Jericho

Ch.19 Guilt And Shame (UNEDITED)

Your eyes, they shine so bright

I wanna save that light

I can't escape this now

Unless you show me how

.....

Jericho dragged a shaky hand through his dark hair, stomach turning and twisting into knots, as he sat in his car parked across from Daisy's home. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, and his skin was pale, dark bags under his grey eyes that had dulled in the past week.

It had been a full week since Jericho's breakdown in the shower. It had been a full week since he exposed his inner darkness to someone other than his therapist. It had been a full week since he'd seen Daisy, since she broke up with him, whether she had verbalized the words or simply left a backup letter.

It wasn't mean what she had wrote or even hurtful towards Jericho, but it was the last paragraph in her letter that made Jericho ashamed of himself. Reading it over and over, Jericho wondered if there was ever any hope for them, for him to forget Tori and fall in love with a person who was capable of loving him back.

Tori had been his everything, someone he would have married. Daisy was just ... a young woman from the poor side of town, but still there was something there ... Or at least that's what Jericho thought. Daisy had been the first after Tori, but now she had left him, because he would have picked his ex over her any day .... Those were Daisy's words and Jericho respected her choice, her thoughts. Whether Daisy was truly right was another thing, but instead of giving her false hope Jericho accepted her decision.

I'll never be able to compete with her. It's a race I'll always lose at this point. You're still in love with her. I was willing to give this relationship, or whatever we had my all, but I won't play second fiddle. I can't be oblivious anymore, if your only going to hurt me in the end. It's better to leave than to be a replacement.

Pulling himself together for the sake of his wellbeing, Jericho had managed to gain enough confidence to face Daisy. He wasn't there to beg her to come back or even ask for another try. He simply wanted to apologize and make sure they were on a neutral basis. Daisy had always been understanding as far as Jericho knew and he was hoping that she'd still be even after the trouble and heartache he had caused her.

Relationships weren't always romantic, more often they were realistic.

Getting out his sleek black car, the one the stuck out like a sore thumb in the poor neighborhood, Jericho made his way across the street on shaky legs. He didn't know how Daisy was going to react or if she'd even want to talk to him after all that had happened in the past two weeks, but he needed to apologize. He couldn't leave without giving her a proper explanation and a friendly goodbye.

.....

"Have you talked to him since your breakup letter?" Phaison asked suddenly, slender legs crossed as he watched Daisy wipe down the tables of the empty restaurant. It was just after closing hour so of course Jeffrey had made Daisy clean up the mess the diners left behind.

"Can we not talk about him?" Daisy gave Phaison a begging expression, afterwards blowing her hair out of her face as she continued to scrub the restaurant clean.

"It's going to pretty hard, seeing as he just pulled up in his chick magnet." Phaison walked over to Daisy, laughing at her shocked expression. "It's going to be okay. What's not okay is your hideous outfit. Take off that sewer brown sweater and drag a hand through your hair real quick."

Daisy gave her friend a look as if to say really, to which the guy laughed.

"I was just joking." Phaison replied, his smile mirroring the one you made as a child when you were forced to eat something completely disgusting, but you did it anyway to please your mother. "The brown is like the shade of chocolate. Everyone likes chocolate, yay!"