The More You Chase It

Their night together brought its own complications. The whole trip and course of their friendship had been changed with one impulsive action. Both had wanted it, and both had enjoyed it, but the aftermath was hard for the friendship to navigate. The morning brought with it challenges that neither one of them were quite ready to face. For the first time James felt truly daunted by a feeling of inadequacy to handle a situation. He didn’t know what she wanted from this, although he had noticed feelings developing for her for quite some time. He just needed to figure out what they were. As for Daisy, she already knew she was in love with him but didn’t know how he felt. As a result, that morning was the last time they would see each other for a while.

***

September 9th, 2010
{Daisy}

Consciousness slowly came to me but I didn’t open my eyes. I revelled in the warm soft comforter around me and let my mind slowly come to processing my situation. It didn’t take seconds of being awake before I remembered the previous night, even before my eyes opened.

I could hear the sounds of someone walking around in the distance.

James.

As I slowly let my eyes open to the light streaming through the large window beside the bed I could hear James mumbling curse words in his room across the little hall, his door was fully open.

I watched him go back and forth only as he passed the open doorframe. He was already dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. His hair looked dishevelled when he came into my room looking for something. He was rushing but I didn’t know why, I just watched from the bed as I covered myself with the white blankets.

On the small couch he found his grey jeans from the night before and pulled his wallet from the back pocket, oblivious to the fact that I was awake. I didn’t speak for fear of shattering his illusion. I didn’t really know what I would say any way. Was good morning appropriate? What if waking up with me wasn’t something to be categorized as good? Would me saying good morning make him feel guilty?

I didn’t want him to feel guilty.

The table beside the couch vibrated as he placed his wallet in the back pocket of his current jeans. The familiar sound of his ringtone sounded through the room, making him rush to pick it up.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mumbled in a hushed tone before answering it.

As much as I had liked the feeling of falling asleep in his arms, waking up to this wasn’t quite as appealing. It entrenched the idea in me, even more, that this was a big mistake for him, as logic dictated it should be.

“Yes I know, I just left the hotel,” James lied to whomever he was taking to, his conversation skipping a greeting all together. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Be there soon. Bye Danny.”

He didn’t give the person time to respond before hanging up, unless whoever he was talking to could spit out a response in less than a second. He was putting on his brown leather jacket when he finally looked over at the bed and saw me. I could see he was surprised to see me awake.

I waved a small wave, unable to find the correct etiquette in the situation.

“Hey,” his voice came out wobbly, unsure. His hand scratched the back of his neck. He was feeling as awkward as I was. I could tell.

“Press to do?”

He nodded. If the morning had been going anything like I wanted it to he would tell me how amazing last night was, and he’d come over and give me a kiss good-bye and tell me he’d be back soon and we could spend the day together. But, as already mentioned, the morning was not going the way I wanted. There was so much awkward tension suspended in the air between us I wanted to hide under the white blankets and pretend to be somewhere else.

“Yeah. Danny and I are doing some interviews.” There was a long uncomfortable pause to match the tone of the whole morning, “but we should be done in a few hours. You can hang out here or go out or do whatever. I can call you when we’re done.”

His words were quiet and full of nervous throat clearing.

I nodded, afraid words would betray the cool, calm, I’m-fine-with-this attitude I was trying so hard to maintain.

“Right, I guess I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

Again, there was no verbal response from me. I hoped I could play it off as being me too tired to speak, not awake enough to form sentences. That was believable. That happens.

When James left I let out the longest sigh of my life. The bed beside me smelled like him. His stuff was scattered around the room, his iPad and his clothes. There was even an indent in the bed beside me, much bigger than my own. It was impossible to erase his memory from the room around me. I wanted to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. Every time I tried I’d think about all the possible scenes that could occur when he returned. Most of them weren’t good, so I decided to do something about it. I had a shower to clear my head and hoped the worries and stress would wash down the drain with the water. My mind was made up with what I wanted to do. I packed my stuff and used James’s iPad to order plane tickets. I was going home. I had school work to do and being here would not accomplish anything. I thought maybe if I left now I could just remember this trip as last night, as perfect as it was. I wanted to tell James because disappearing without warning felt a little disrespectful and cold but I waited until I got to the airport to call him.

He picked up after two rings. I was hoping to get his voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Daisy? What’s all the noise in the background?”

I shifted my weight and looked around at my surroundings. There were crying babies, scolding parents, and employees trying to understand complaints in foreign languages.

“I’m at the airport. I’m going home because I need to get back to my classes.”

There was a long pause.

“You’re leaving? Why?”

“I told you, I need to get back to class.”

A small child started running around me in circles, his mother calling to him in the distance. I tried to ignore him and focus on the conversation I was having.

“No Daize, I mean what’s the real reason? There’s no way you couldn’t have held off classes a few days.”

The kid put out his arms as he continued to circle me and his mother continued to call him. He was chanting “I’m an airplane! I’m flying!”. He was becoming quite the frustrating little nuisance and I started taking my annoyance out on James without realizing.

“Actually James, I really couldn’t. Not all of us have acting careers to fall back on. I actually need my degree.”

The little kid began to wobble back and forth from dizziness, “Woooooaaaahhhh, I think we’re going to crasssshhhhhh!”

I tried to ignore the kid.

“You think I don’t work hard at school because I already have a career?”

The kid purposely collapsed on the chairs near me, imitating a deep pilot’s voice he said “Emergency landing worked PEOPLE. Everyone is just fine..” And finally I turned to him and snapped at him to be quiet or the boogeyman was going to come get him. Not one of my most classy moments but finally he was quiet, unable to wipe the blank stare off of his face as his mother came towards us. I returned my attention back to James.

“No, I think you don’t have to work hard at school, it’s not a requirement. On the other hand I do, I can’t just take days off for no reason.”

“No reason? I thought coming to the festival with me was a reason. I thought it was to support me, I didn’t realize it was a chore.”

“I don’t care about your stupid movie, I need to go to class.”

The mother came and gave me a dirty look as she led her kid away. I only barely noticed.

“Why are you being such a bitch? You weren’t saying this yesterday. I guess you got what you wanted so you didn’t need to stay.”

The frustration boiled to the point where I hung up. I couldn’t believe he would have ever thought that.

The flight home was infinitely crappier than the flight there but when I was home the whole thing seemed like a dream and not reality. All I knew was that I probably wouldn’t be speaking to James for quite a while. And that was fine with me. I needed a break from pretending a part of me didn’t despise our friendship and more so despise him for not feeling the way I wanted him to but still keeping me around.