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*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:･ﾟ✧
POV :Jay Gatsby’s
The light from my mansion spilled out onto the garden, illuminating the figures that flitted about the lawn like shadows. Music played, people laughed, and yet, all I could focus on was the same thing I always focused on: Daisy. She was my dream, my obsession, my unreachable bright light. Tonight, she was supposed to come. I could already imagine her, glowing in the soft light, her laughter like chimes in the wind.
But as the minutes stretched into hours, a familiar sense of disappointment gnawed at me. Daisy never arrived. She had promised me she would, but like so many promises she had made in the past, it felt hollow.
I didn’t know how long I stood at the edge of the balcony, watching the shadows dance in the distance, waiting for the moment when she would walk through the door, her eyes locking with mine. But the door never opened. Instead, a figure emerged from the crowd, one that was always present at my parties but had never quite belonged to the world I built.
Nick Carraway.
Nick... He wasn’t like the others. He didn’t laugh too loudly or drink too much. He didn’t look at me the way most people did, as if I were just a symbol of extravagance and ambition. Nick saw something else in me, something I hadn’t quite figured out myself.
He wasn’t the focus of my attention, of course. That was still Daisy. But tonight, there was a shift. Something in the way Nick’s steady gaze met mine as he approached made the space between us seem less like an ocean, more like a crack in a window—small, fragile, but there.
“Is she here yet?” Nick asked, his voice calm, as though he could see through the thin veil of my hope.
I shook my head, trying to mask the disappointment in my chest. “She’ll be here. She always is.” My words were forced, a hollow shell of optimism.
Nick stood beside me, looking out at the horizon. “You’ve been waiting for her a long time, Jay. What if she’s never going to come?”
His question lingered in the air, too heavy for me to ignore. I didn’t want to entertain it, but I couldn’t help but let the doubt seep in. My whole life, every moment, every choice had been to bring Daisy back to me. And now Nick... Nick was here, unspoken in his presence, his gaze cutting through me in a way that Daisy never had.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “But I have to believe she will. I have to.”
Nick didn’t answer right away. He just looked at me, his eyes steady, unblinking, as though seeing me in a way no one else did. I could feel my pulse quicken under his gaze. Why did it feel different when he looked at me? Why did it make something stir inside me, something I had never felt before?
And then it hit me—a realization that struck like lightning, sharp and terrifying. I was starting to care about Nick. I was starting to *want* him in a way that wasn’t just casual admiration. It was deeper. It was something that went beyond the party, beyond the wealth and the fame. It was a feeling that I couldn’t name, and that terrified me more than anything.
But Daisy… Daisy was still the goal. I couldn’t lose sight of her. I couldn’t.
*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:
PoV : Nick Carraway’s
The music, the laughter, the clinking of glasses—it all faded into the background as I stood next to Jay on the balcony. He was always so composed, so full of grand ideas and dreams that seemed to shine like the gold he surrounded himself with. But tonight, he looked different. There was a weariness in his eyes, a hollowness that was hard to ignore.
And then there was Daisy.
I had never understood Jay’s obsession with her, not entirely. She was beautiful, sure, but she was a world away from him. A world that didn’t even seem to acknowledge the person Jay had become, a person he thought he could win back. I saw it in the way he spoke of her, with such fervor, such blind belief that she was the answer to everything.
But tonight, something had shifted. It wasn’t just the way he was gazing into the distance, waiting for her to walk through the door. No, it was something else. Something subtle in the way his eyes moved when he looked at me.
I didn’t want to believe it at first. I told myself it was my imagination, or maybe the fact that we had spent so much time together that I was just becoming too familiar with him. But no, there was something more there. I could feel it—the way he lingered just a second too long when we spoke, the way he seemed to search my face, as though trying to find something he couldn’t express in words.
“Jay,” I said softly, breaking the silence between us. “You don’t have to wait for her anymore.”
He turned to me, his face clouded with confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve built this whole life for her,” I continued, my voice steady but my heart racing. “But you’re not looking at what’s in front of you. You’ve got a life, Jay, and it’s full of people who care about you.”
He shook his head, as if brushing away the suggestion. “Nick, you don’t understand. Daisy is the one. She always has been.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. The man in front of me—this brilliant, tortured man—was so lost in his dream that he couldn’t see what was real. What was right in front of him.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them. “Maybe it’s not her. Maybe it never was.”
He blinked, his confusion deepening. “What do you mean, Nick?”
I took a deep breath, but the words felt like they were stuck in my throat. What was I doing? What was I saying? I didn’t know how to untangle this mess of emotions, this strange pull I felt toward him, the way my chest tightened when he smiled at me or looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
“I think...” I paused, but the words refused to come.
He stepped closer, his face a little too close, and I could feel his breath on my skin. My heart was pounding. “What, Nick? Tell me.”
I should have stopped. I should have said nothing. But I couldn’t.
“I think I’ve been looking at you, too.” The words tumbled out of me before I could hold them back.
Jay stared at me, his face unreadable. “What are you saying?”
I didn’t know how to fix this. I didn’t know how to correct the mistake I had made, how to undo the way I had allowed myself to care about him in a way that was more than just admiration or friendship. He was still chasing a dream, one that had no room for me in it.
But as I stood there, my words hanging between us like a confession, I realized something: I had fallen for him, too. And somehow, amidst all the glitz and glamour of his world, it was the one thing he never saw coming.
*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧(=✪ ᆺ ✪=)*:･ﾟ✧
Gatsby turned away first, his face a mask again, as if he had already buried the words I had just spoken under layers of unspoken dreams.
"I don't know what to say," he murmured, his voice heavy. "I don’t know how to fix this, Nick."
There was nothing to say. We had both made our mistakes—mine being that I had let myself fall for him when I knew he would never be mine.
And as the night stretched on, with the music still echoing in the distance, I realized that some dreams, no matter how much we try to reshape them, are never meant to come true.