to this event with...
No.
Yes.
Justin staggered over to the sink and felt his palm drawing to a patch of bare chest that had escaped from his sheer, button down black shirt for the night. It was as though his broken heart was attractive material, and his hand was a magnet.
Hunching over the sink, he did not think that he was going to be sick, but he hovered cautiously anyway. He had not had much to drink. Had not really eaten. But that did not mean anything. Loss made Justin crazy and made him feel as though his guts could summon anything to heave up.
Trying to distract himself from the idea of nausea, let alone the hollowing sensation travelling up towards the chambers of his heart, Justin tried to do what he came to the bathroom to do and began running icy water from the taps to splash upon his face.
He took a hesitant look in the mirror in front of him as he straightened his spine while the water continued to run and realized why he had purposely avoided his reflection in the moments beforehand.
He looked dreadful! At least that is what he told himself.
His hand damp after he had held it underneath the stream of water for a second, he began trying to tame his shorter locks. It had been well over two years but for some reason he still could not get used to that reflection looking back at him.
He was still that long haired kid inside. Sometimes he did not believe that that kid was now over six feet tall and with a hoop in his ear and those ears of his could feel a breeze.
Justin stopped focusing on taming his hair – that was the least of his worries – as his ring clad pointer finger on his right hand could not help but poke at the shadow's underneath both of his eyes.
They told the rest of the world of how little he had been sleeping recently. The extra hollowness of his jaw made it clear that he had not been eating as much as his slim albeit ravenous self of his usually did.
But Justin did not dare touch his cheek. It was as though he was scared that he would splinter himself on the new sharpness.
What he did do was laugh. Defeatedly. He chuckled. Sorrowfully. He did this to stop his eyelids from leaking. But then that pitiful feeling did make its way into his belly before travelling up to his throat and he felt as though he could wail for so long and so loudly that the rest of the arena might think that the fire alarm was going off.
But still, nothing. His throat might have strained but his eyes did not spill.
What was wrong with him?
Had... he... really taken everything with him? He knew that he had taken his heart and his trust, but had he taken his tears too? His ability to cry? To feel? To care?
This frightened Justin more than the prospect of never again waking up with him in his bed.
But the fright did not merge into sadness and the sorrow did not tumble from his eyes even if his cheeks flushed back at him in the mirror with repressed emotion.
Was there anybody out there who even knew what it was like to walk away from such a love?
Justin flinched when the door of the spacious single cubical suddenly swung open. In the following suspended second later, his hand jerked to turn the tap off. He did not know why. He behaved like he had been doing something indecent. He would have felt less shame being caught using the bathroom for its intended purpose!
As Daisy had pushed open the door, her heels had clacked just once against the tiles before skidding. Her whole body lurched, at once shielding her face with her hands before realizing that the silhouette was in front of the sink, not the toilet.
When this became apparent, her bangs shielded her eyes more than her hands did.
"Gosh, I'm so sorry! I swear the lock didn't say occupied!" she apologized, lingering in the doorway and looking away a little longer just in case she had startled the stranger. But then the stranger turned around and was not a stranger. Daisy's shoulders, one holding up a clutch bag on a chain, softened. "Justin."
She had only said his name and she had said it so simply but to Justin's ears, it was as if he was being given the greatest gift in the world. He was still himself even though he felt as though he had grown away from who he once was.
Cheeks still aflame from both the emotions of the evening and being burst in on in the bathroom, Justin raised a hand to wave at Daisy awkwardly from across the room which made her shoulders soften so much that her Simply J clutch bag almost hit the floor.
He managed a smile at her, long toothed and practiced but still genuine all the same. Then Justin ran a hand through his hair as he spoke to her.
"Come in, Daisy." he said, like her, skipping any sort of hello but saying more than just her name. Checking that both taps were off though he had only turned on just the one, Justin began preparing to stride out the room as Daisy welcomed herself more into the cubicle. "I was only washing my face so feel free to do what you need to do."
Disappointment rushed through her as it dawned on her that Justin was going to leave without engaging in any sort of small talk. She understood the real reason and not just because he needed to be careful to not overdo it and ruin the next couple of tour dates he had lined up.
But she had hoped that she could have enjoyed his presence a little longer, though she could tell that he was fibbing to her.
One longer look over him made her see that his makeup that had been powdered over him for the evening in case the cameras had pointed his way had not been washed away with water. Not even a droplet.
"Stay." Daisy surprised them both by saying, moving over to discard her clutch bag on the closed toilet before reaching into the pockets of her black pant suit to pull out her lipstick and compact powder. "I'm only fixing my make up. They never do it how I like for these things. I'd like to talk to you."
Justin's nose had only just scrunched in amusement for what she had said and then that disappeared off his face like someone wiping cracks in plaster clean.
His heart could not help but do a backflip, wondering why Daisy wanted to talk to him of all people. And wondered what kind of questions she had for him, let alone the kind of telling off he might receive from her if she had known.
But she did not know. Could not have known.
That was why they had gone their separate ways, hadn't they? He had not wanted anyone to know.
He had been ashamed of him.
"I'd like to talk to you too." Justin lied again after even his overthinking self could register the soft sincerity of her smile and that was even before she had blended the edges of her make up.
He moved to lock the door of the bathroom this time before leaning up against the door like a naughty schoolboy, his narrow knees bending to allow himself to get as comfortable as he could.
But still, he was not the one to begin talking. He hardly had the time or energy for it these days. But much like his father, he did not know how to say no to Williams' women!
Patting away any shininess that had clung onto the end of her nose with the powdered pad of her compact, Daisy fondly watched the reflection of Justin in the mirror. He had always been amusing to her in the way that James was. Sometimes looking like a finned being out of water to those who took the time to have a longer look and yet charming all the same.
Daisy could feel the quietness oozing off him. Could see something was different about the way he moved. The way he held himself.
She could see that it was as though he feared breathing out too hard – because he did not know what kinds of things could spill out of him – let alone if he could cope with their mightiness.
"What have you been up to?" Daisy watched his reflection rather than him directly, figuring that this was easier for him. It might stop him from enclosing his folded arms so tightly over his chest. "I've hardly seen you since Delia's fourth of July party."
It always amuses me both in hindsight and present day that everybody always calls the party that Delia hosts every year on the fourth of July exactly that. It was her birthday party. But she cared more about doing something for everybody else rather than celebrating herself.
That was Delia.
Rather than joining any sort of version of me in reflecting on this there and then, Justin's nose scrunched once more but for a different reason.
Daisy had to start with that, didn't she? He hoped that she would not ask why she had not seen him much since then.
To tell you the truth, it all began the day after that sunny one spent near the pool.
"Oh, you know. A little this, a little that." Justin began lamely, his arms not leaving the narrowness of his torso in such a way that it seemed he was afraid of losing this part of his body if he let go. The more that he spoke, however, the more that a chattier side of him began genuinely taking the lead. "Been trying to write new music but nothing is really sticking yet. That's new for me."
Watching him in the mirror in between swiping a cotton bud under her lips before outlining them with a different, less vibrant lipstick though they both looked the same to Justin, Daisy was intrigued by the way that he said as much with his expressions as he did with his words.
Usually, his hands did much of the talking as well. She was determined to see them move, not out of any greediness in herself but because she needed to know that he was okay.
Daisy had watched his full lips press together, a dimple like a ripe segment of fruit appearing on his cheek as he came to terms with this newness. She nodded understandingly. But she continued to look at his flipped twin on the wall instead.
"Oh, I see." Understanding within her made way for humor, taking a break of meticulously swiping a shade of brown over her lips and focusing on looking at Justin's reflection fully instead. "You've been having too much fun."
Justin's arms finally fell away from him. But Daisy should not have rejoiced. He was beginning to feel that funny feeling all over again after the possibility of it going away thanks to seeing a familiar face.
He felt tucked away on the other side of humanity all over again. He did not feel understood. Certainly not seen.
Fun? Justin could not see that he was having fun.
If he dug deep and stubbornness was able to be put to one side, then he could admit that things once had been fun. Been filled with fun. Too much of it.
But the joy had disappeared along with this love. Well, disappeared along with the man who he thought had been his love.
The door had closed and confusion from long ago had flooded in instead.
Fun? He did not call that fun.
Justin could not conceal the truth. But he could not lie either. Daisy watched those lines appear on the other side of his nose in the reflection on the wall.
"I guess." Justin said. With a click, Daisy's lipstick was popped back together in its case, and she moved over to this time pack her make up away along with the rest of the contents of her clutch bag.
And she decided that there was no time like the present. There was no need for dillying or indeed for dallying. They might as well just get on with it.
She liked being straight forward, getting to the truth of things. Daisy knew that Justin was the same. Or at least, had once been the same. She had heard the kind of lyrics he wrote in his journals before they even got released into the wider world.
"How was living with Eli?" Daisy asked. How interesting that one name stole Justin's heart away from him. Dammit. He hoped that he had moved past that reaction. "Now that must have been fun."
Fun? Why did Daisy keep saying that word? Was she for some reason lacking that word in her resurrected relationship with Kiawe and needed to imagine that other people were riddled with it? Had he let her down and not shown up to this event to just like... that name... had let him down?
Justin did not think that he could think that name properly, let alone say it. Let alone begin talking about all that stuff. And besides, he did not know what Daisy knew. Did not know how much she knew.
Peculiarly, loyalty coursed through his veins as much as hurt and he did not want Daisy knowing about things if Eli did not want her to.
Oh.
He had been able to think that name after all.
But it had not yet lost its power.
"Oh." That word sounded from his mouth and not just inside his own head as his back straightened along the door of the bathroom. He came to terms with the conversation that was then swarming them both as well as the way that Daisy was looking at him rather than his flipped doppelganger on the wall. "I didn't know you knew about that."
Daisy watched Justin's head shimmy from side to side and she could not hide her intrigue. Not merely because as his head had moved his shorter locks had unraveled and a thick strand set up a home down his forehead and rested over his nose.
She listened to the non-committal tone of his voice as much as she listened to his words. Like Justin, she did not really know how much she could let known of how much she knew and did not want to make things awkward for either Justin or Eli.
She knew how tender these things were. Especially for her uncle.
Daisy decided to just be herself. That is all she readily could be. Her clutch bag was lifted back up and the chain rested over her shoulder, supporting it. But this was not her indicting that she was about to go.
"Of course!" she enthused. Justin was taken aback with her attitude, so much so that it was lucky that he had the grimy door of the bathroom to support his spine. "I heard from him quite a lot when you lived together." Daisy chose her words carefully. This was news to Justin; he could not help but murmur inside his own head. Daisy's carefulness grew. But after a pause, the words spilled out of her anyway. "He's back in Unova now though, right?"
Justin surprised himself with the promptness in which he answered. He was hoping that the more hurried that he spoke, the quicker that the whole conversation and the whole thing would go away.
But you cannot cut heartache out of you and bury it somewhere in the desert.
The Unovan desert.
"Yeah." Justin uttered. But then a lengthy pause that he should have taken before captured him and it left Daisy waiting for longer than she predicted for more words to spill from him. A hefty sigh spoke before his words did. Punctuated with an out of place chuckle. "Probably for the best it stopped when it did."
As Justin's head peered down towards the floor, a hand rising to tame that strand of hair though he had looked sweet to her with it curving over his face. Daisy's head seemed to rise, taking her own minute to reflect.
This was the first time in the past couple of minutes that Justin had been honest with her. She was no longer seeing a carefully crafted version of himself to keep her at a distance.
The mask had dropped. The truth spilled. And Daisy therefore felt even more softness in her heart for him.
Though her lips might have kindly pressed together, they soon opened again and not because she did not wish to smear her newly applied lipstick.
She spoke in a gently curious way to the younger man.
"You mean you were getting too close?" Daisy wondered, her daintily manicured hand reaching for the chain of her clutch bag on her shoulder for something to do. Though unlike Justin's fling with her uncle, that was not going anywhere.
Justin's eyes only just filled with his steel tipped boots and a shiny floor that was let down by the state of the door that he was leaning up against, they suddenly latched onto the silhouette of Daisy like a winged creature to a flame.
His cheeks stung once again, his jaw hollowing out more than usual. Despite his hardened countenance he could tell that Daisy... cared. That was unusual in all its usualness. Supposedly she would care about him. They often bumped shoulders at these kinds of events, especially if an artist had a chance to win an award for constructing the soundtrack of one of the films she directed like on that night.
They bumped shoulders outside these events as well as they were often in the same circle. Loyalty and tact towards her youngest sister stopped her from showing her full affection towards James' son. But they were then alone as they never were.
Nothing held back Daisy's care. Justin, on the other hand, was left feeling a different kind of inner turmoil as he grew defensive much like her littlest sister would.
Justin could not have predicted that the recent compassion from Misty would turn into her fiery nature burning in his cheeks.
"No." he muttered. Not the most devastating of impatient displays, let alone the longest. But Justin still loathed that even this slipped out of him. He needed to add moisture back into his own mouth and Daisy waited for him to reconsider his stance. "No..." his words might have changed but his arms wrapped back around his torso. "No, not that. Just..."
But Justin did not know what it was. Or what it was not. Everything had been such a mess since it all had gone so terribly wrong. Serves you right for thinking something so passionate and so breath taking could be sincere love, he told himself.
He had fallen for love. Had worn his heart on his sleeve and now his cuffs were dripping with ice cold blood.
Daisy knew what that was like. Unlike Justin, however, she had experienced many incarnations of very real love, but they had still ended for one reason or another. She had chosen to walk away from them and embrace the heartache that followed.
But she still believed she knew what it was like. She was confident she could express that without making it obvious how much she had suspected.
It had been one of the rare times that she did not mind her own business and had asked Misty if she knew anything. The stubborn, protective edge to her sister's voice and rash on the cheeks told her everything she needed to know without getting a second opinion.
It might have been the first time that her Uncle Eli had lived with a man, but she had seen it coming for decades.
"It's okay, Justin. I get it." Daisy began. Justin doubted that she did. But he was relieved for the opportunity to feel the muscles in his face unclenching. A breathy laugh escaped from her as she decided to ditch her bag on the clean tiles. So, she was sticking around. "I know you two are really good friends."
A new wave of emotion rippling through Justin, his cheek turned to the side as if he had been slapped, his back suddenly straightening fully and his narrow arms falling ungainly to his sides. He even moved a couple of inches away from the door.
Was Daisy mocking him? She would not do that, would she?
He bid goodbye to the grime of the door for good.
He knew that, like Misty, she liked to tease him. Her digs were often so well calculated and honest to the situation that he found his mouth stretching wide, admitting that the teasing was a good one.
Neither of the sisters openly mocked him. But if the past few months had taught him anything then that was that there was a first time for anything.
"Friends?" Justin echoed, getting the urge to move back over to the sink now that he was away from the door, but he thought that seemed a little weird. Concealing the clamminess of his hands, they slid into his skintight black jeans as much as they could. "Right..."
He prided himself at doing well at keeping cool. Acting like he was okay. That he could go back on tour and perform to thousands, laugh with his touring crew, and make out that he had not been vastly changed by the entwining of not a soul but at least a new body.
Justin liked to think that people could never tell when he silently carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was a fear of vulnerability that stopped him from wanting to admit that people did sometimes read him like a book. Or plain stubbornness.
He was still Jessie's son though most people swore James had cloned himself!
Justin felt like he lost all essence of cool there and then and it made his cheeks burn all over, even if it was in a less drastic way. His hands dug deeper into his pockets to soothe himself.
Daisy did not know if it was the right thing to do at all. The right time. But then she considered that there may never be a right time with something as delicate as this.
She just needed to be herself as much as Justin was trying to find that within himself again now that a newfound – and an old – part of himself had been ripped away from him along with Eli.
"Maybe not just friends." She conceded carefully before taking a pause while Justin felt all breath he was ever going to have snatched entirely from his lungs. "I'm not stupid..." Daisy could not help but say. Her carefully plucked eyebrows moved as she saw the way that Justin's Adam's apple bobbed up and down in his tight throat. "I've known that my uncle is queer since I was a kid."
Another slap to the face Justin felt. His cheek twitched and inside his hollow stomach he felt angered that he still felt protectiveness – still felt care – for someone that had turned to ice underneath the warmth of his touch.
Eli hated that word. He would not speak of it and spoke of it even less than the word that Justin used to describe his own sexuality. Justin understood why. Unlike Eli, he had not grown up with it being used as a horrible word to inflict pain.
Well, at least not directly towards him for him to hear anyway.
Justin did not know if he should tell Daisy not to say that word about her uncle. Did not know if Eli would want him to. But then the bigger picture dawned on him, and it made his hand crawl out of his jeans, etching towards his throat that Eli once liked to pepper with kisses while he was opened up to a whole new way of love.
The pads of his fingers found the place of his anxiety. Daisy knew. Knew about the two of them. That they had not just been living together for the purpose of Eli's temporary home in Kanto having a home studio.
Daisy knew that Eli once had a girlfriend but that he was still...
Eli's niece did not know as much as Justin felt that he did. And it was this knowledge to the cold side of him that caused the protectiveness in his veins to turn to frustration.
His tongue felt acidy in his mouth and all he could do was spit the taste away with his words.
"It would have been nice if he realised that." Justin muttered. A name could still not be spoken. He would never get used to speaking it with indifference let alone hate, as if he had once not murmured it out as he felt swollen lips on his and sun kissed skin pressed up against his.
Justin watched Daisy's expression alter but he felt like he could not do anything about it, too painfully aware of the then diluted alcohol in his system mixed with a cocktail of frustration, loathing, loss, and sadness that was best described by the word heartache.
As Justin spied the look in her eyes from a distance, he had never before noticed how the sea green of her eyes never missed anything and like the ocean that gave them its unusual hue, could change so drastically by the strength of the moon.
Her gaze did not change too much. Did not grow lost on him. But it was enough. One of the qualities that she was either revered for in the newspapers or tutted at was the way that she delivered brutally honest words in the sweetest of tones.
That was Daisy Williams.
"It's difficult for him, you know..." she reminded him, hoping to remind Justin that her uncle was a victim of a kind of heartbreak that he had been lucky enough to never know. "He wasn't raised like you were."
Justin felt as though he had stepped right up on stage and in front of a spotlight and forgotten all his lyrics. As his plump lips silently opened and closed, all he could do was nod his head slowly as even his willful self could not help but admit that truth existed in Daisy's words.
She was right. He was lucky. But he should not have been. Any child, teenager or indeed adult should have been surrounded by love and support regardless of who they decided to fall in love with. Or not fall in love with.
Justin knew bits and pieces about Eli's upbringing, mostly from Jordan who, despite his big and booming voice, got serious and delicate when it came to the way that Eli was raised.
The way that both he and Eli were raised. But Eli in particular. Because he had been the child labelled as a black sheep from birth.
Justin hated how sworn to secrecy Eli was regarding his own sexuality. What started off as understanding and an oath to protect who he was – who they both were when they were together – had ended badly. He was so sure that Eli hated himself and in turn hated him as well. He could not stand that he did not want to hide in the shadows and wanted those he loved to know who he loved.
It was slowly but surely dawning on Justin that there was more to Eli than met the eye.
Justin did not know that Daisy knew this about her uncle. He doubted that he had come out to her. One of the few things that Justin knew was that he had come out to his family and to Jordan and Lynne but had changed his mind later in life, perhaps when Lucy came along.
Jordan knew the truth. It was not a switch he could flick on and off. Lynne did not give anything a second thought other than what she was told.
Justin wondered how Daisy had come to know. Wondered if Eli had once been brave enough to tell more people or that Daisy, like Misty, had just figured it out and wanted her uncle to be happy regardless.
At the end of the day, it did not really matter.
Justin did not know certain things about Eli. He would never again learn new things about him from the tip of his own tongue, a telling of his own tales.
That hurt badly given he had once allowed Justin to show him many firsts in his life.
"I know... I hate that..." Justin admitted with a degree of sadness that did not feel pleasant latching onto the patch of skin underneath his collarbone where it joined his ribcage. The pads of his fingers moved up and down over his sheer shirt to soothe the sensation. "Right now, I guess I hate how much his past has ruined things for him as much as I..."
Justin's words caught in his throat and at once, he felt a pricking sensation in his eyes as if needles were attacking his sclera. He blinked fiercely, the rubbing sensation over his chest only becoming more prominent.
But he stopped abruptly when it did not help. He soon learned that it had been this personal massage that had unlocked his deep feelings.
He was frightened that if continued this motion then it would all come spilling out and never stop.
Daisy watched Justin with a similar sensation washing over her eyes although, unlike the younger man, she was not met with the same hesitation. Not because of potential tears pricking her eyes anyway.
As Daisy hesitated, she wondered whether she should finish off his sentence for him. In the end, empathy latched onto her vocal cords and encouraged them to speak their truth.
Whether it was the right thing to do or the wrong.
"As much as you..." Daisy repeated though she did not need to. Justin's ears grew muffled around the next part of her words. "Love him?"
Daisy knew that Justin had been living with her uncle for more than just tactical planning and the opportunity to write new music in a new place while Eli had a roommate for a bit. She could feel the intimacy oozing off a picture that Eli had sent to her even if they had been merely eating breakfast in the garden together.
They had looked good together. Comfortable. Right.
That was how Daisy had known. Misty's blush and determination to not tell her anything had confirmed it.
For all Daisy knew it could have been a summer fling. But she had walked past Justin in the hallway of that venue at the beginning of the evening entirely unbeknownst to him and he looked as though he was missing a big part of himself.
That was how she knew. And she knew that she was right even as Justin's eyes shone back towards her, flickering as they tried to compose themselves before looking down at his shoes as if he would find some sort of composure there.
He did not. He did not think he would ever feel it again. Not properly anyway.
An invisible cord tied him and Daisy together and it made him unable to look at his shoes for much longer. And not merely because they reminded him of the way that he and his love had laughed at the added height difference it had given them both when he had once worn them in front of Eli.
Justin came undone in front of Daisy. In the presence of her lack of knowledge. And at the same time, amid her overflowing intuition.
His lips twitched, wrapping around the word yes in response to her question but being unable to be accompanied by audible words before another sound escaped from him. Justin's throat hiccupped and his shoulders jerked.
His whole face grew screwed up and mottled as he at last did what he came to the bathroom to do.
Daisy's expression smoothed with sympathy as she darted towards Justin when he began to cry, kicking to one side her bag on the floor and not stopping herself from embracing his narrow frame. She had to reach up to hold him. She believed that he was so consumed by heartache that he would stand there rigidly.
But she soon felt his helpless arms wrapping around her and the way that his large head buried in her shoulder, dipping down, and hiding himself in the familiarity that she offered. He came undone with her because she was a part of Eli. But she was not just that. She was a part of the funny old world that they both partook in, and both had experienced great heartbreak from.
Justin sensed that within her. Though they had not spoken in great lengths of it, he knew that, like Misty, they were carved from the same bone of tricky and saddening situations.
And as Justin's sobs grew muffled against her, finally being released properly for a rare time since his separation with Eli, Daisy's own gaze filled with tears. She, however, did not mourn any of the losses of loves in her own life. Did not even mourn her parents who had been taken away from her so young and been given back to her in the most confusing way.
As Daisy held Justin and brushed her hand up and down against the material covering his back, she knew that she wished she had just done this to her little sister instead as a memory suddenly bled into her mind.
She gathered that it would have been as badly received as what she had chosen to do! But she still wished she had been able to avoid the outcome of that day. Wished that she had been kinder. Had let her little sister know that it was okay to make mistakes. And that she was always protected. By her. And most importantly loved. Loved so deeply by her.
So, as Daisy held Justin close, equally as touched as she was saddened by him crumpling just for her, she hugged him for both him and Eli as well Misty.
Part of her could not help but wonder if her interfering in such a way had meant that she had always been destined to give up her own loves. That she would always have to because of what she had done.
Daisy was so wrong, even if this thought had been around for just a second. Because, like she wished she had told Misty all those years ago, she too was loved. So deeply. She too was protected. So eternally.
One day, all the love that she had given would come back to her tenfold. And it would fix all her own heartaches. It would make her closer to her little sister once more. And Justin and Eli too who – let me tell you – ended up married would you believe.
But that is another tale. And we must proceed towards the one that in many ways set this one into motion.
As Misty moved away from the chaos of the rest of the party, she could hear her sister's voice following her and it was as if that sound belonged to swarming creatures hounding her. Temperature rising in her cheeks and her guts becoming writhing serpents inside of her, she tried to act like she could not hear it.
It would all be okay when she found the bathroom and had a door to shut behind her.
But Daisy did not give up, completely unaware of the annoyance holding her little sister to ransom. She continued calling her name, trying to catch up with her but it was no use. She was always one step ahead, always one beat of the distant music away from her.
Daisy called a few times more. Soft spoken at the best of times and especially when she forgot about that accent that she slipped into along with her other sisters, her voice did not rise to get Misty's attention even if she did clack in her kitten heels behind her.
Misty kept on marching away, perspiration on her palms being concealed in her clenched fist as not only the sound of clicking heels but Daisy's presence in general made her feel like molten lava could pour out of her at any second.
She did not know why.
She felt like she was prey being hunted down. Felt like she was being chased into oblivion and the walls were caving in on her. As Daisy called her name increasingly, unusually relentless, her voice did not rise in volume, but she may as well have been screaming.
To Misty, the sound was like nails on the chalkboard. It was as if any pitch coming from the person hot on her trail was causing the serpents to climb out of her stomach and constrict around her neck instead, choking her.
At last, Misty reached the door of where she had been told the bathroom was. It was shut. Rather than knocking on it or letting herself inside anyway, the closed door right in her face was the final straw.
She turned around to address her sister, back pressed up against the door. But Daisy was a few meters behind her. And like it was most of the time, her expression was placid.
"What do you want? I'm just going to fix my make-up, jeez." Misty might have tried to stop her molten attitude from oozing out of her but the way that she spoke to her sister was if she had not tried to get a handle on her chagrin at all.
Daisy's heels clicked their final clack, stopping with a decent amount of distance between the two sisters. But it was not enough. For Misty, it was not enough. It was as if her eldest sister's eyes were haunting her, and they were burning a hole in her skin.
Looking around at the rest of the party goers as if she needed them to confirm her sister's demeanor, Daisy's meticulously plucked eyebrows plaited together, miffed. But then her eyes fell on Misty.
She had always felt the best way to soothe her roaring temper was to ignore it.
"Me too." she began cooly. Daisy had hardly said anything compared to what she would have liked to say but even to Misty it was a well needed reprieve from hearing her name repeatedly. Not that she spoke of such. "Let's go in together."
Misty's bones tried to jolt out of her skin as Daisy suddenly got a whole lot closer to her. Another thing that she ignored. She was too busy reaching past her little sister to turn the handle of the door. Misty had half a second to reluctantly break the distance with Daisy herself before she fell into the bathroom once the door was opened.
Forgoing a less dramatic entrance, Daisy gestured for Misty to go first and then both sisters got settled into the bathroom, locking the door behind them. Affronted by going from the sensation of feeling like a little rodent hunted down by a giant clawed feline to a winged creature trapped in the cage, Misty could not help but look over her shoulder at her sister as it was Daisy who locked the door.
She could feel the molten lava settling in the empty space that her wriggling guts had left, and it was bubbling away. She, however, tried to crack on with fulfilling the reason that she had told Daisy that she was heading towards the bathroom so she would not be found out.
It was amazing how much tears threatening to prick her eyes melted away instantly as soon as she realized her sister was at that party too. But she still wanted to check her eyeliner was in place.
"You look different." Daisy commented, letting her clutch bag tumble to the floor after retrieving the floral pouch holding few of her own make up products. She did not need to look at her sister to sense the temperature suspiciously rising within her. "It's nice." she clarified. For some reason she could not manage the words you look nice. She figured that to Misty it would sound sarcastic. "It's about time you looked more like the posters on your wall rather than any old Pokémon Trainer."
As if this action was their sole purpose, her irises revolved in her sockets with all their might. Despite putting on such a good display, they then could not help dropping down to the outfit that Daisy was commenting on, seeing her band t-shirt draped over a high neck jumper and tucked into a black skirt with fishnet tights.
Her stomach did a somersault inside of her. Daisy could see her right eye twitch with displeasure. She wished that she had just been able to tell her that she looked nice – that she liked the fresh look very much.
"I'm surprised my face is still in one piece." Misty muttered as she broke the distance with the mirror hanging above the sink, red manicured fingernail lightly swiping underneath her winged eyeliner to double check that it had not smudged. As she looked at her reflection, she caught Daisy's eye as her sister moved to perch on the closed lid of the toilet. "It's not every day you're stalked on the way to bathroom."
Sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet and pouch of make-up products still in hand, Daisy looked over at her little sister using that index finger of hers to move away from the crease of her eye and to check her red lipstick had not smeared in the corner like that of a movie villain.
Her immediate reaction was to feel her eyes widening, hues of sea green as vast as the ocean as they rounded as much as their other sister's eyes could. Protectiveness lurched to her throat. But then she realized.
It was her turn to stop portraying so demurely. Daisy's head tilted on one side and her eyes narrowed together, pulling her compact mirror out of the pouch as she prepared to adjust her own make-up.
It could have just been two siblings making up for lost time, doing a normal sisterly thing, and fixing their make up together. But no. She should have known that Misty would never be receptive to that.
She would not have been years ago. And she certainly never would be now.
"Such a way with words." Daisy began rather than scolding her little sister for using a word that carried such weight as if it meant nothing at all. She had not wanted to be a mother to three siblings back then. And she did not want to take past obligations into a new year. "I just wanted to see you, Misty. To catch up. It's been ages."
And with that, Daisy took her eyes off Misty and placed them on herself, checking her own make up look was intact. Unlike her little sister, she had gone for soft brown around her eyes to encourage the hue of her irises to appear more meadow. More stable.
She, however, had also swiped her lips with a statement red lipstick. As much as they hardly saw eye to eye, some things worked for them both. If Daisy had given her a second, longer look then she would notice that it was the exact same one.
But it is for the best that she did not. Being so alike and yet so destined to tread diverging paths over the course of the next few minutes would have caused inevitable heartbreak.
Though Misty could have been satisfied that her make-up had held up nicely, a fire still burned in her belly and it caused her to turn around, looking at Daisy rather than her distorted reflection.
Bitterness stained her tongue and was soon sent out into the ether like sharp lemon juice. If she kept on narrowing her eyes, then surely her eyeliner would end up creasing!
"Oh, please." Misty began. Despite the way that she was looking at her eldest sister as she ran a cotton swab underneath her own line of pencil, perfecting it, she could not make her tone sound all that hardened. More than anything, it was laced with weary amusement. "If I had not looked up and seen you, you would have gone straight back to your friends." A scoff threatened to escape her throat, but she managed to restrain herself. She, however, could not stop these next words. "You never come and see me."
A level of hushedness latched itself onto Misty's words before she could sense it coming, causing her to quickly turn her attention back to the mirror, her eyebrows knotting together on her face. But Daisy had heard it.
Time would go on to show that she heard what she said rather than the tone that had accidentally slipped out. It caused her to forgo fixing her make up as it became clear that something else was the priority.
Bottom breaking the distance from the closed toilet lid and her heels encouraging her to stand a bit taller than normal, her countenance creased with confusion. But her nostrils widened with a toned-down level of frustration that was natural for her.
She had never been able to lose it completely. Unlike her little sister, she had never had the privilege.
"What are you talking about? I've always tried to come and see you, but you always told me that you were busy with training or with Ash and your friends." Lines breaking the distance between her two penciled in eyebrows decorated her face for another second or two. But then her expression softened. She knew if she was to test the water then she had to do it gently. "Or with James."
Daisy heard the last words tumble out of her red lips and it was as if they poured out of somebody else. To her, they were encased by cotton wool. Funnily enough, it was the same for Misty. Despite their muffled sound, she knew that she had not made them up inside her own head.
The temperature began to rise in her face again just like the first second that she had seen her sister. But it was a different feeling this time. The unpleasantness had been cranked up to the maximum. Somehow it felt like nausea resided in her cheeks.
Her eyes longed to prick with tears. But no. No. She could not do that. Nobody could know. Least of all Daisy.
Daisy would feel disdain towards her as much as the disgust that she felt towards herself.
"I'm never busy with James." Misty muttered. It had not gone unnoticed by her that Daisy could have included him under the umbrella of friends. But she did not. She knew why. But she could not admit it this time. Not when she had laughed in her face at the absurdity of it last time. "Not anymore..."
There it was again. That softness – that weakness – claiming her for its own before she could even sense the vulnerability coming. Her words poured out of her like that of a pitiful confession of a child.
Keeping her eyes to the mirror but unable to look at her reflection any longer, Misty blinked rapidly as if any minute the tears that had been pricking the whites of her eyes could come shooting out of her like a geyser. That was the thing. She just did not know anymore.
She did not know anything anymore.
Unbeknownst to her little sister, Daisy took a slow and intentional breath inward, figuring out how to proceed next. She was not an idiot. She knew how things were. Sometimes she gathered that Misty knew that she knew but it was easier to keep on pretending.
The past couple of months had made it painfully obvious what was going on. Or had been going on. But this could be the first time that it was coming out of Misty's mouth.
She had ridiculed Daisy for being so ridiculous once before. She knew that she needed to continue carefully. Not just to coax the truth out of her little sister. It just seemed like if she breathed too hard – or was looked at too much – she would end up a heap on the bathroom floor.
The last thing Daisy could handle was picking her up from all this. She felt like she had contributed to it.
"Oh no." Daisy said. She winced at herself as once more she felt like these words were coming from somebody else. However, rather than seeming smothered in cotton wool, she heard them sharply and that precision made them seem flat. Disinterested. "Did you guys...?"
An empty space trailed off her question. Looking at her little sister's reflection with her lips pressed together and genuine concern blotting her face as much as make up, she could not make that sentence a complete one.
Daisy could not say the words have a fight because for some reason that sounded if it were not serious enough for the intensity that she was detecting. That had been the fire burning in her stomach and singeing her skin that she had sensed since she first looked at her.
In the same way, Daisy could not complete her question with the words fall out. That seemed juvenile. Laughable. She knew that they must have argued before. She guessed that they had a mighty one over the summer which had been brought forth by James doing something incredibly stupid.
Silence echoed in the bathroom, somehow the noiselessness drowning the sounds of the Pokémon League party that they had both been invited to. Daisy did not know what to do. That was not exactly a first for her. But usually, she tried anyway.
She did not know how to try. If she reached out and touched her little sister, then surely, she would flutter right to the floor like an unwanted feather. But there was something inside of her that could not stop herself.
Misty was not looking at her as her bottom lip began to tremble and that was awful. But she could not look at herself. She could not stand to see her little sister in such a way. She had been riddled with such an attitude. But suddenly, she did not care. She should have known it was for a good reason.
Daisy broke the distance with Misty and her hand fell on her shoulder with barely enough pressure to be noticed. But Misty felt it. True to her eldest sister's predictions, she fell to pieces rather than to the floor.
With a great, big, guttural sob, Misty turned to face her sister with a screwed up, flushed expression and Daisy had to bite her red lip through the agony of seeing this face to face rather than in a near perfect flipped image on the wall.
What had she done?
After Misty choked back her tears, she told Daisy everything. How stupid she had been. How she had fallen in love with a married man and that was madness. She had fallen in love with James and that was somehow the most idiotic thing of all.
All the sneaking around. The lies. The excuses. The thrill of it all. God, she hated how thrilled she had once been by it all and how amongst great passion and some of the most heightened sensations she had ever felt in her whole life was complete ease. The ability to always show up as herself. She believed she had found arms to crawl into no matter what and would always make her feel safe.
Apparently not.
She was just a number. Just a pest. Now she was somebody to forget. Somebody to act did not exist.
Misty could not look at her sister as she told Daisy all this. A noise suddenly escaped her like that of the earths beginning – it was deep, and it was drawn out as she tried to bellow out her throat. But in the end, she just groaned like an injured creature.
Before she could even think about opening her eyes, tears spurted out of her closed lids like hot geysers.
"And... And now he won't talk to me or even look at me and I don't... know... why..." Misty wailed as if James had taken her shame with her out the door as the nauseating image of him leaving played like a horror movie in her mind. Her wet eyes suddenly opened. "H... He's shut me out before... But not like this."
Daisy's hand still on her shoulder but from the front this time since she had turned around to face her, Misty's eyes had opened as if learning of the gaze of her sister was better than the memory of James walking away from her.
Misty wailed her words, and she had wailed tears. She hated that. God, she had never hated anything more. As the back of her hand wiped her tear-stained cheeks and eyes, the idea of ruining her make-up was the last of her worries.
Daisy's lower lip wondered if it would permanently have the companion of her gapped teeth. The hot lava that had been in her sister was scorching every part of her and she did not know how her little sister did not feel it from her touch against her shoulder.
What had she done? God, what had she done?
It had been for the best, right? Of course, it had been for the best.
But Misty could never find out.
For some reason, however, Misty was destined to find out. Daisy could not lie to her. Despite what it may seem, she did not wish to hurt her more. She believed that the sooner that she found out, the sooner she could begin properly healing and patch things up with Ash if that is what they both wanted to do.
Daisy believed Misty needed to hear the truth. Deserved to know the truth.
Misty could sense it coming from the second that Daisy's teeth stopped sinking against her lower lip and her hand retracted away from her shoulder.
She wished that she had not wiped her eyes. But the blurriness would not have been able to protect her from the betrayal of what was to come.
"It... It's because of me, Misty..." Daisy began. Hidden inside of her mouth, her teeth were stained with red, but it may as well have been blood from how intensely she had clamped down on her lip. She did not utter the words I'm sorry but her green eyes wobbled with regret. "I told him to keep away..."
Prior to this, Misty's actions within her own body had felt so robotic. Like she was just going through the motions. As Daisy spoke to her – letting her own confession pour out of her albeit with far less desperation – her words pained her more than the irritating noise of her calling her name.
She did not know why she had flinched at hearing her name repeatedly. Being followed out of the main room of the party.
This was the greatest agony of all. And no, she would never recover.
Misty lurched away from her sister. She threw her arms upwards and then they froze in midair, unable to figure out what to do. They had wanted to rise to express the betrayal. Then they had wanted to wrap around her own body, protecting her like thorny vines that would never let anybody else in again.
In the end, their hope was abandoned.
Just like she felt when James had walked out the door.
Misty had a million and one things that she wished to say. But in the end, she chose not to spew hot rage towards her sister. If she wanted to, she could save that for later.
"W...Why?" Was the only sound that escaped out of her like she really was a timid little rodent. Did she even wish to know? Could she handle it?
She half expected Daisy to lie. Or rather, to not believe anything that came out of her mouth anyway. She watched with her eyes that felt as if they had been scratched battle this out within her as well.
What was she going to say? In the end, she settled on the truth. She figured that it was better to be left a bloody pile of bones on the floor due to the truth rather than uplifted with a lie.
She just had to hope. But deep down, she knew that none of this was going to end well. She had known it from the second that Misty clapped eyes on her. She knew that her sister had not then figured it out. She had not told her for a reason.
The bliss of ignorance was slowly fading away. And Daisy knew their sisterly relationship was slipping out her fingers too.
"Because..." Though Daisy knew nothing could stop her from telling the truth, she needed a minute to figure out the reason. Everything had seemed so tangled like fraying threads destined to still be knotted. "He's not good for you, Misty." As she settled on these words, sisterliness wrapping up other emotions like a protective encasement reared their head. Daisy frowned. "This is not you."
Like her eldest sister had lit a match inside of her, Misty's cheeks became a flame. Stinging eyes dropped down.
Yes, she knew that this was not her.
The Cerulean Beauty known for miles around for her righteous heart and quick wit as well as temper was not some porcelain, mascara smudged, quivering wreck. This was not who she was at all. Not somebody that she wished to be.
But what did Daisy know? She did not know that before all this, she was more herself than she had ever been. His affection – even if it had been a poisonous lie – made her realize why sometimes people said falling in love could be like flying. Why it made someone want to be better.
She knew it had also made her worse. Maybe that is all that it had made her; she would ruminate on in time.
But what did Daisy know?
She knew nothing.
Hot venom was taking over Misty's tongue. As her arms did indeed wrap around herself, encasing herself away from the world, she could not stop herself from snarling at her oldest sister.
She suddenly realized that she had wanted to spit at her like this for years. Decades.
"Like you have ever taken a second to try and actually know me!" Misty screeched. There it was again. That bitterness like hot lemon that did the opposite of soothing a sore throat. Such anger. She had always been the one with such big, uncontrollable emotions. Just like her dad. Four eyes watered. Misty's were accompanied by a scoff. "Do you realize how bad it makes you that even he did a better job at it than you?"
Misty could not utter a name as if saying it aloud would bring a great curse upon the world. She felt like their lie of a love had done that anyway. No. No more would she speak of that name. Certainly not with a feather-light, adoring hushedness that she had once done before. In the moments that she could never tell anyone about.
For half a second, Daisy wondered who the he in question was. Because her mind had momentarily flicked to the ghostly memory of Jordan, she wondered if it could be him. But no. Of course not. To Misty, their father was a saint. One not spoken about often – his memory and his reverence far too precious to be accompanied by clumsy human words.
But even if it was not about Jordan, in some ways everything was. He was a reason that all four sisters did a lot of things and did not do a lot of things. He was their beginnings; their blueprint.
Daisy then stared at the realization that unbeknownst to Misty, he was the very same thing that he was to her:
The wound that could never be soothed.
"I did try..." Daisy began. She surprised even herself that she began in such a way, having no energy to meet fire and fire and defend her stance. Silence filled the bathroom as she took a moment to sink her teeth back down against her lower lip. "Clearly I haven't made you feel that way but all I wanted..."
Daisy was cut off. Perhaps for the best. There were few ways that she could tell her sister that she had never wanted the life that had been forced upon her – had never wanted to be confined to the Cerulean Gym and raising her three little sisters – without her tearing herself out of her life for good.
But what was the point? In the same way that their parents had a ticking clock above their heads since their own beginnings, Daisy knew an estrangement was imminent.
Misty knew enough. She had been allowed to know a lot. But she could never find out others.
"All you have ever wanted is me to be as miserable as you three are!" Misty accused, her hands breaking away from her and falling by her side. Her limbs possessed no limpness. They swung rhythmically by her sides like the sounds that his guitar used to make.
Daisy's eyebrows plaited on her forehead in sadness. She looked from side to side as if the decorations of the bathroom could help her out. But it was no use. They stayed silent, refusing to take sides.
Her heart thumping brokenly in her chest and slowly making its way up to her throat, Daisy did not know what to say. Why did her little sister insist on acting like she had been a poor little creature kept locked up like a princess in a fairytale book when the rest of them were the haggard sisters? Why did she think she was the only victim of their collective loss?
If anything, Daisy had suffered more closely. She would never dare say she suffered more intensely because clearly everything had affected them all so much. But she was the oldest. She knew so much more. She always had done.
Misty remembered her parents with the kind of fondness that turned to melancholy as she felt the hole that they had left in her life. She had never seen what Daisy had. The grey circles under her mother's eyes as Jordan was too unwell to go to work. What was fun, make-believe time under the covers was their father unable to get out of bed and face the real world.
Daisy had never wanted this. For her or for any of them. It was a tragedy that still burned in her mind. She understood why her little sister had gone for James. And why she felt that she could not tell her about her mistakes.
Someone raised in dysfunction would continue to seek it out – even if that dysfunction were wrapped in a much quieter and perversely a dependable coating.
"No." Daisy answered with firmness at last, contrasting the green of her eyes that could be overtaken by blueness any minute. She tried to take a step closer to her little sister. Tried to make her see. She wanted her to see everything. No. She had always wanted nothing but the best for her. But she had been a kid back then too. "I just..."
But it was too late. You cannot force somebody to stick around who has the desire to run hot on their heels. You cannot beg somebody to stay who desperately wants to leave. Misty learned that. She seemed intent on teaching her eldest sister the same lesson.
As Daisy's voice had grown firm, preparing to explain to her, it was Misty's turn to feel emotions bubbling in her eyes again, weakness plaiting her eyebrows together in feeble knots. She was not going to cry in front of her sister another time.
No.
She had taken everything from her. She always had. And she seemed content to keep on doing that.
No.
Misty was never going to be left ever again. She was always going to be the one to do the leaving from then on.
A firm hand brushed over Misty's eyes all over again, smearing her make up more rather than wiping any tears because she had not dared let any more spill.
"No." It was Misty's lips to utter that word. And it was her turn to take a step forward between them. But Daisy knew what it meant before clarity arrived. One more step forward. And then she would put distance between them for an exceedingly long time. "You're crazy if you think I'm ever going to have anything to do with you ever again."
And that was that. Misty's shoulder brushing against her sisters was not an act of affection between siblings. The motion was as light as a feather. But it spun Daisy around on her heels. She tried to reach out to Misty. Wanted nothing more than her trembling fingers to break the distance with her shoulder again.
But it was too late. She was always too late. Always one step too far behind. Always a skip and a beat out of rhythm.
There was nothing else that Daisy could do. Misty marched out of her life, insistent that not only would Daisy never see her tears again after she had taken so much from her, but she would not see her ever again.
Misty left everything on the shoulders of Daisy that day. And all Daisy could do was find herself to be the one sobbing in the bathroom that time.
No wonder she helped Justin all those years later. No wonder she had learnt to do better.
How funny; Misty had been so sure that she had been the one to lose everything. She was the one who was a victim of her own misfortune.
But Daisy was the one who felt like she could not breathe properly until things were better with her hot-headed sister all over again. It is true that she had never wished to be her mother. Still did not. But old habits die hard. And to tell you the truth, she would have done it all over again to just have her around again.
She felt the gaping hole of her parents when Misty walked away from her that day. She had always mourned them for Misty. For Violet and Lily. Not often for herself because she had far too many things and people to keep together.
But when Misty stomped away from her, in between sobbing, crouched on the bathroom floor, she felt that loss.
No wonder she was kind to Justin.
Who would want their loneliest moments repeated and pushed onto somebody else?
The End.
There you go, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! I really had so much fun going through this story and making it how I wanted it to be. I loved getting to tackle the career side of Justin's life even if it was only briefly. And I really got absorbed in creating the dynamic between Daisy and Misty. In my stories, Misty becomes estranged from her sisters for the next nine years following these events. I've actually got a story coming next month that details why Daisy chose to tell James to keep away from Misty. Fortunately everybody gets on better terms again. It's not a case of all's well that ends well, however. How could such a big group of characters be drama-free? :P Thanks again for reading and I'll be back on the 28th over on Misty's Memoirs so perhaps I will see you there!
Amy signing out :3