Hearts A Mess

Daisy stared at the confrontation that was happening between Tom and Jay right before her eyes with an overwhelming sense of guilt, shame, and regret filling her. Both men were fighting over what they thought that she would be thinking and would want to say. They were speaking for her because at this moment in time Daisy was mute with fear. They were saying things that had been and were true about her feelings and emotions but neither of them realized that the facts that they were reputing at each other were second hand and weren't accurate at this moment in time. Right now, as Daisy stood there with her cigarette at her lips, tears streaming down her face, Daisy didn't love either of them. Tom and Jay were being childish, fighting over her like she was a toy and they all were in elementary school.

Daisy could barely hear nor remember what she said and what they had said to her that had caused her to shriek out an answer. She remembered Tom glaring at her, asking her question after question in a pained voice, and then adding something along the lines of promising to be better to her. Then Jay pulled her aside and muttered that it was just all lies, and for her to tell him that she never loved him and that she was going to run away with Jay. It was all blurred, so dream-like that it couldn't possibly be real.

Daisy couldn't remember when she started to cry, if it was before or after Tom had gone on a rampage, deliberately trying to push all of Jay's buttons and then when he had exploded it had caused stunned silence throughout the entire hotel room.

No one moved, not even Jay and Tom who stood there so close in each other's faces with expressions of anger etched in them.

Daisy lowered her lighter and the cigarette in her trembling hands and then Jay took it and lit it for her. She took it without looking at him and walked away to the window.

Tears streamed down her face. They both were asking just so much of her, too much. Couldn't they tell that her heart was a mess, that she herself was a mess? Five years she had lived without Jay in her life and now he was here wanting to be a part of her life, for her to be a part of his life but she had moved on by now. She had loved and did love Tom at one point and Daisy guessed that she still did since she was crying over him but she also loved Jay. There had been moments between both men that Daisy cherished and would never forget.

Right now, in this moment those men were asking her to choose one or the other and Daisy just couldn't do it. She needed time to think, and since Jay had just yelled at Tom Daisy's feelings for him were fading by the second.

Jay had scared her, it had scared her that he had absolutely shattered and screamed at Tom for saying such things. He had lost his temper that she knew but it was something about the way he acted that was different than when Tom lost his temper. It frightened her, and if she were going to be with Jay for the rest of her life she didn't want to be frightened that one day he would yell at her.

Daisy knew right then and there that she was taking the easy way out, that she was not following her true heart's desire but Tom was secure, Tom was safe even if he fooled around with half the city's female inhabitants. Jay wasn't safe, Jay was unpredictable and wild and spontaneous and though he loved her with all his heart, he threw parties for her and had made himself a millionaire (even if it was because of gambling and selling drugs) he did it all for her.

The only thing that Tom had done for Daisy was married her and impregnate her with his child. But that was long over. In this day and age marriage didn't seem to matter to the likes of anyone, especially the wealthy.

"I want to go home Tom," she managed through her tears as she turned around and looked at Tom. Instantly through saying that she had made her choice and sealed her fate. Everyone in the room, Jordan, Nick, and Tom realized this. Everyone accepted it… except for Gatsby.

He watched as Daisy left the room in a crying furious mess and he looked at her with longing in his eyes.

"Daisy, wait!" he called out and no sooner did he follow her out the door.

But as she made her way out to the car, and begged Jay to let her drive, to calm her nerves she had told him, she knew that her heart had made its decision.

Gatsby made her heart a mess, he made it flutter with excitement, leap with joy, and beat endlessly with love and adoration for him. But that wasn't reality. She couldn't live in that big house with him, with those parties and that wealth especially since it was all a lie. With Tom, Daisy's heart was still, too still to have the kind of love in it she had for Jay but there was some love in it all the same. And after five years of waiting, of torment, of moving on Daisy's heart couldn't take going through any more pain and with Gatsby, with Jay there would always be pain.

So even though it was against her heart's desires and wishes she chose Tom. She chose Tom in silence and hoped that Jay wouldn't be blind, oblivious enough to not see it.

But he had been, and Daisy always felt that weight of guilt and regret in her heart for not telling him in words that she had chosen Tom.

She didn't want to hear any more pleas from Jay, no more promises of a life together. It was useless. She had chosen her path, the rest of her life with Tom and not Jay and hell come what may with it.

In hindsight, after she had learned of his death Daisy wished with all of her heart that she had told him. Told him that she did love him, that she had loved him but the new him had scared her. It had made her retreat further into herself and back into the selfish snob she had once been. The girl who had taken the easy road and who had always sided with the side that had the most money, the side that was most secure.

The thing she regretted most of all was letting him down. He had done everything for her and she had repaid him with nothing. But even in death, the new Jay, The Great Gatsby made her heart and herself a mess and Daisy did not deal with messes. She walked away from them and let other people clean them up for her… but this time she was the one who should have cleaned it up and she didn't. She walked away from it forever and pretended not see it because that was the way she was taught to deal with messes….

This is the result of my torn opinion of Daisy after seeing the movie. I read the book beforehand and I loved Carey's performance in the movie and I just had to write something. I know the dialogue isn't spot on from the movie but I couldn't remember a lot of it because I sat there in utter shock and amazement so please excuse me if the scene is mixed up a bit.

But on a side note the movie was beautiful and this little one shot was based off the song Hearts A Mess by Goyte on the soundtrack.

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