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Romeo and Juliet style Gatsby ending

Summary:

I hate the ending of The Great Gatsby. So I made it even more devastating.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Daisy stood at the door of her empty house waiting for Tom to be done packing. They had to move again. Tom had said something about the maids packing up the house wrong and how he had to ‘do everything himself.’ As she stood there, her heart swelled with pain as she thought back to her affair with Gatsby. She had missed him, but she never realized how much until she saw Gatsby for tea. She didn’t want to leave him. She loved him.
Within the next second, Daisy decided she was not going to leave. She loved Tom. But not nearly as much as Gatsby. He was kind, gentle, and sweet. Something Tom could not do even if he tried. She looked around at her bags. There was no way she could carry them all. She took the few with the most essentials in them and started hurrying away. As she started down the driveway, she realized she could not do this on foot. She turned to her left and saw Tom's stables, filled with his prized race horses. One of them was already saddled up. Tom refused to take off the saddle when he was done. That was ‘’beneath him.’ She got on the horse, struggling to hold her bags and the horse. But, it did not matter. She needed to leave.
Daisy was able to get far before Tom came out. Seeing the absence of his wife, his face scrunched and he felt himself tense. He knew she went to see Gatsby. He grabbed his car keys and started thinking about how he would confront Gatsby, again. But, before he got into the car a huge grin spread across his face. He did not need to confront him. He needed to teach the relationship parasite a lesson. He got into the car and headed towards George’s shop.
He parked out front so everyone knew he was there. No one touches his wife without his permission. He stormed inside George’s shop. His bulky body weighed down and creaked on the flimsy, dirty floor.

“George! We should talk.” He said almost proudly, regarding the fact George’s wife had just died.

George looked up. He glared at Tom and stood up. “Get out of my shop! You have the audacity to walk in here after killing my wife?” George grabbed his shotgun and pressed it against his cold, hard chest.

Tom put his hands up. “Woah there buddy… I did not kill your wife… But I know who did.”

George does not lower his gun. “I don’t believe you. But if you did not, who did?”

Tom slowly lowers his hands. “Gatsby drove my car that night.”

George slowly lowers his gun and takes a moment for that to sink into his brain. He walks over to the window to see the eyes of Doctor T.J. Ekleberg. George stares at them for 140 seconds before turning back to Tom. “I’m going to kill him.” Tom's smile got bigger. He was going to wait at home for Daisy to come running back into his arms.
Daisy had made it to Gatsby's house. He never really locked the doors so she just walked in. He was not anywhere in the house so she walked outside to find Gatsby on a pneumatic mattress. He seemed depressed and lacking life. She walked up to him. And in her soft velvety voice she whispered, “Jay.” Gatsby jumped awake. All his life seemed to have instantly returned to his face. “Daisy!” It took Gatsby a while to get out of the pool. Since he was on his mattress, he was not wet at all. So, he pulled Daisy into his chest, keeping her close while slowly stroking her hair. Gatsby wished this moment would never end.
George was now behind Gatsby's house, watching them hug by the pool. Anger filled his every vein as he aimed the gun at Gatsby. They would not have noticed George there if he did not shift his weight onto the bush and let one of the branches snap in half. Both of them turned and saw someone. They did not know it was George at first. But, he stood up. They already knew he was there. He wanted to see Gatsby's reaction as he stole the light from his eyes. He aimed the gun and did not hesitate to pull the trigger.
Daisy could not stand the idea of Jay dying. She jumped in front of him and felt the bullet hit her head and pierce through her brain. She fell to the ground and slowly lost her breath. George just stood there, while Gatsby dropped to his knees screaming in pain.
George knew that if Tom found out that he had been the one to kill Daisy, Tom would ensure his slow and painful death. George looked up, and he made eye contact with Gatsby. Normally, Gatsby had a smug and charming grin on his face. But, now, his face was serious and covered in tears. His hair was disheveled, and his bare chest and swim trunks were covered in Daisy’s blood as he kneeled over her dead corpse.
He maintained eye contact with Gatsby, took the gun to his head, and shot himself in the chest. He let out a scream only heard in most people's worst nightmare. As the bullet passed through him, he dropped to the floor crying. George took a good minute to die. But to George, that minute felt like a lifetime. Gatsby stood there in horror. He had watched two people die in the span of less than ten minutes. Gatsby's breath quickened as he walked over to George. He tried not to look at the gruesome details of George's freshly dead corpse. Instead, he stared at the gun. It was blood splatted, but at this point he did not care. Gatsby carried the gun over to Daisy. He hugged her one last time. Holding on to the slight warmth from her body. His sobs grew louder. He could not live a life without his only love.
Gatsby drew the gun to his head, right in the center. His hands were shaking. He pulled the trigger. Gastby had spent his whole life chasing after a girl. He never fully got her. But, he did get to die by her side. The one time Daisy tried following her heart, she got killed. It did not matter what they did. Daisy and Tom had left messes in their ‘vast carelessness.’ And now, even if they tried, this was a blood soaked mess they could not run from.

Notes:

I wrote this for fun at school and then decided to post it