Chapter Thirty-Three Daisy
Chapter Thirty-Three
Daisy
Daisy was clinging to Dan’s arm in a desperate attempt to remain upright, her legs shaking beneath her dress as they crossed
the hotel reception and prepared to walk down the aisle.
What the fuck had just happened back in her room? The timing of it was so typically Tom in a way that made Daisy dizzy, but
she couldn’t think about that now. She absolutely couldn’t focus on the fact that Tom was—what was it he’d said?—completely
and utterly in love with her. That he was no longer with Sophie.
Clara had been hissing at Daisy as she walked behind her. “Psssst,” she whispered, tugging gently at the back of Daisy dress,
trying desperately to get her to turn around.
Daisy couldn’t turn around. If she so much as met Clara’s eye, then everything would fall apart, let alone if she repeated
Tom’s words out loud.
She bit down hard on her lip, trying to stop his speech from filling her head, but she couldn’t do it. As she walked slowly
toward Zack, her eyes fixed on his shoes that didn’t seem to match his trousers, she thought of Tom.
She’d always felt as though Tom got her—really got her—but she hadn’t prepared herself for the level of understanding he had.
And he was in love with her not in spite of those things, but because of those things.
All the things that Daisy hated about herself or doubted about herself, Tom had listed as reasons why he
loved her. Reasons why she was someone worth loving. There wasn’t anything he wanted to change. Wasn’t that all she’d wanted
to hear from someone? Wasn’t that, in fact, why she had been jealous of Sophie? Because Daisy could admit it now. She was
fiercely jealous of Sophie for being loved by Tom. Tom, who saw the small good things in people they couldn’t see in themselves.
Who really listened. Who would move to stand beside a stranger to protect them, without second-guessing it. Who would answer,
earnestly, “I’m Tom” when someone asked him who the fuck he thought he was. Beautiful, unique, talented, heartbreaking Tom.
She couldn’t help it. Daisy lifted her head from Zack’s shoes and instead of meeting the face of her fiancé, she moved her
gaze right by him until her eyes landed on the man standing under the arch of flowers, a camera pressed to his face as his
index finger went down repeatedly on the shutter. She stared right into the lens as she kept walking and eventually Tom lowered
his camera for a second, his pale blue eyes fixed on Daisy’s face, his lips slightly parted. He lifted one hand to his head,
moving it through his hair so that all the effort he’d gone to in order to make it smart was undone. It was sticking up in
places and Daisy wanted to reach her hand out into it, run her fingers through it, just to see what it felt like.
He looked right at her and she stared back at him, unable to draw her attention from his face. Could it really be possible
that this man loved her? It was, because he had told her so, and she trusted his words. She trusted him more than anyone.
What was she doing? Daisy pulled her gaze from Tom and looked across to Zack who was smiling as he watched her walk toward him, his hands in his pockets, as though this were some casual outing as opposed to his wedding day.
There was a movement behind him and she was drawn, almost immediately, to the doves that sat in the cage.
One of them flapped its wings, hopping up and down on the bar before resting again.
Daisy hadn’t wanted the doves. She had read that there were rumors wedding doves were kept in cages until the day of their
release. Zack had booked them anyway, because apparently he didn’t mind things being caged. Had called her his little bird,
even, and now she knew why. All those years ago, when he admitted his feelings for her, he had caged her. He’d kept her caged
since. Maybe she had caged him too, in a way. They’d united under such terrible circumstances that it was easier to hold on
to each other, but turning back to him now, Daisy could finally feel clarity forming in her mind, as though she had just dived
into the pool and felt the cold water against her face. It wasn’t him she wanted. She wasn’t sure it ever was. It was just
the first time she’d ever felt understood by someone . . . but then she met Tom.
She met Tom, and she realized there were different ways of understanding people, and Tom understood her in a way no one else
did. In the way she truly wanted.
Clara had told her she had to trust herself. She hadn’t done it when she should have, back when Zack proposed and everything
in Daisy had said, “No thank you,” she should have listened. She didn’t know how to then, but she did now. Her body started
buzzing with adrenaline, her arms and legs fizzing as one word started screaming at her on repeat. One word, in a voice she
finally recognized. Her own.
Run.
Daisy slowed and tugged at Dan’s arm, and he glanced down at her, tilting his head toward her.
“You okay?” he mouthed.
Daisy shook her head, slowly.
He sighed, but she saw a slight smile on his face. He picked her hand up off his arm and squeezed it in his, and she pulled
it away. Before any logical part of her could tell her to stop, she was running toward Zack. Zack, who was now half smiling
because she was picking up speed, and half not, because she was picking up speed.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she passed him, reaching for the cage behind him and opening the door so the doves burst out and
up into the sky, wings flapping, faces toward the clouds. Be free. Be happy and free.
There was a gasp from the congregation and a single clap that rang out into the air, everyone unsure whether it was part of
the ceremony or not.
“What’s—” Zack started to say in a voice filled with nervous laughter, but Daisy was already moving toward Tom whose camera
was back at his face, the cord of it around his neck.
She reached him, pushing the camera down to his chest as she grabbed for his other hand, the same way she had all those months
ago at the bus stop. Looking her directly in the eye, he nodded once and she pulled at his fingers before she turned away
from the altar, running.
She felt Tom’s grip tighten around her hand as they burst past Dan and then Clara, still waiting in the aisle, mouths wide
open as they watched it all unfold.
“Yes, girl!” Clara whispered loudly after them, but Daisy could only just hear it as mumbles erupted from the wedding guests
behind them, and nothing from Zack at all.
She flung open the double doors that opened up into the garden and ran back across the reception of the hotel, her shoes clattering loudly against the tiles as she moved toward the automatic doors, charging at them and bursting out onto Frith Street.
It was already a dusky light outside as Daisy turned left, still pulling Tom who quickly fell into step beside her, his hand clasping hers tight.
“Daisy . . .” he started, but everything in her told her to keep running, as far as she could, and so she did. The moment
she began to move, she couldn’t stop. Her feet, until that very moment in life entirely useless and unresponsive to any suggestion
of a run, took off as though it were the first time they’d ever been asked. She pushed through crowds gathered near Soho Square,
and up toward Tottenham Court Road. It wasn’t easy, to start with. The cream Kurt Geiger heels had clearly never been meant
to move at more than an elegant gliding pace before, but they committed with the little they had, sharp heels cracking against
the pavement.
Once they were far enough away from the hotel, Daisy slowed, reaching down to her feet one by one and tearing the shoes off,
throwing them behind her. She saw Tom beside her, still running, still holding onto her hand as he shook his head and started
to laugh, shoulders bouncing and eyes glistening as his shirt spread open at the collar, the top two buttons undone. People
everywhere were pulling out their phones, filming and taking photos as they cut up Rathbone Place, hand in hand.
Daisy started laughing too then, flinging her head upward toward the sky, so sure, for a second, that she saw the doves up
there, finally free, before she noticed the gray of the clouds. The rain drops that started falling.
They reached the corner beyond Charlotte Street, turning right and onto a side street close to Daisy’s work as the rain began
to fall harder. She slowed, Tom changing his pace to match hers.
Daisy’s laugh morphed into more of a sob and Tom pulled her into him, stopping in the middle of the pavement to hold her against
his heaving chest as he smoothed her hair.
Daisy felt heavy droplets of rain against her neck, sliding down beneath her dress and she pulled away to see Tom’s shirt was soaked both from rain and her tears, its color changed as it clung tightly to his chest, his skin visible beneath it.
She looked up, smiling, into his face, his hand still resting in hers.
He looked behind him, pulling them both into the doorway that was slightly sheltered.
“So much rain . . .” Daisy started singing to the tune of Alanis Morissette, her eyes filling with tears.
“On your non-wedding day,” Tom sung back gently, resting his head against hers.
Her throat was thick as she took in his expression. His eyes blazing, staring at her in wonder, his lips parted. She was sure
there were cars passing behind them and people walking on the same pavement, but everything but the two of them was a distant
hum, barely recognizable in the background.
“Say it again,” she said, her voice soft as he continued to stare down at her, amusement now dancing in his eyes, his wet
hair mussed by the rain.
“Which part?”
“All of it,” she said. “All of it, now that I’m no longer about to get married to another man. I want to hear it. I want to
really, really hear it.”
His eyes sparkled, lit up under the little light above their heads. “You always do,” he said. “You always want to hear what
I have to say.”
It was true. Even when it had shocked or pained her, she had held on to every word.
She nodded. “I do,” she said, looking down and catching sight of her body pressed against his.
“And that’s the only time I’ll be saying those two words while in this dress,” she added, and they both started laughing again, chests shaking as Tom reached up and pushed a strand of hair away from Daisy’s face, tucking it behind her ear, his thumb resting against her cheek as his other hand made its way onto her waist, pulling her closer to him.
“I am completely and utterly in love with you,” he said, staring straight into her eyes as a lump formed in Daisy’s throat,
her heartbeat pounding against her chest. “I could see you every day or not at all. It doesn’t seem to matter. You’re just . . .”
Daisy couldn’t wait any longer. She reached up for his face, one hand moving to rest at the back of his head, her fingers
lacing into his hair as she pulled him down toward her, lips parting as he tipped his head to meet her.
Warmth flooded through her body as Tom rested his lips gently on hers, kissing her softly, pressing himself into her before
drawing slowly away. “You’re in me, Daisy, all the time,” he whispered, and then he leaned back in, parting her lips with
his as his hand slid upward from her waist, brushing the side of her breast, held tightly in place by her wedding dress. His
breath was hot against her.
“Your words. Your gentle way,” he muttered, his voice hoarse and his breathing heavy, as she pushed him against the wall,
moving his camera to the side of him so she could press the entirety of her body against his, her tongue moving rhythmically
with his as every part of her felt as though it were beating. Pulsating. Throbbing.
“Your wide eyes . . .”
“Let’s get the bus.” Daisy laughed, pulling away and nodding in the direction of Goodge Street. “Let’s get the day version
of our bus. To your place. To . . .”
Tom stopped, his gaze seeming to reach right into the depths of her. Her breath was coming in short sharp bursts, and all
she wanted was to rip her dress off. For Tom to rip her dress off and remove all signs of the day she was meant to have had.
A day that didn’t involve him or how much she—
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she added breathlessly.
“What?”
“I didn’t say it. I just thought this—” she moved her hand between them “—made it obvious but in case you needed to hear it,
Tom Riley, I am completely and utterly in love with you too.”
The biggest smile broke out across his face as he reached for hers with both hands, kissing her again, his lips moving against
hers, his fingers lacing into her hair, tugging gently.
“The bus . . .” Tom reached down for her hand and started pulling her away from the street, the laughter building up inside
them again, erupting around them as they turned back down the street and toward the 73.