Must Read AISY:
Daisy Extracted Jones & from: The Six By Taylor Jenkins Reid Published by: Penguin Random House Available for R270 at all leading bookstores © Taylor Jenkins Reid 2018 Pages 213 - 214
DDid Billy’s actions really warrant the song? Probably not. I mean, no. They didn’t. But that’s the thing. Art doesn’t owe anything to anyone. Songs are about how it felt, not the facts. Self-expression is about what it feels to live, not whether you had the right to claim any emotion at any time. Did I have a right to be mad at him? Did he do anything wrong? Who cares! Who cares? I hurt. So I wrote about it.
BILLY: We left Disneyland really late. I mean, they were shutting down the park.
Julia fell asleep on the way home. The twins had been asleep for a while. As we were driving back up the 405, I put KRLA on low volume and Camila put her feet up on the dashboard and her head on my shoulder. It felt so good, her head on my shoulder. I held my back straight and didn’t move an inch, just so she’d keep it there.
There was this unspoken thing between Camila and I back then.
I mean, she knew Daisy was… She knew that things were… [pauses] I guess what I’m saying is that in some marriages you don’t need to say everything you feel.
I think saying everything that you think and feel… well, some people are like that. Camila and I weren’t. With Camila and I, it was much more… we both trusted each other to handle the details.
I’m trying to think of how to explain it. Because when I say it now, it seems crazy that Camila and I never discussed the fact that I… It seems crazy that Camila and I didn’t have this open conversation about Daisy. Because clearly, she was a big factor in our lives.
I know it might seem like maybe it was a lack of trust. That either I didn’t trust her to know just what was going on with Daisy or that she didn’t trust me enough to have been able to handle that. But it’s really the opposite.
Right around this same time – give or take a few years, I can’t remember – Camila got a call from this guy from her high school. Some guy that was on the baseball team and took her to the prom and all that. I think his name was Greg Egan or Gary Egan? Something like that.
She said to me, “I’m gonna go get lunch with Gary Egan.” And I said, “Okay.” And she went and got lunch with him and she was gone for four hours. No one eats lunch for four hours.
When she got back, she gave me a kiss and she, you know, started doing the laundry or something and I said, “How was your lunch with Greg Egan?” And she said, “Fine.” And that’s all she said.
In that moment, I knew that what happened between her and Gary Egan – whether she still felt anything for him, how he felt about her, anything that might have taken place – all of that wasn’t my business. It wasn’t anything she wanted to share. That was a singular moment for her and it had nothing to do with me.
I’m not saying that I didn’t care. I cared a lot. I’m saying that when you really love someone, sometimes the things they need may hurt you, and some people are worth hurting for.