Clean

In such close proximity, he could smell every note of her breath, mingling and souring like a defunct melody. When she spoke, he drowned in it.

"Billy," her voice was hoarse, torn and raw from the poison she'd spent the evening expelling. "I want to get clean."

He shouldn't have found that cacophonous scent so lovely. The air between them held the sick sweetness of liquor, the acidic edge of cocaine, and the lingering odor of sick. He wanted to drink it in.

It took a moment for him to realize she'd spoken. "What?"

"I'm done," she wiped at the smudged mascara beneath her eyes. "I want to get sober."

Billy didn't know what to say. So he didn't say anything at all.

When her endless heaves dried, he ran her a bath. Through ragged breaths, he unbuttoned her jeans, shimmied them off her too-thin frame, and tugged her camisole over her head.

Daisy was far too spent to hide her body from him. It shouldn't have been like this. The first time Billy saw her this way, it should have been through gasping kisses and heated touches. Daisy searched through bleary eyes for the pity in his and came up empty. Emotions she couldn't name twisted his face, but he did not look sorry.

Trembling like a fawn, Daisy collapsed into Billy as he lifted her to stand. He placed a hand at her waist, careful and considerate, and eased her into the tub. Legs crossed like a child, she swayed in the warm water, and Billy rolled the hem of his jeans and planted his leg before her so she could brace herself.

Daisy held on to his leg like a lifeline as he washed her sins from her hair. Scrubbed them from her skin. Brushed them out from between her teeth. When the baptism was over, he eased her out of the water as gently as he'd placed her in. The towel he wrapped her in was a funeral shroud. A farewell to the life that swirled down the drain.

His arms were strong when he lifted her off the cool tile. With a hand beneath her head, cradling her like a newborn, he eased her into her bed. It was too soft, all of it– the down comforter that molded against her flesh and the brush of his knuckles against her brow bone. It was too soft, and she was too undeserving.

Billy lingered at her side, fingers braced about the lamp switch. She was a fallen angel, her hair a bronze flame cascading across the sheets, her tan skin too sallow against it. The rhythm of the rise and fall of her chest beat in his ribcage.

"Billy?" she whispered. Her thick lashes fluttered as they opened, and her glazed eyes searched for him through the haze. "Stay?"

He would swear for a long time after that he was about to turn off the lamp. That he was going to shut the door behind him and fetch her in the morning to get her help. A part of him would blame her for asking. Yet even as he lied to himself, to everyone around him, he knew he would have lingered with his fingers on the switch all night to make sure she was still breathing.

So he flipped the switch, lifted the covers, and tucked himself in beside her. His legs entwined with hers in the dark. He placed a calloused hand atop her hollow stomach, letting the rhythm of her body lull him to sleep.

—

Julia was warm in his lap as he rocked her in the candlelight by the kitchen table. Camila was unreadable, gazing wordlessly out the window into the inky night.

"This is where it ends?" she breathed at last.

He wanted to say he was sorry, but when he opened his mouth to speak, she raised a hand to stop him.

"This is where it ends," she agreed. Finality dripped from her tongue.

It was reckless to hitch his life to Daisy's. It was impossible not to.

"I'm better for you, Billy," Camila exhaled. She clasped her hands, unclasped them, flexed, and clasped them once more. Over and over again. "But she's made for you."

Billy blinked through his tears and kissed the top of Julia's head, inhaling the lingering strawberry fragrance of her shampoo. Gently, he passed her to her mother. He pressed his palm to her face, ran a thumb across her cheek.

Camila leaned into him. "I'll drop her off Saturday."

—

As the months stretched on, Daisy found the treatment center comfortable. Safe.

So when she stood in the lobby, dressed in the breezy white dress she'd picked out just for this day, she found it difficult to step outside. The harsh Los Angeles sunshine was warm against her skin, but it burned like hellfire. She considered asking them to extend her stay. She'd done it twice already. Another month wouldn't hurt.

Her demons seemed to be knocking on the door, beckoning her outside. Her vision swirled, her breathing quickened. Panic seeped through her veins and froze her blood.

It was a flash of light that pulled her to the surface. The door was open before she realized she was running. Sunlight glinted off his glasses once more as Billy turned to face her, and when she threw herself into his arms, he was ready. He'd always been the break in her tempestuous waves, and he was steady like a rock once more.

He held her so tightly that her chest compressed, quelling the wracking sobs that threatened to shudder free. Hands knotted in her hair to pull her face tighter to the crook of his shoulder, and she grappled at his back, feeling like he couldn't possibly be close enough. Billy swiveled his chest from side to side to rock her. The last of her panic evaporated in the midday sun.

But Billy was still whimpering, running those large, strong hands through her hair, across her back, against the curve of her side. Peeling herself from the slick of tears she'd left at his neck, he hesitated to allow her the distance. Daisy cupped his face. She brushed her thumbs against the tears that fell from his eyes, caressing him like she held the universe between her hands.

Fear kept his eyes pressed shut until Daisy pressed a soft kiss to each of his eyelids. He did not know what to expect when he opened them, but it wasn't the radiant creature he held in his arms. The luster of her hair had returned, as well as the pink fullness of her cheeks. Those blue eyes, always lovely but clouded, glittered with newfound clarity. When she smiled, he forgot how to breathe.

"Billy?" she asked, and he drowned in the scent as he had all those months ago. The sweetness was real this time, like melon and mint, free of the pollution that had once plagued her.

Billy pressed his lips to hers. If he'd waited a moment longer, his soul would have shattered. Gravity escaped him as he succumbed to Daisy's orbit. From the moment she had breezed into his life, she had claimed the space as her own, and he was exhausted from resisting her pull. He couldn't pull away anymore, pretend he didn't need her as vitally as oxygen. And when she kissed him back, her desperation as palpable as his, the weight he'd carried from the moment he met her slipped away.

"I love you, Daisy Jones," he gasped against her lips. His forehead rested against hers, and he panted in the air they shared.

Daisy tilted her head back and laughed, and then he was laughing too. She threw her arms out as he spun her around. Freedom bubbled in her throat, wove through her hair, breezed against her skin. But she wasn't just free; she was complete. Billy was a missing puzzle piece, filling a hole in her heart she hadn't realized was empty.

Billy was silent as she traced the panes of his face with her finger, committing every inch to memory. "Billy Dunne," her voice was clean and bright, as light as air. "I love you, too."