yours sincerely, daisy. - taylor swift

21

The next morning, Daisy groggily reached for her phone, still half-asleep. She had barely gotten any rest after the emotional storm from the night before, and her head felt heavy with exhaustion. As she unlocked the screen, her phone immediately buzzed with an onslaught of notifications. Texts, news alerts, and social media updates flashed in rapid succession.

Her heart sank. Something was wrong.

She sat up in bed, blinking the sleep away as she scrolled through her notifications. It wasn't long before she saw the headlines, bold and unavoidable:

"Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn Spark Romance Rumors!"

"Taylor Swift Seen Cozying Up to British Actor Joe Alwyn: New Couple Alert?"

"Taylor Swift's New Love Interest Revealed—Meet Joe Alwyn!"

Daisy's heart dropped into her stomach. Her fingers froze as she stared at the screen, the world spinning around her. Joe Alwyn. Of course.

She clicked on one of the articles, her hands trembling slightly as she scrolled through the photos—images of Taylor with Joe, both of them smiling, looking carefree and comfortable together. They were leaving a restaurant, surrounded by paparazzi, as if they were completely unbothered by the attention. There were more photos, one of them in a car together, another where Joe had his hand on Taylor's back, guiding her through the crowd.

Daisy's chest tightened painfully. The sight of Taylor with another person, especially so soon after their conversation last night, felt like a punch to the gut. She had barely walked away from Taylor, and now this? After all the emotional turmoil they'd been through, after Taylor's confession of fear, her insistence that things were "complicated," this was her solution?

The words from the night before echoed in her mind—Taylor's suggestion to get a boyfriend, to ease the pressure, to stop the rumors. Daisy hadn't believed she would actually do it. Not like this. Not so soon.

Her phone buzzed again, and this time it was from one of her close friends:

"Hey, have you seen the news? I'm so sorry, Daisy. Are you okay?"

Daisy stared at the text, unable to respond. She wasn't okay. Far from it. But what could she even say? That she felt utterly blindsided? That the woman she had deep feelings for had chosen to erase her from the narrative in the most public way possible? It was like Daisy didn't exist in Taylor's world anymore—not publicly, not privately.

The weight of it all crashed down on her, suffocating. She tossed her phone onto the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest, trying to breathe through the tightness in her throat. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. Not after everything they had shared. Not after the raw vulnerability of last night.

But maybe she had been naïve to hope for anything different. Taylor had made her choice—one that didn't include Daisy, at least not in any real, honest way. The Joe Alwyn headlines were proof of that. A convenient distraction. A safe, straight relationship to shield Taylor from the scrutiny she feared so much.

Daisy pressed her face into her hands, tears slipping out before she could stop them. She didn't know how to feel. Betrayed? Angry? Heartbroken? Maybe all of it at once. The worst part was that she couldn't even talk to anyone about what was really going on—she had to keep everything inside, just like Taylor had wanted.

As the morning light filtered through her bedroom window, Daisy lay back down, curling into herself. The weight of her own helplessness crushed her, and for the first time in a long while, she felt completely alone.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur for Daisy. She tried to distract herself—making coffee, scrolling mindlessly through social media—but no matter what she did, the headlines about Taylor and Joe were impossible to avoid. Even as she tried to focus on other things, every notification, every message from concerned friends or colleagues, pulled her right back into the suffocating reality she was trying to escape.