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I was the only one who was there. I dealt with the police. With the staff. With the doctors. For
reasons unbeknownst to me, he'd named me as the one responsible for his estate in emergencies.
I'd come over that day on a hunch. When he hadn't answered the phone. I just...I wasn't able
to work that day anyway.
Doctors said it had been a close call.
The thing I remember the clearest about that day is the pool of blood, literally a pool. All that
blood and I couldn't believe he was still alive. I was sure he wouldn't survive such a wound, as
I was sure he wouldn't survive hearing that Daisy had left.
I was the only one left. While he was lying in bed unconscious, looking already dead. Dead to the
world. I called and called Daisy. Over and over. She wouldn't even come to the phone. No one
would.
All his friends.
The leaves turned their color from orange to finally brown. As rotten as the people living in the city.
The house looked as if it had shed it's leaves too. No more color.
I dealt with the police. I dealt with the press. I told them everything. It didn't matter whether
they believed me or not. I just didn't want him to die without anyone knowing who he was and
who he definitely wasn't. I didn't care that I incriminated Daisy (and that Gatsby wouldn't like it).
He would die anyway and it wasn't like she could be bothered by any of the charges. They were in Europe
these days, I heard.
I read to him her old letters, hoping it would somehow reach him. Hoping his heart wouldn't at some
point stop. Hoping he would still be breathing when I took my eyes of the letters again.
Hours and hours I talked and waited. And I drank. When I walked through the city it stank and
it made my eyes water. I stopped going to town at some point. I had quit my job a while ago. I
hadn't time anyway.
Back then I wasn't sure why I felt so responsible for him. Maybe to show that I indeed had been
his friend. To show that I was better than them. »You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.«
I was glad I had told him that.
Then he woke up.
And I told him lies.
»Daisy has just fallen asleep, I can't get her now.«
»She's been waking at your bedside for hours. She needs to sleep.«
»She had to go home. With the press and the police it would look bad if she'd leave Tom now.«
»She must be back any second.«.
I had reemployed the rowdies from before, so no press would reach him. So he could continue
to live in that cage of oblivion I had built around him.
I would sometimes fall asleep exhausted at his bedside, but most of the times I didn't sleep at
all. I had sent a private sleuth to look for his parents, I wanted for him to have someone who
cared. Without success.
So it stayed just the two of us.
And I couldn't leave.
I told him lies over lies, so sure he would die if he ever found out.
Back then I thought he believed me. It wasn't until much later that I found out he'd known for
who knows how long. I thought so close to death, my stories would sound convincing. I should
have known that he would see through it.
I just felt weary these days, forgetting to shave, forgetting to eat, but never forgetting to drink.
Just the two of us in this big, cursed castle. The press clinging to the gates outside, hidden from
sight by the bushes I had planted there.
When he could finally get up, I only took him out to the beach.
I walked around with him there, nearly every evening. Having him watch the green light.
Telling him again fanciful stories about why Daisy couldn't be here.
He never called me on my lie, for a long time.
One day, when he was resting in bed again, he looked up at me and told me, I was quite a liesmith myself.
I had watched him for a lot of reasons. It felt good to be near him. Even in those times. We had our own little kingdom,
surrounded by fences, trees and the merciless fists of the men I paid to keep everyone else out.
Gatsby was getting better. We would walk at the beach, even though it was getting chillier with every day.
At night I would look over at the green light.
I never again saw Gatsby stand there, looking with such longing in his eyes. And never through all this had I realised
that I had looked at him with just the same eyes.
This was nothing continuous. We couldn't just go on like this forever. Sooner or later we both had to return
to the real world. Out of Sleeping Beauty's castle.
The house surely fit the picture. With nearly all of the servants gone. The guards mere shadows, circling outside,
day and night. Most of the furniture in the house covered by white drapery, to keep the dust away. We didn't need
much space, back then. How much space could two people occupy in such a house?
And outside? The gardener was gone too (I had fired most of the staff in a fit of rage after the shooting,
feeling that all the world had already abandoned us).
I could barely see my house any longer through all the wildly growing trees and bushes.
It didn't matter. I had moved my stuff to the big house long ago.
Red leaves, turning to brown, covered every surface outside. The beach was mostly covered in fog these days.
Winter was coming.
The world was slowly starting to freeze.
As time had frozen around us.
I could never imagine it ever being winter around Gatsby. He was life. Full of color and energy.
Everyone felt more alive around him. That's why those masses of people had been drawn to him,
as I had been.
We didn't speak of her.
We didn't speak of any of the things that had happened.
We just lived.
At first I had told myself that I would only stay until he was better, never for once truly believing that he would survive.
I just didn't want him to die alone.
Then I told myself he was still too weak to take care of all those matters by himself. And honestly, I wouldn't have been able
to leave if I'd wanted to.
I've never been wanted by someone like that. There'd never been anything but temporary convenience.
And to be honest, I felt a little jealous of what had been between them. I hadn't realised by that time how all-engulfing
and suffocating Gatsby could love. Never anything but completely.
No denials.
No apologies.
No escape.
Had I expected him to mourn forever over Daisy? I probably had. Had I wanted him to stay unachievable forever?
Nothing but a beautiful mirage, like his parties had been?
He would later, when I knew so much more, tell me that what I called reason, was nothing but cowardice.
I told him that he couldn't always bend the world to his liking. He told me, he didn't have to, with me.
He asked me why I would run from what I wanted. I told him I didn't want anything at all.
Had I not watched the green light? Had I not stood there every night? Mentally wrenching him from her grasp.
Resenting and longing at the same time.
But it was too much and too soon. I was a coward and he thought he was God. I had expected to always be in the background.
I was just the supporting actor. The play revolved around Gatsby and her. The spotlight was following them.
I hadn't expected Gatsby to suddenly turn it on me.
So I fled.
I fled as far as I could. Oh, the reasons I came here were sound. I drank too much. I didn't sleep. And the world...
only disturbed me these days.
But most of all, I was scared. Scared of those eyes, looking at me with utter conviction.
Telling me all the things I wanted to hear.
I was back in my room, watching the snow fall outside, when I saw the shape moving out there through the snow.
His stride confident, straight through the snow-covered flowerbeds. Focused and determined towards his destination.
I knew him instantly.
Just as I knew that I would be returning with him tonight.