Chapter Text
Hello.
If you’re reading this I would hope you don’t know me, so I’d like to introduce myself,
I am Daisy Fay, the once the beloved of a great man – A Dreamer unlike any other – and the reason for his death.
I am writing this not as a way to redeem myself, not as an explanation for my actions, but rather as a record for my crimes. A confession.
It was, I believe, July of 1917. I was 18 at the time, and I had my fair share of men walk in and out of my heart. None stayed long, as I had expected – and sometimes hoped. One man, though, was different. A soldier. Such a gentle man he was. Our very first meeting, all he did was bring me a white lily I was sure came from the kitchen setting. With a bow, he asked if I typically shine this bright, or if it was just the stars outside growing dimmer.
Now, I had met plenty of charmers in my day, but he had a certain… shyness and vulnerability that differed from all those soulless heartbreakers. His eyes trained on mine as though if he ever looked away, I would vanish in a flash of light.
When I told him my name he repeated it as if expecting a diamond to fall out of his mouth as he spoke. When I heard his, it only intrigued me more. Lieutenant Jay Gatsby.
We spent many a-day together. Five short months of my life I visit often, remembering days sitting in the car and laughing with him, or when he would show up on my doorstep to give me bouquets and a wink.
He will never know this, and it doesn’t forgive his deception, but I knew he was lying. I always did. When he first gave me that lily in the party I had assumed he just hadn’t been expecting a woman to woo, but in the days following it was hard not to notice that all of his gifts were handmade. The bouquets he would pick me, yes they were beautifully tended and perfect at a glance – must have taken him hours – but they were all flowers grown in the neighborhood.
It was a fantastical life, though, all because of his dazzling imagination. Peanuts covered in cheap sugar became exotic treats from Vienna, and small chocolates he picked up from high-end restaurants around South America, in reality, were simply rations the army could spare.
I loved hearing how his mind would ring with promise. How his eyes looked to the sky and the horizon with a determination to make it his.
And he could, too. He could’ve owned the whole world if he wanted to, and he practically did for a while. The richest man anyone had ever heard of. A war hero, a party host, but most of all a mystery. A mystery to everyone but me.
Even my cousin Nick didn’t know all of Mr. Gatsby before he died. But I know him like another piece of my soul, for his spirit has nestled there like shrapnel in a dying man.
In early October I had fallen for him. I had fallen so hard I was near tempted to leave my life behind – to follow this man and his crazy dreams – riches or not. But I never did.
I regret that now.
Late October, I had given something to him more precious than all the riches in my generation, and I hold no regret for that.
He took it like he could die at any moment, or it could somehow escape his grasp. His hands were nothing but gentle, marking me as his and only his.
He tried to keep the facade that he was just like me. Like we could relax, because we would never really need to run away together, I just had to wait for him to come back from the war and we could both live in our ever-present laps of luxury. The way he spoke sometimes made me question if my judgement was wrong. The lies he told twirled off his lips so casually, and so completely. It almost hurt to remind myself of the truth.
It was a snowy day in December when he left for Europe. To fight in the war. He had visited the afternoon before, but it wasn’t enough for me. I tried to make sure nobody would find out about my departure to say our farewells, but my mother discovered the packed bag. She knew of Jay, but hadn’t scratched the surface. She’d only had a few run-ins when he would deliver treats and flowers to my doorstep, and I wasn’t quick enough to see him myself. When I told her I was saying goodbye, she denied me. She sent servants to keep me from leaving, and I didn’t speak to her for weeks.
I felt sure it was fate for me and Jay to be forever apart, despite his dozens of promises to return and give us wonders beyond belief. Mansions so big they could be cities, travelling from country to country eternally by each other's side. I held onto those promises far longer than I expected, especially knowing how impossible they were.
I knew it would be years before he returned to me, if he ever did. It was made worse by the fact I hadn’t gotten any letter all the while. I kept hearing news of the war, the casualties in the millions… I was sure he was dead. Despair overtook me for months, crying myself to sleep near every night. Only by September was I back to my old self again.
My mother had been commenting on how I need to marry, and at almost 20 I was a high prize for any rich man. As a matter of fact, my mother had already chosen a man.
Tom Buchanan.
It was somewhat a relief. The decision had been made, and I needn’t worry of my unstable and moldable future any longer. My mother would never have accepted my claims of this soldier overseas, nor his fake money. I hadn’t even met Tom.
When I got Jay’s final letter, he had found the announcement of my marriage in the paper. Learning he was alive was both euphoria and utter despair. The parchment contained so many memories, the worst best of which was the now dried lily he tried to give me on our first meeting.
He pleaded to me to wait just a little longer, that he had to go away to become an Oxford man and that he would be home to me with everything he promised and that he would love me better than any other man.
I nearly called off the wedding. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing such a great love, and every spectacular wonder he had offered.
He was alive. Lord he was alive. Much too good to be true.
I drank for the first time, trying to banish the misery and joy the letter brought me. I had far more than I ever needed, and that I ever had again.
I only remember casting aside my necklace, letting the hundred dollar pearls scatter to the ground.
But of course, when I had awoken from my drunken stupor there was no sign of the letter, no sign of the lily, and no proof of the reason for my despair. The necklace was as perfect as it was the day before. Nobody had told me what happened.
All of my family had put money into the wedding, too many people expected me to show up, too many people had congratulated us for me to vanish now. It was not a brave choice, but it was the safe one. The only one.
I assumed I had dreamed it.
But it was hard not to notice the necklace had three less pearls.
When I married Tom the next day, I tried to push the dream out of my mind – though Jay would not leave at all. It was especially torturous, because the flowers we decorated with were all white lilies.
Back then, Tom was known as yet another charmer, yet another heartbreaker I was so used to. His overwhelming temper was actually much smaller, barely noticeable, and he wasn’t nearly as emotional about the separation of the races or keeping women under control. But afterward, his heartbreaker streak didn’t stop and he searched desperately for something to raise him above the rest. He had about three mistresses during our honeymoon, each one incentivising him to carry it on longer to ‘reignite the newlywed spirit.’ We were gone for months on vacation after vacation.
During it all, I couldn’t help but think of Jay. When Tom spoke for hours it was all nonsense from a book. In his mind, he was already perfect, and had nothing to figure out but how to convince others of the same. Nothing like Jay’s outrageous fantasies, nothing like his grand transformations of dirt to gold just with the magic of daydreams.
Only, something changed during all that time. He would shower me with gifts, compliments, and endless attention. He really made me feel worthy of everything I had, like I was more than just another girl to him. Whenever I caught him with another woman, it hurt. I knew he truly loved me better than anyone else – why else would he give me so much?
So why did he mingle with them? Was I not enough, after all?
Until one day we came back from the theatre, we had just finished a picture show. We were walking through an alleyway because the bright city lights hurt my head, and a man ahead of us had gotten mugged. The moment Tom heard the mugger’s threats, he grabbed me and we ducked behind a dumpster. We hid there, hearing the two men go back and forth – one begging the other yelling – until a gunshot went off. We heard the body hit the ground, and the mugger run away.
I was hysterical. We heard a man die. That could’ve been us.
Tom’s voice was tight, but what he said changed my view of him forever.
“It’s okay now, it’s okay. I will always protect you.”
Protection.
I attached that to him so strongly it practically became his name in my mind. Though he would run off with a different woman every week, he would always come back to me and he would protect me above all others. I would always be safe in his arms, despite his temper and despite his habits. I learned to depend on it.
That night was when I fell in love with him.
We grew closer together over the years. I would play sports with him occasionally, though I only beat him once – boy his temper was a fury that day. We went to Kapiolani once and I got so drunk I rambled for hours about how we were the most dazzling couple in America, as he practically had to toss me around to dance. We were laughing and loving the whole night long, and he had a new light in his eyes. Party after party he would show me off like the Mona Lisa, telling me I was more beautiful than every girl there – only to run off with one.
Though I loved him at that point, I don’t think he did. He saw me as another commodity – until a party down in San Francisco. It was August, and there was a biblical downpour. The concession was all outside under marble Gazebos. I got stuck with the drinks, waiting out the rain, and Tom had run over with his suit jacket covering his head. I asked him what he was doing, and he put his jacket on my shoulders before scooping me up and running to a taxi. I couldn’t help but laugh and bury my face in his neck.
He stopped, though. He stopped in the middle of the pouring rain. When I looked up at him, he kissed me harder and longer than he ever had before. When we separated, he looked at me the same way Jay did all those years ago. Like if he looked away, I might vanish in a flash of light.
Lightning struck, and thunder crashed. He smiled, a real smile, and spun me around until I was holding onto him for dear life. I asked him why he would do that, and he said, “So your shoes wouldn’t get wet.” That was the night Pammy was conceived.
After that, he was different with me. More gentle, more compassionate. He stayed that way for two years. We moved to France, then Chicago – which I wished we could’ve stayed in, but Tom had slept with the mayor's daughter and caused such an uproarus scandal we needed to flee.
We finally settled in New York, Egg Island just in time for Pammy to be born.
Her birth was an awful, but somewhat familiar blur of pain followed by a feeling of complete abandonment – a loneliness only known by a woman never truly loved but teased by it. When I learned my child was a girl, I only thought of my own pain and wished her to never experience the same.
I couldn't tell you where Tom was during it.
Afterwards, I could tell myself I was happy. Ceaseless attention from my husband, more beautiful than the stars, and as rich as my family had always been.
Then he became distant again. He had less affairs, yes, or at least I thought he did. He was just better about keeping his one mistress under control. Myrtle Wilson.
I thought he’d settled. I thought he was finally content with us, that he stopped cheating and showering me with affection because he was satisfied. I was both more relaxed than I had been since we were married, and desperate to get back to the way we were.
It was a strange fury realizing how much I cared for the attention Tom gave me. Occasionally I would find myself thinking that if he didn’t love me I was of no worth at all. I fought for that worth back, but I learned nothing could break his barrier of authoritarianism.
It's a feeling I can never quite explain. A pain so deep it threatens to pull you inside out – while the only thing you hear is your own voice pleading for answers, pleading for recognition of anything worthwhile in your being. You chase whatever can approximate love, but it always ends up being that same affection of use, and you are discarded the same way you were before. Once they’ve heard what they wanted to hear and taken what they wanted to take, you are little more than a faint memory.
And I was locked in this endless dance with a man forever bound to me by a gold band.