“I know.”
Clara pulled herself up slightly, frowning. “Babe. Just get in the pool if you want to get in it. It is honestly that simple. Life is honestly that simple.” She fixed her eyes on Daisy, watching in amusement as realization must have washed across Daisy’s face.
Why did she find it so difficult to act on things she wanted?Wasn’t that the whole point of this weekend? To take the first step out of her comfort zone, even if that was to somewhere literally more comfortable than she was used to?
“You’re right,” Daisy said, jumping off her sun lounger.
“Yeah, girl!” Clara shouted as Daisy walked slowly to the edge of the pool and rolled her shoulders back, staring at the ripples one more time before she took the deepest breath she could and dived in, breaking the surface of the water and sinking beneath it, feeling the hit of cold against her face. She stayed under as long as she could, taking in how the world felt from beneath the surface. Out of nowhere a rush filled her body, reaching her lungs. It was anger, Daisy realized. Anger at herself and her life and everything she was putting up with. Frustration that she wasn’t even able to recognize what she wanted because her own voice inside her own brain was so unfamiliar to her. She was so used to hearing someone else’s. She was so used to hearing Zack’s.
Daisy opened her mouth and the scream came out, filling the ripples around her. It felt different, under there. Almost as though it was barely happening at all, but she could feel it tearing through her, clutching at the muscles in her neck. It was coming from the very depths of her, and she just let it keep coming until she was completely out of breath.
When she burst out at the other end, her heart was pounding with how alive she felt. It was nearly addictive, that rush that filled her from moving in water. She let out a laugh, throwing her head back, grateful that there was no one around but Clara to witness her moment of... madness? Or sanity? Maybe the two were more closely linked than she’d first thought.
Daisy swam back and forth, first on her front and then on her back, soaking up the feeling of calm that now filled her. For one moment it was as though she recognized her own voice, her own wants and needs. What if she never recognized thatvoice again? If she wouldn’t know it when it spoke to her? But somehow, out of nowhere, Virginia Woolf assured her that she would. From all the times she had readOrlando, she hadn’t realized how many of the quotes had stuck in her head, and she heard one now, inside her.
“For it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.”
“Feels good, right?” Clara shouted, and Daisy turned to see her standing at the edge of the pool. She jumped in rather than diving, creating a huge eruption of water around her.
“Yes, but I don’t quite get why,” Daisy said once Clara had reached her, lying on her back and floating in the water.
“Because, my friend, you just acted on something you wanted. It starts with something small, like jumping in a pool, but one day, maybe, you’ll learn to do it for all sorts of things.”
Daisy kicked her legs and swam towards the edge. “How do you know this stuff?” she asked.
“I think the question we should be asking,” Clara said. “Is how do younotknow this stuff?”
Clara had taken it as a personal challenge for the rest of the weekend. She would notice when Daisy went along with what she wanted and would call her out on it, again and again.
“Wait,” she’d say. “Do youwantto share an antipasti board, or are you just saying that becauseIwant to?”
Daisy would frown. “I don’t think Idowant an antipasti board,” she’d say and Clara would high-five her, laughing.
“I think I might go for a walk in the woods,” Daisy said the next day and Clara started doing that stupid shake of hers where she pumped both fists in a sort of celebratory dance, popping her hips out from side to side.
“She’s going for a waaaaaalk,” she started chanting. “On her ooooown.”
Daisy went right up to the edge of the gardens and on into the forest that circled the golf course. She nodded to the occasional dog walker, all while marveling at herself.If Tom could see me now,she thought at one point, shaking it away.
As she turned back toward the spa, she stumbled across a sign for a bar sitting within the golf club. Before she could really question it, she turned away from the woodlands and walked in that direction instead.
The waiter greeted her and led her to a table that looked out over the grounds of the house and held her chair out for her.
“A glass of wine to start, perhaps?” he asked, smiling warmly.
Daisy opened her mouth to say “yes please” even though her brain had immediately said, “No thank you.” She paused.
“No, thank you,” she said, a moment of déjà vu looping through her. “I’ll go for a glass of champagne.”
“An excellent choice,” he said, nodding and walking away.
All of the feelings she was having were so familiar, and for a moment she couldn’t think why. Daisy stared out ahead of her and watched as the sun shone through the gaps of the trees. It was the same way her ring had caught the light in their back garden when Zack had proposed to her. When Zack had proposed and Daisy’s mouth had said, “Yes,” while her brain had said, “No thank you.” How different might her life have looked all these months later if she’d acted on her thoughts instead of just saying what she thought she was supposed to? She wondered, now, whether it had been her heart speaking instead of her brain. Whether it had known something she hadn’t realized yet.
The view was beautiful and Daisy thought about how Tom might frame it through his lens, if he were there; which part he would pick out to focus on. The dappled light, or the way some of the branches cast shadows against the grass. Maybe hewould capture her in the center of it, the trees her backdrop. And maybe, just like last time, he would capture the light in Daisy’s eyes the way only he was able to.
The waiter brought her the glass of champagne and Daisy thanked him, drinking some down. It was exactly what she wanted. Picking up the menu, she looked through it, and when he reappeared, she ordered more. Some focaccia, some crispy chicken wings and some Padrón peppers. To hell with the lunch budget. God, how simple life was when you started acknowledging your own desires. When you finally started listening to what your mind and body were telling you.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the waiter asked as he cleared Daisy’s plates away, and she paused, silently asking herself the question.
