BILLY: We were at Teddy’s pool house. Daisy was wearing a black dress with the thin straps. What are those called?
We were working on a song called “For You.” We didn’t have much at first but it was about me getting sober for Camila. I mean, I never expressly stated that, because I knew Daisy would give me a hard time that I was writing about Camila. So I said it was about being willing to give up something for someone else.
Daisy had reminded me we had wanted to write something a bit harder and I had said we could do that later. Because I really liked this idea. I might have said, “This one has really been on my mind.”
DAISY: It was only about eleven in the morning but I was buzzed already. Billy was playing a song on the keyboard and I sat next to him. He was showing me the notes, I was playing a few with him. We were trying to figure out the right key. The few lines Billy had written already…I remember them exactly. “Nothing I wouldn’t do/to go back to the past and wait for you.” He sang that, sitting right next to me.
BILLY: Daisy put her hand on mine, to stop me from playing. I looked at her and she said, “I like writing with you.”
And I said, “I like writing with you, too.”
And then I said something I shouldn’t have said.
DAISY: He said, “I like a lot about you.”
BILLY: Daisy smiled when I said it, she lit up. This wide smile and this girlish laugh and I could see her eyes started to water just the littlest bit. Or maybe I was imagining it. I don’t know. It…it feels good to make Daisy smile. It’s…[pauses] I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.
DAISY: I like a lot about you.
BILLY: She was dangerous. And I knew that. But I don’t think I could recognize that the safer she felt to me, the more dangerous she was.
DAISY: Before I even really knew what I was doing, I leaned in to kiss him. I was so close to him I could feel his breath. And when I opened my eyes, his were closed. And I thought, This makes sense. It made sense in this deeply gratifying way.
BILLY: I lost myself, I think. For a moment, at least.
DAISY: My lips barely grazed his. I could feel them only in the sense that I was aware of having almost felt them. But then he pulled back.
Billy looked at me. And his eyes were so kind when he said it.
He said, “I can’t.”
My heart dropped in my chest. I don’t mean that figuratively. I could actually feel it sinking in my chest.
BILLY: I shudder thinking about it. About that time. How I could have made one small mistake that would have thrown my whole life away.
DAISY: After he turned me down, he sort of looked back at the keys, and I could tell he was trying to pretend that what had just happened hadn’t just happened. Probably for my sake. Although, I think a lot for his sake, too. It was excruciating. This lie he was trying to tell us both. I’d much prefer someone screaming at me than tensing up and staying still.
BILLY: When Graham and I were kids, our mom used to take us to this community pool during the summer. And this one time, Graham was sitting on the edge of the pool, toward the deep end. And this was before he could swim.
And I stood there next to him, and my brain went, I could push him in. And that terrified the hell out of me. I didn’t want to push him in. I would never push him in but…it scared me that the only thing between this moment of calm and the biggest tragedy of my life was me choosing not to do it. That really tripped me out, that everyone’s life was that precarious. That there wasn’t some all-knowing mechanism in place that stopped things that shouldn’t happen from happening.
That’s something that had always scared me.
And that’s how it felt being around Daisy Jones.
DAISY: I said to him, “I should go.”
And he said, “Daisy, it’s okay.”
BILLY: We both just wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. I desperately hoped that one of us would stand up and walk away.
DAISY: I grabbed my coat and I grabbed my keys and I said, “I’m really sorry.” And I left.
BILLY: Finally, I had to be the one to go. I told Daisy we’d pick it back up later in the week and I got in my car and I drove home to Camila.
She said, “You’re home early.”
And I said, “I wanted to be with you.”
DAISY: I drove to the beach. I don’t know why. I just had to drive somewhere, so I drove until the road ended. I drove until I hit the sand.
I parked my car and I was feeling so ashamed and so embarrassed and so stupid and so alone and lonely and pathetic and dirty and awful. And then, I got really mad.
I got mad at everything about him. That he’d pulled away, that he’d made me embarrassed, that he didn’t feel the way I wanted him to feel. Or, maybe it was that I suspected he did feel that way and he wasn’t admitting it. But any way you wanted to spin it, I was angry. It wasn’t rational. I mean, what ever really is? But as irrational as it was, I was livid. I was furious. There was rage in my chest.
We are talking about probably the first man in my life who really saw me, who ever really understood me, who had so much in common with me…and he still didn’t love me.
When you find that rare person who really knows who you are and they still don’t love you…
I was burning.
BILLY: It was early enough in the day, I looked at Camila and I said, “What if we get in the car and drive somewhere?”
Camila said, “Where?”
I turned to Julia and I said, “If you could do anything right now, what would you do?”
And she didn’t hesitate. She screamed, “Disneyland!” So we packed up the car and drove the kids to Disneyland.
DAISY: My car was parked along the PCH and I heard this line in my head. Regret me.
All I had in my car to use as paper was the back of my registration and a gas station napkin. And I searched high and low for something to write with. There was nothing in the door compartment. Nothing in the glove box. I got out of the car and I searched under the seats and under the passenger’s seat was a stick of eyeliner.
I started writing. Lightning fast, maybe ten minutes. Beginning to end I had a song.
BILLY: I was watching Julia in the teacups with Camila and I’m watching them go around and around. And the twins are asleep in the stroller. And I’m trying to put the morning out of my head. But I’m losing my mind because…well, it was complicated, obviously.
And then, you know what I realized? It wasn’t very important. How I felt about Daisy. History is what you did, not what you almost did, not what you thought about doing. And I was proud of what I did.