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Oct 1, 2025

Delicate: Vessel (Sleep Token) ; Part 11- "Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs."

“So, let’s do that, then.”

I looked up from my notebook, ceased doodling the black circle that was turning into a hole in the piece of paper, brows furrowed.

“Do…what, exactly?”

I lifted my pen to my mouth and teethed at the cap.

“Roleplay the situation. You be her, I’ll be you. I’m curious as to how you believe she would have reacted. Then, rather than intellectualizing that, we can sit with the feeling together and process it. Sounds good, yeah?”

The weather outside the window behind my laptop screen was rainy, cold. Tiring. I rubbed my eyes and dropped my pen.

“I mean…sure. You’re the expert,” I offered a lazy smile.

She chuckled, reaction late due to the finicky telehealth portal. “Okay, let’s get on, then. I want you to begin.”

“Erm…what do I say?” I stuttered somewhat, face flushing with awkward anticipation.

“What do you think she would say?”

“To what?” I scratched my ear.

She nodded once, non-judgmental even when I acted like a clueless prick. “Let’s say that she is responding to your text. What did it say again?”

I sighed before opening up my phone. My background rarely ever changed, having been a picture of my cat up until three months ago. Now, it was a list of affirmations. It was weird, but it helped my brain rewire itself in the moments I felt like checking to see if she’d read the message or before logging onto social media to see hate comments.

I can control my thoughts.

“Basically just, like…’Hey, wanted to clear things up. Fiona was somebody I loved a long time ago, but things were kinda fucked up. Such and such, her and I went back and forth a lot and she kinda abused me or whatever. Just, like…I had a lot of trauma from that so I’ve been behaving in a shitty ass way. I loved you and you deserved better than me…whatever.’ I don’t know. Too much. It makes my chest hurt,” I shuddered slightly before tossing my phone onto my bed.

“Oliver, that was brave. Every time in the last 6 months that I’ve asked you to read that message, you’ve changed the subject. But you just did it. Congrats to you and your brain,” she offered a thumbs up.

I let out the suffocating sigh I’d been choking on and took a deep, nasally breath. A small smile itched at the corner of my mouth. I wiped my lips and took a risk. Everything in life felt like a risk anymore, but as she said, congrats to my brain.

I was living for the first time- not just surviving like I’d been for years. All my life, probably.

“I think she’d say something, like…” I thought really hard, focusing on the subject at hand and not on the flashes of images of her rushing through my head like a nosebleed.

I cleared my throat as the overwhelming, bitter sweetness took hold of my senses. I grabbed my stress ball from beside me, gnarled it, and continued through a tight chested response, “I know. I was stupid for letting myself think I could change you.”

“Would she say that? Call herself stupid?”

“She did, I’m pretty sure. And I’d probably say, like, no you’re not. I love you, you’re not stupid.”

She nodded, “Do you see how you often escape to this confession of love? Rather than taking accountability?”

“Oof,” I pressed a hand over my heart and laughed at her quirked brow. “WOW. No wonder I pay you so much money.”

“I’m serious!” She put her hands up defensively. “Oliver, what does that mean to you?”

“The love confession? It means everything. Saying I love you and telling her that and expressing my feelings…I would hope it would make her stay. but it didn’t.”

“Is it, by chance, a grasp? A reach, then?“

I licked my lips, anxiety growing ever so slightly. “A reach-for-for what?”

She breathed, “A reach for forgiveness? A fight or flight way that our mind responds to the threat of her leaving. ‘If I say I love you, she can’t possibly leave. Not if it means so much to her.’”

“Well, that sounds manipulative,” I interjected.

She didn’t respond. She simply let me sit there in the pregnant beat of what we’d concluded together.

“I was kinda…shitty. To her. No wonder she didn’t forgive me,” I pressed a hand to my forehead, neck dangling low.

I kept damaging my stress ball, focused on breathing deeply.

“Listen, Oliver- shoot! It’s already 3. We will have to continue this next week. But, for your homework, I really want you to continue this exercise on your own. If you’re doing a writing session or something soon, please consider it. Think of her perspective. Think of how she felt. Don’t confine yourself to your own worldview. I’ll see you, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thank you, thanks. See ya,” I hovered my mouse over the red button and clicked it as she finished waving. I shut my laptop lid before leaning back in my chair.

There was a hole in my stress ball.

Jesus Christ.

I felt uncomfortable and wanted to run away from these feelings. I wanted to take a shot of whiskey or, fuck, have a cigarette.

But I didn’t do that shit anymore.

No, now I sat with the uncomfortability. I risked my own self satisfaction for the sake of growth, humility.

For the sake of understanding and processing what had happened all those months ago.

I’d been doing really well- in terms of moving on- until I discovered we were to be visiting her town for a month. Now, I swore I saw her face, heard her voice, every single time I took a breath.

She was a ghost, haunting my narrative. In my dreams. If I shut my eyes and focused long enough, I swore I could feel her hair between my fingers.

Of course I still loved her. I always would. A corner of my heart was reserved for her fingers to wrestle and mutilate my very being. For the first few months after we had gone off on our own paths, I’d sworn up and down to anybody who would listen that she meant nothing to me. But I’d known from the moment I saw her across the airport that she was everything always, everytime.

Though, the denial was harsher at first, especially when I discovered she was moving on with her life.

I’d overheard it from Max one night on one of the last tour stops. He was goofing off with Adam about some joke she’d told him on the phone. That’s when Adam brought up how beautiful she looked with her new highlights.

(I would’ve killed to see them.)

Max made a joke about how she knew it now and everyone around her did, too. Then he mentioned a few names, like they were on a hit list.

I rolled my eyes, gruffed, and slunked past them. Max looked bewildered as I went and opened his mouth to say something.

I held a hand up, glared, “I don’t give a fuck about her, Max. And I need everyone to stop acting like I do. Let’s move on with our lives, please.”

Needless to say, I’d heard a few choice words from Sam about that.

The way I treated everyone around me started to catch up to me, especially as our fame grew. Divas never lasted in the industry for a reason.

And I was getting tired of running straight into the fire. Tired of being rude to the people who cared about me.

Then, eventually, with my therapist's help and the regrounding of my relationships, I finally let myself know how deeply I cared for her. And how okay that was.

The closer I got to being in the same time zone, the same atmosphere as her, the more it began to hurt again.

With the demand for a new album looming, I’d been cracking down at pumping out some more demos. The pressure got to be a lot sometimes, but I managed. And, with the development of the world of Sleep Token, I was able to write about that, too.

Though, every single lyric wound up being about her. I didn’t hate it…but it didn’t help the whole healing and moving on thing. I didn't really think I’d ever be able to do so.

So, maybe this song writing homework thing would be helpful.

Once my chest loosened up a bit, I moved through the apartment to the music room. My guitar sat there, awaiting me to pick it up and fight my way through another song.

And fight, I did.

I spent three hours plucking at the strings, coming up with shit ass lyrics about how it hurt to be led along by some guy. But it was all too on the nose, and all too shallow. Daisy was more complex than that. Daisy was a storm and a sunny day all at once. She was an upbeat song and a ballad again and again.

She was everything.

And no simple guitar chords could capture just how much I’d ruptured that.

Luckily, my phone started ringing from the other room. I leapt up from my computer chair all too excited for the relief and jogged to go and grab it. It was Adam.

“Hey, man,” I answered, cheerfully. I never used to do that.

Everyone still came across as surprised when they encountered or experienced my newfound enthusiasm for life.

“Hey, bud,” he was smiling, I could hear it. He always saw more in more. “Listen, I don’t have very long. I’m seeing you later, anyways. But, yeah, I just emailed over a demo Cyrus and I put together. I really think you could pull something sick out of it. Let me know what you think, okay?”

I nodded along before replying, “Sure, dude. I’ll take a listen right now, actually. I’ll see ya later?”

“See ya! Love you man.”

“Love you,” I grinned from the interaction

I walked back to the music room and slumped down in my chair. I plugged my phone into the speakers and began playing the demo they’d sent me.

While it began playing, I popped open my notebook.

Visions of Daisy played in mind, almost like she was painted inside the guitar chords. Like the strings of the bass and the drumsticks had taken oil and smudged her face out before me on the canvas of my memories.

I saw her, dancing at the club, dolled up in pink with blush swelling her cheeks. I saw her pink skin between my fingers, easily moldable and easily taken for granted. I saw her in the bus’ kitchen, white milk dribbling down her pink lips, like some vision of Eve holding an apple. A snake wrapping itself around and forcing our proximity closer and closer until- sin.

The religious motifs kept replaying in my head. As did the color pink.

I saw a garden in my head, and saw Daisy there. Smiling, adorned in gorgeous roses and…mums. Like she was waiting for me in Eden.

She was like a god to me. Pure, pink, holy. I was always on the outside. Always locking myself out of the gates. She had wings and I had flown so close to the sun that mine had melted. Now, I was cleaning wax out from underneath my fingernails.

Even amidst her beauty, amidst her forgiveness, when I had the whole world in my hands, I was still a black smudge. I was a mess, a stain. A sinner, even though he’d been baptized time and time again.

Then, almost like a lightbulb, I remembered a phrase written somewhere across a grave.

“Et in Arcadia ego,” I murmured as I read it off of the Google search I’d quickly typed up.

Even now, even as I have found seeds and planted my own garden, death lingers. The thought of it, the feel of it in my skin, the death of my past life and the things I have ruined.

Even in Arcadia, there am I.

I didn’t have to try anymore. Everything came pouring out of me within moments. Lyrics, the motif of the few songs I’d written so far, the meaning of Emergence.

Everything connected. All because of her.

Everything was always about her.

I messaged Adam to reschedule our plans, too involved with the song to go down the street to some crowded-ass pub full of cigarettes and noisy sports fans. However, Adam no longer let me cancel on plans unless I had a really good excuse.

So, there he was ten minutes later, knocking on the apartment door, scaring the cat with his noisy boots as he walked in with a six pack under his left arm and a bag of snacks in the other.

He took one look at me, hair disheveled, a familiar gleam in my eyes, and nodded with a sly smile, “Alright. Let’s hear it.”

I took the bag from his arm and excitedly began to walk to the music room. He followed, apologizing to Sprite as she crawled around his discarded shoes. “I was literally about to start recording what I’ve got. I think we could add some more piano, too, but- just- you’ll see.”

Adam took a seat on the pull out couch behind my computer desk, cracking open a beer and offering me one. I thanked him before shoving my headphones back on. He hadn’t said anything in response, so I hesitated before getting the recording going.

“What?” I flushed, nervous he was going to hate it.

“I haven’t seen you this excited for a track since Euclid, is all,” he shrugged and extended one arm over the back of the couch.

“Well,” I laughed, “therapy was productive today.”

Adam snorted, “Oh, yeah? What did you cover that’s got you so inspired?”

I sucked a breath and averted my eyes away, almost ashamedly. “Well…um, Daisy.”

Adam’s smile dropped, just enough to clarify the bittersweet sadness in his blue eyes. “I’m excited to hear, Ollie. I really am.”

The sympathy brought down my mood. And it got my brain buzzing about her, again.

I could never escape it. But, again, I didn’t really want to. It was better to have known and lost her than to have never known her at all.

“Did you guys tell her we’re coming to visit? What did she say?” I fumbled with my fingers, the strings on my sweatpants.

“Yeah,” he didn’t hesitate. Max and Sam always hesitated when I’d ask them about her. It pissed me off, but it wasn’t like I had the right to know.

He continued, “Yeah. She’s really excited. The shop is almost put together. She, uh…she’s grown up a lot. Like in the face. And she cut her hair off. She looks…she looks happy, Oliver.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and stretched my neck, almost uncomfortable. I wanted to see her face. I needed to see it, I-

“Can I see?”

Adam hesitated this time. He touched his phone tenderly. “Are you…are you sure? I don’t want you to make yourself upset, Ol.”

“I just want to see her eyes, Adam,” I finally met his gaze with a small, sad shrug. “Please.”

Within a second, he had her Instagram pulled up. There were four posts since I’d last seen her, all dense with random pictures, some of her, some of her friends, of food, buildings.

Her mom’s shop. Her, in front of the small building with the keys in her hands, a bandana holding her hair back. Jeans- I’d never seen her in jeans before. I’d never seen her in this purple sweater or these Nikes.

She started getting her nails done, reds and greens and gold stars on her pinkie fingers. Got highlights. It brightened her eyes, made her lips look glossier.

Then-

She cut it off. It was so short, almost to her chin. And she wore it in all of these adorable styles. Space buns, braids, half up, buns, ribbons and head bands.

It looked softer than before.

She looked softer than before, if it were possible that she could even be. Life was so harsh and even as it continued weathering her, she remained polished. Like a stone.

Adam was right. Her face had grown, too. She looked older, wiser, but still had that child-like light in her eyes.

There was a guy in some of her pics, but she didn’t look to be too involved with him. I knew her, whether either of us wanted to admit it, like the back of my own hand. She wore her heart on her sleeve and her emotions all over her face. If she really, truly cared all that much about him, she’d look like she did with me.

In love.

My hand shook slightly. I cut myself off, unwilling to ruminate and continue to scroll through each photo again and again (I’d already done it twice). I handed Adam back the phone with an, “Alright. Ready?”

“Let’s hear it,” Adam jumped back in with me, a deep breath arched over his response.

I rolled back my shoulders, matched the depth of his breath, and said, “This is Gethsemane.”

Daisy:

“Hey, have you seen my smokes anywhere?”

I gasped a deep breath as Jay’s cold hand shook my shoulder. Evie jumped up from my side, bowing into a long stretch. My eyes blinked open, squinted, and I turned my head to look at the man.

“Huh?” I shook my hair, grasping consciousness. “Oh. Um…”

I pulled myself up from the bed, sheets leaving creases in my skin, and leaned back against the headboard. My eyes were fully open now, so I was processing the question. “Your smokes…um. Oh! I saw them in the kitchen when we got back last night.”

“Yeah, I dropped 'em there, but they’re gone,” he huffed. “You take them or something? I mean, I won’t be mad. I just wanted a smoke with my coffee. You know how I like-“

“Okay, Jay, chill,” I ran a hand over my puffy face. Nicotine addicts. “I’ll come help you look.”

I knew for a fact that they were on the counter with his keys, jacket, and my purse. I’d put them back there whenever I came in from my late-evening reflection down in my mom’s shop.

Sure enough- Lifted up his jacket, and there they were. “See?”

Jay coughed into his fist. His smoker’s lungs were worse than Oliver’s. He, at least, could make it a week on one pack. Jay went through about one a day.

And he kept a methodical track of his addiction.

“Did you bum one?” He fingered through the sticks.

I looked from the cupboard, where I’d been getting a cup down, “Hm?”

“Did you take a smoke, Zee? I’m not mad, just wondering why two are missing. I had enough for the morning, then I was gonna go to the corner store,” he pulled one out, tossed the pack back onto the counter (that I’d just cleaned).

I watched him stick it between his lips and head to the window. “No, I didn’t. You probably just smoked more than you thought. You were pretty fucked up last night.”

That part was true. His wife was coming for more of his money than he thought she was, so in his anger, he got drunk enough that I had to call an Uber to get us home. Cost more than I wanted nor was capable of spending, but he was supposed to be ordering us breakfast to make up for it.

Doubt it would happen.

I followed him to the window seat. He gently pushed Evie off the cushions to sit and pop open a window. I watched him light his cigarette and I took a deep breath as he huffed it.

“Whatever. I’ll just run out and grab some,” he cleared his throat again. He noticed me standing there and lifted the corner of his lips in a smile. “C’mere, babygirl.”

I let him grab my ass and pull me into his lap. My face tucked into his neck, which smelled of cigarettes and Axe. I squeezed my eyes shut. It almost smelled of Oliver.

I could withstand the thoughts whenever I was alone. The chunks of time through the week whenever Jay was at work or meeting with divorce lawyers or living his own life, I was able to suffocate the thoughts and move on with my day. Oliver’s face would pass through my mind like a breath. Then, I’d feel the bittersweet memory for a pulse. And I’d move on.

But, then, Jay would come around for dinner or haul me along for grocery shopping or call me at midnight for a fuck. And he’d bring around that smell of smoke, so thick, so goddamn heavy, and my mind would spiral. And, though we never brought up the conversation topic from last Friday, he was still seeping the shit into my skin, poisoning my routine with the memories of someone he’d never even met.

Like, right now.

He was putting his cigarette out in my mom’s old ashtray, gripping my skin, grabbing the back of my neck to lift my face and kiss my mouth.

My eyes were still shut. I rewound the tape of my memory, envisioning days in Oliver’s hotel room.

His sweet lips, his gentle hands even when he was being rough with me, black paint left over under his finger nails as he grabbed at my hair and pulled my head back.

“Oh, my god,” I moaned into someone’s collar as they bit into my shoulder.

Jay was harsh, Jay was fast.

Oliver licked over the wound and kissed each tooth mark. Oliver brushed a knot out of my hair afterwards.

Jay was taking my top off.

I think my favorite time with Oliver was the first. The first time he ever saw me naked, even if sometimes it felt like he never had. Even if sometimes it felt like I’d been bare before him the entire time and his mind was so far into the clouds that he was blind to authenticity.

The first time.

I think I was on the roof, as I so often was. Maybe we were still in England? Maybe Scotland? I couldn’t remember very well, I was too caught up in him at that point.

The sexting had gotten intense. The making out in the elevators was getting friskier and, well, riskier. We were sneaking in bits of each other as often as we could.

Jay popped off my bra and threw it across the room. Evie jumped and ran and hid in my bedroom. Jay squeezed my ass in his hands, molding and grappling my skin.

On the tour bus the night before, I hadn’t been able to sleep. So, I went out to the small kitchen to get a glass of milk. Oliver was staying in the bus that evening because the other one had broken down.

And there he was.

I could still see him, as I looked towards my own kitchen and squinted my eyes. Lights off, road flashing by outside the window, black hoodie framing his shaggy hair and gray green eyes.

“What are you doing up?” I whispered, so as not to scare him.

He hadn’t noticed me. He was in front of the fridge, holding a glass of milk. So coincidental.

He turned to me, and I took in his sleepy posture. Bare feet, gray sweats.

“Ask you the same thing,” his sentence was short and his voice was gruff with sleep. He took another sip of the liquid.

I stepped beside him, pulling my sleeves over my fingers in a shy movement. I avoided his eyes as I got closer. I was craving him so badly at this point that even being in his presence prickled my skin, had my body responding in ways I never thought could happen.

Oliver seemed to feel the same. His hand ghosted mine. He fiddled with my sleeve to free my fingers and softly caressed my skin. I finally drew my eyes to him.

“C-couldn’t sleep.” I shrugged insecurely. He tilted his glass to me, offering it up. “Yeah, thanks. That’s what I came out here for, actually.”

“Figured,” I took the glass from him as his other hand came up to my ear. He tucked a piece behind and rolled a thumb over my earring. The corner of his lips lifted into a smile.

I took a breath. He smelled of cigarettes. Milk and cigarettes. What an odd combination.

I shuddered at his touch as I went to take a sip. The cup faltered and milk slid out of the side of my mouth. I cringed at myself, tilting my upper body into an embarrassed laugh as I set the cup onto the counter. I went to wipe away the mess, but Oliver’s thumb moved there instead. Instead, my hand landed around his wrist.

I watched his eyes as he swiped his thumb across my bottom lip and swiped up the milk on my chin. He went to move his hand away, but I held it there. His green eyes were deeply stained with some glass-like emotion, like he was sad, though basked in glory at the sight of me.

It was holy. I was his cathedral. He was a sinner.

So, pray.

“Oh, that feels so good, Jay,” I moaned against his cheek as he swept a hand down the front of my pajama bottoms.

His nails scratched against my belly and he fumbled around for a second. “Yeah, baby, I know it does, baby. I know it does.”

I turned my mouth and sucked on Oliver’s thumb. I held his eyes. I curled my tongue around his nail, around the pad, back and forth for a moment. Then I drew my mouth back, still holding his hand there, and popped my lips off.

Oliver grabbed me by the throat, one hand finding itself at the curve of my hip. His lips were on mine within one more glance, wherein his eyes turned into fiery, passionate sin.

I was burning down.

I had been tempted.

Jay pulled his hand out a moment later before pushing me off his lap. Then he fumbled with his belt before putting both hands on my shoulders. “Come on, baby, remind me what that mouth of yours does.”

He pushed me to my knees.

Oliver kissed and kissed and kissed me. But I wanted more. I needed more. I needed to show him how he made me feel, to show him how I felt every single time he looked at me.

My hand came to his wrist. I gently tugged it off of my throat and pulled back. As I did, his eyes flew open, “what’s happened? Are you okay? Did I- oh, Daisy.”

I slid a hand down his torso, dipped my finger into the line of his sweatpants. He cut himself off as I sunk my teeth into his collarbone.

He wasn’t wearing any boxers.

I grinned up at him. “Sneaky.”

Oliver touched my wrist softly, “you don’t have to- Daisy.”

I had drug my nails down the length of him.

Jay kept a hand at the back of my head, pulling at my hair and shoving my throat down on his dick.

Oliver put a pillow on the floor so my knees wouldn’t hurt afterwards.

Jay was silent the entire time. No praise, no gratitude. No guidance nor connection.

Oliver spoke my name so gently. He touched my face and made me keep my eyes on his, even when he tossed his head back in pleasure. He pulled my hair up into a hair tie as more and more pieces fell out of the bun I’d worn to bed.

“That’s so good, Daisy.”

“You’re so pretty, darling. So pretty with my cock in your mouth.”

“Oh, darling, oh, darling. Thank you, darling. You are wonderful. Doing such a good job, Daisy.”

“Such a good girl taking my cock in your mouth like a good girl.”

When he came, Jay aimed for my face. Then he took himself into the bathroom to shower. I climbed up off the floor and shimmied back into my top. I used his t-shirt as a towel before tossing it towards the laundry basket by the front door.

I washed my face in the kitchen sink, made up a glass of hot tea. He took so goddamn long in the shower.

I took my mug over to the window and ensured nothing had gotten dirty. As I did, I heard a text message notify my phone back in the room. I went to turn to go grab it when I noticed his cigarette was still burning. So, I picked it up to snuff the flame. Whoever it was had sent me 4 more texts.

Hands full, mind busy with the fleeting images of Oliver, I didn’t remember to set down the cigarette. I simply carried it as I picked up my phone and came back out to the window seat. I sat, took a sip of tea, then put it on the ledge beside the ashtray.

The cigarette smoke lulled past my face as I read the messages from my group chat with Cyrus and Adam.

Cy- finished up this demo. Don’t know if u remember when we sent u the rough draft a few months ago.

Adam- it’s the gethsemane one. So fire.

Cy- o yea!

Adam- you’ll love it daz. Listen soon xxx

Adam- and no vocals on this one either. Don’t worry

I laughed at their incessant texts. They were so big-brother coded.

I grabbed my headphones off the coffee table really quickly before clicking on the demo. It loaded up soon enough and a soft, somewhat familiar piano chord began ringing in my ears.

It went through barely a measure of music before someone took a deep breath and began singing.

I jumped up, dropping the cigarette I’d forgotten was still in between my fingers. My headphones popped out of my ears, so the song at least stopped as I scrambled for the fallen stick of fire.

It had burned a small hole in my moms pillow already and flitted ashes around the window seat. I cursed and quickly danced around the kitchen for the hand held vacuum. Once the mess was cleaned, the cigarette put out, smoke fleeting past my senses, I was able to process which pillow had been marred.

It wasn’t anything special, just a red puff with gold embroidery. I smiled sadly, at first, until I turned and saw a blackened hole on the back. And another. Three.

Chuckling, I shook my head. I imagined my mom here, all those years ago, probably in the same spot as me. Probably jumping at the thought of some guy.

The connection to my maternal figure lifted something in my chest. Something revelrous, like dead bones being brought back to life.

I was capable of listening to this song without feeling like the world was going to explode. The tightness in my chest? The tears I could feel welling already behind my eyes? The bittersweet goosebumps on my skin? They were just emotions. I could handle emotions.

I shrugged a hoodie atop my pjs, pocketing my phone, earbuds, and the cigarettes.

Knocking on the bathroom door, I shouted, “I’m going downstairs for a minute. Holler if you need me.”

“K,” Jay murmured, voice washed out from the sound of the water gushing around him.

I flitted down the steps of the building that led into the flower shop. Things were starting to look a little bit better. Not the best, no, but there was no longer mold eating away at the floorboards.

I sat on mom’s stool, the legs smeared with paint and Sam and I’s heights in sharpie before we’d gotten too tall. The seat was torn up, dented, uncomfortable.

But, I sat down, content enough to die here within this song.

Hearing Oliver sing Emergence had hurt. But those lyrics didn’t resonate with me.

These, however— holy fuck.

I stuck my hands into my pockets as the song continued. My fingers fumbled around a cigarette, accidentally. I pulled it out and ran it across the top of my lips. Then I eyed it suspiciously, eyes squinting.

I was taking a puff before I realized what I was doing.

At first, I coughed terribly. I had to hold onto the counter in fear that my life was going to give out. My lungs ached.

And then, I was able to focus on the sweet burn of the nicotine in my chest, heavy on my lips.

I smoked the entire thing before the song was over.

Before I knew it, it was the night before everybody was coming to visit. They’d be here around noon. I offered to pick them up, but Sam didn’t want me to have to face Oliver just yet. He wanted it to be on my terms, when I was ready to do so.

After listening to Gethsemane about five billion times, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to. At the same time, I craved him like I was starting to crave cigarettes.

I had become a smoker.

I wasn’t too happy about it, but I was maintaining the addiction pretty well. One a day. Usually, at the end of the day, when I’d escape from the apartment and go down to the flower shop to listen to Gethsemane or Emergence or replay all of their old songs.

It was funny- I had the opportunity to listen to this music everyday, all day, for a good four months, and I discarded the idea so often. I regretted it now, now that all I had left of Oliver was his voice. His lyrics, the faint memories of him.

I shook my shoulders of the thought, of the taste of cigarette on my tongue, and put the light out in my mom’s old ashtray. I needed to get to bed before everyone would be getting here. Unfortunately, Jay had been staying over more and more, so to get into bed meant nudging him over and sacrificing the blankets for the sake of my corner of the mattress.

Evie looked at me from the doorway as I struggled to get into bed. Her eyes were judgemental, more than any regular cats were, predispositionally. Flipping her off, I finally got into my spot. I sighed, exhausted from another day of getting the shop figured out, flipping the furniture we'd be using, meeting with the bank about the loan, ready to sleep.

As soon as I got comfortable, shut my eyes, Jay flipped around and pressed up against my back. I rolled my eyes, already overheating and just accepted that I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.

And that’s what happened. When I did fall asleep, I would gasp back away from some nightmare. I didn’t remember much about it, but I knew it involved Oliver.

I think it was some stupid text message from him, interrupting me in a moment like this one, where I’d finally maybe moved on a bit more than I ever thought possible and he decided to come back around.

I knew it was because of the cigarettes I’d been smoking, because of the music and the fact that he’d be here.

Today.

It was 10 am when Jay started stirring and I woke up from the last nightmare.

(Oliver, rain, a love confession, a twist of the knife.)

I groaned at the sunlight peeking into the room. Jay thought it was cute and twisted me around to face him.

“Morning, sexy,” he planted a wet kiss on my neck.

I wanted out of his grip, but when I went to move away, to continue to wrestle myself awake, he held tighter.

“Oh, you’re not getting away that easily,” he proceeded to bite down on my skin, getting me in all the places where he knew my body would react.

I gave in, hoping that this would maybe erase the pictures of Oliver racing through my memory.

The anger was growing. The anger at myself, for giving into the cravings, for feeding my addiction to the past. The anger at Jay for not filling the space the way I needed him to. There really wasn’t even anything wrong with him- but he wasn’t Oliver.

Jay pushed my shirt down, cupped my breast, rolled my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. My back arched into his touch, my need for satisfaction, distraction giving in.

He was just wrong enough in all the right places that I hated him. But I loved this feeling, that someone wanted me for who I was now. Just for the sake of me being Daisy.

I didn’t have to be cool, I didn’t have to put bandaids onto Jay’s knees or his past as some excuse.

We just were. That was enough for right now.

Jay grabbed my hair, harsh. He barely touched my legs before moving us around, pushing his boxers away, pulling my hand down there. He kissed my neck, “Tell me it feels good, baby. Tell me.”

I missed Oliver.

I didn’t respond, flashes of Oliver taking over my consciousness again.

“I don’t want to hurt you, darling,” he touched my face gently, laying my head down on his mattress.

“I don’t care if you do, Oliver.”

“I do,” he chuckled sadly. “You’re too precious…too…” he lay a hand flat on my stomach, dragging it down my thighs to push my legs open slightly, “too soft. So soft.”

His lips trailed from my knee to my upper thighs. “God, you’re so soft, darling.”

Jay had gotten restless, assuming I needed more encouragement to give him a blow job. So he jabbed two fingers between my legs.

I grabbed his hair in between my fingers, forcing his eyes to mine, “Oliver, I’m begging you. Hurt me, please. Please.”

He smirked, slow, hesitating, “Maybe just a bit.”

“Oh, Oliver!” I forced myself to cum, lost, caught up in my head.

Jay was off of me quicker than I could open my eyes. “Who the fuck is Oliver?”

I shot up from the bed, pulling my shirt down, shaking my head to clear my consciousness. Who ever post nut clarity was good for you had never said the wrong name as they were cumming.

But I didn’t think I had. I didn’t say Oliver’s name, did I? There was no way I said his name.

I didn’t…I didn’t feel that way for him.

No, no. I didn’t. No.

Fuck him. Fuck Oliver.

Fuck…FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

“You said Oliver. Who. The. Fuck. Is. Oliver?!” Jay stepped closer, his voice raising just enough in volume to send me into fight or flight.

And, sadly, I would always fight for someone to stay.

“Oh, Jay, I didnt…” he was putting in his clothes, hastily, like he was trying to run away from me. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t- I’m sorry! Okay? I didn’t mean to!”

I went to grab his hand, but he ripped it from mine.

“Fuck you, Daisy. Fuck you and fuck whoever the fuck Oliver is.”

Well, I couldn’t say I disagreed with that sentiment.

I followed him out into the living room, watching, scared as he gathered up his things. “No, no, please don’t go. Jay, please!”

I couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t do this alone. I was…

I didn’t want to be alone. I needed this. I needed this reward system- be alone for a couple days, then I’d get to be around somebody who wanted me. I didn’t have to continue to convince myself that I was happy being here, being back home. I could just pretend. Jay helped me pretend.

Jay headed through the kitchen to the door. I caught up, grabbed onto his wrist. He ripped away from me again, twisting around to shout into my face. “I’m leaving, Daisy. This is…this is fucking patheitc. I deserve better than this.

He was probably right. He was…he was kind, even if he was messy. Polite, even if he forgot to buy us breakfast. A good person despite the cigarette ash and the harshness of his edges. He was…

He was me, one year ago.

God, the fucking universe was playing tricks on me.

I grabbed my hands, wringing out the nerves. I fucked up. I fucked this up. I could’ve had…could’ve had something good, but I was too concerned with fucking Oliver and the stupid shit he did to me a whole entire fucking year ago. God.

I was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. FUCK.

“Please, please don’t leave. Please, I’m really sorry. I-“ I reached out again.

Jay turned away from me, chest heaving, shoulders shaking. I calmed my words, lowered my volume. Waited a moment. Hoped the pregnant space would lessen the blow, could bring him back to me.

He looked back at me, spittle on his lips from his angry he was, “Fuck you, Daisy.”

He left the door open as he stormed away. I listened as he pounded down the steps, then as his feet paused. An interruption, an, “Excuse me.”

Footsteps ascended the stairs, a couple pairs.

Sam was entering my front door. Ronnie, Max and Sam. Worry on their faces. A softness in Sam’s tone as he approached me, arms out as if to provide a soft landing for my fall.

“Daz? What’s going on? You okay?”

I fell into my brother.

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