It was just the two of us. The car was silent, except for the roars of the engine, of course. I turned to look at Daisy and I could tell she was bothered. Never had I seen that expression before from her. Throughout all of our gatherings within the past months, I could see the joy and relief in her smile. I never saw that smile while she was around Tom, and I definitely could not see it now.

I didn't see any passion in her eyes, they were empty and her gaze was still. They desired nothing except to return to normalcy. Tom has twisted her today, twisted her away from who she really values. But tomorrow, after a good night's rest, she will get out of her trance and return to her senses.

With each bump in the road, the houses went by us even faster. She shouldn't be driving right now, I tried to convince her of it. She was too fickle at the moment to stay level-headed and rational while at the helm of this vessel, not to mention her regularly poor driving abilities. I had told her:

“Maybe it's better off if I let you take a rest this ride, what do you think?”

“You've been controlling me for the whole day,” Daisy quipped, “I would like to at least have my freedom of movement.” I was hurt for a moment, and a bit embarrassed, but I quickly reminded myself that she was likely just projecting her anger with Tom onto anyone around her.

I had never seen Daisy purely angry like this before. Perhaps slightly annoyed, yes, Daisy has always been a little cynical, but that was endearing, occasionally even a little flirtatious. What had Tom said that put her over the edge? Or worse, did I put her over the edge? Had I not been protecting her throughout that whole skirmish? I know our outings won't be the same anymore; Daisy will have to choose between the two of us. I will have to wait until tomorrow to truly hear what she thinks, because she clearly is not in the right mindset currently.

We were passing through a vicious neighborhood. Oh god, was it disgusting. Grimy and dirty and hopeless. Hopeless being the most disgusting of all. Thank the lord that I never have to live in a world like that anymore.

We began to pass a car up ahead when, without notice, I saw an unintelligible body run up to our car on the left. Daisy kept her hollow gaze, not on the road, not off of it, but somewhere else entirely.

“What the-” I couldn't keep my confusion to myself. Daisy jumped at my utterance, and quickly took notice of the human obstacle approaching our path. She instinctively began to turn right, but the car we had just passed was in our way. I sent my arm over to try and guide her away from a whole different accident, but she was already a step ahead of me. My hand reached the wheel the moment the car smashed into the woman, sending vibrations through the metal capsule that protected us.

Horror filled Daisy's eyes as she began wheezing and sobbing uncontrollably. Daisy floored the gas pedal, attempting to avoid the scene where the impact was seared into our minds. I pressed down on the emergency break, drifting forwards while the unstable Daisy collapsed into my lap. I attempted to slow down and pull over, even though we were already so far away. It was difficult due to the momentum gained by the hill we had just went down.

What had just happened? What was going to happen to Daisy? Or to me? One of us was going to go to jail. If Daisy went to jail, we would be separated and she wouldn't be able to live a normal life again. But if I went to jail, we would still be separated, but Daisy would at least be able to live her life in peace.

I attempted to make a quick quip, “At least it wasn't anyone important!” This didn't help her whatsoever.

I comforted Daisy, letting her collect herself, and then we got out of the car and switched seats. I drove back down to Tom's house where we could recover and hopefully watch the aftermath from afar. Maybe we wouldn't even have to be involved with the police, who could possibly be so important in a neighborhood like that one?