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Daisy had never seen Jay so angry. More accurately, Daisy had never seen anyone so angry, human or otherwise: not her childhood neighbor’s massive, brutish dog after a skipped meal, not Nick after she broke his toys during that dreaded family reunion almost two decades ago, not even her hulking monster of a husband in a drunken stupor. Jay was completely sober, and so filled with rage that she wanted to cower in the corner. Had she a tail, it would have trembled between her legs.
“Jay, please—” She squeaked. He was a gentle man; he wouldn’t hurt her, not in any physical way at least. Tears welled up in his sky-hued eyes, face burning red and muscles painfully tense over white-knuckled clenched fists.
“I don’t understand!” He slammed a fist hard against the wall of the foyer, shaking the paintings and the nearby golden caldelabras.
“Five years, five horrible, lonely, God-forsaken years, and I still don’t have you!” He waved a hand in front of Daisy’s face, and she could see every vein, puffed out in rage. “You’re right here but I can’t feel you! I can’t ever get what I want, what I fucking want!”
Daisy had never heard Jay swear before, not even before his time in the great war. She stepped back, and felt the walls hug her right arm and back, a corner. Cornered.
“Jay—” She tried again, almost too stunned to speak, but he flew into another fit.
“I tried so hard, so, so, so hard, and nothing comes of it! All this?” He waved around wildly, arms like windmill blades. “Yours! And yet you can’t have it because…because…”
Something clicked into place like a gear inside the old clock standing proud and tall a few feet away. Jay gasped for air, every ounce of anger flooding from his body as if he were a popped balloon rapidly losing air. Daisy covered her mouth with both hands as he collapsed to the ground at her feet, limp and panting like a sick dog. The tears flowed steadily now, more sad than angry. She crouched beside him.
“Because I’m broken.” He finished. “I…I’m sorry Daisy, for this rampage, for…for everything.” His head and shoulders rose, and she had half a mind to kiss him, because that’s what a woman was meant to do when someone who claimed to love her cried, wasn’t it? But she didn’t. She blinked once, then twice, doe-eyes wide like an owl’s.
“I almost hurt you.” He sounded as though he were realizing this for the first time, his voice trembling. “I built my life around you, claimed to love you more than the world itself, and then…almost hurt you. Oh, Daisy. Please don’t come near. I don’t want to hurt you. If I hurt you…”
He faded into thought, face growing pensive as he struggled against sobs. Daisy sat, dress ballooning around her rear and legs like the petals of a flower, opening to the sun.
“If you hurt me…?” She offered, reaching out to pet his hair gently. He slapped her hand away, and then grasped the limb that did it, clutching it to his chest, wails coming louder and more frequently, echoing through the empty halls of his usually glimmering mansion like the cries of a banshee.
“See? I’ve done it. And now you’re going to leave.” His voice was creaky, hoarse, punctuated with harsh breaths. “Like everyone else.”
He was right. She could have. In a way, she wanted to. But she didn’t. She reached for him again, slower and more tentative than before. This time, he did not touch her, probably out of fear. She drew his face close, feeling his tears stain her porcelain palm. With no party roaring nearby, it was just Jay and Daisy, who maybe loved each other a little differently than before.
And maybe that was okay.