Deals with Daisy // LN4

21 ~ Accountability Matters

Daisy's POV

Ten years earlier

The rain was pouring as I sat on the lip of my window sill. One leg is pulled up to my chest as I looked at the grey skies, the cloth of my trousers damp from my tears. I was glad it was grey. It reflected my mood perfectly.

"Daisy?" I hear Lando say softly from outside my bedroom door. My head aches as it turns away from the window towards the voice of the person I'd been waiting to see for almost three weeks. I'd waited... for so long. "Daisy, come on... open up," he begs lightly. His voice beckons me from my attempt to become a statue until I'm stood looking at the white pained wood. I know that he can't get to me if I don't let him in.

I'd learnt not to rely on my parents... so why had I not figured out that same lesson with Lando yet? With everyone. You don't get the same energy you give so just stop trying. That's what I told myself as I heard him knock on the door again. Stop trying and stop caring. He can't hurt you anymore then.

"G-go away L-lando. Non voglio vederti, n-non voglio vederti," [I don't want to see you], I call out, my voice not as strong as my thoughts were trying to make me feel. I wanted to not care but all I was feeling right now was a pain that felt as though it was swallowing me whole. I felt sick to my stomach. Maybe because I hadn't eaten in four days. I wasn't hungry.

I hadn't eaten, I hadn't slept... I don't even know what I had done. Nothing, I suppose. I'd sat in my room and watched the colours of the leaves change colour slowly. It's all I wanted to do so there was no harm in that.

"Daisy come on... I travelled all the way here, please?" He continues, voice softer than before as the tears continue to slowly travel down my face as I just stare at the door, unsure what else to do. "Please... let me in," he whispers, voice almost discernible against the muffled door and I could tell he was pressed against it fully. "I'm not leaving."

My head hangs low as I finally unlock the door for just a moment but long enough still that he immediately twists the door handle open and pushes his way inside my room, almost instantly tackling me in a hug.

The tears that were silent just a couple of minutes before become vocal as I sob into his shirt. Unable to help myself in the arms of the boy who wasn't unfamiliar with my tears. As always, he was holding me tightly as I cried so hard I thought the pressure in my head and chest might cause me to explode. I always felt too much, everything I did was so big. Talking, feeling... all of it was too much.

He just held me, for how long I'm not sure but eventually the sobs stopped and for the first time in days, the tears stopped as well. We just sat on the floor, his arms still around me. He didn't know what to do when I cried. Normally he just held me and looked awkward but this time his eyes held more empathy than I'd known him to have, there were tears in his eyes also.

"I missed you..." he whispers softly and I nod my head against his chest, my eyes closed as I rest for the first time in days. "You would have liked the race this weekend... maybe you can come to the next one?" He says, voice filling the silence as I screw my eyes shut once more, not having the words to answer him with. "Please will you come to the next one?" He asks me again, his hand brushing through my hair.

"I-I don't think so," I tell him sadly, finally pulling away as I use my t-shirt sleeve to now wipe the tears from my own face. "I don't want to go... anywhere."

I think if I'd known that was the last time I'd see him in a decade, I wouldn't have moved. I would have stayed and tried to stop what came next but that's the curse of hindsight. You can't take back your actions or your words, something we were both about to become painfully aware of. Ever since that day I'd become hug averse. Something about it triggering me deeply every time someone tried to hug me until people stopped trying.