Page 44 of Daisy Jones & The Six

She looked down and then back up at me and she said, “I don’t know.”

I was skeptical but she put her hands up and said, “No, really. That’s the truth. I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”

I said, “Don’t you think that’s a problem?”

She said, “It’s my turn, isn’t it?”

DAISY:I said, “What makes Camila so great that you can’t write anything that isn’t about her?”

He was quiet for a really long time.

I said, “C’mon, now, you made me answer. You can’t weasel out of it.”

He said, “Would you wait a minute? I’m not trying to weasel out of anything. I’m trying to think about my answer.”

After another minute or two, he said, “I don’t think I am the person Camila believes I am. But I want to be that person so bad. And if I just stick with her, if I work every day to be the guy she sees, I’ve got the best chance at coming close to it.”

BILLY:Daisy looked at me and said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

And I said, “What did I do to make you mad this time?”

And she said, “There’s just as much to hate about you as there is to like about you. And that’s annoying.”

DAISY:Then he said, “It’s my turn.”

I said, “Out with it then.”

BILLY:“When are you going to quit the pills?”

DAISY:I said, “Why are you so obsessed with the goddamn pills?”

BILLY:I told her the truth. I said, “My father was a drunk who was never there for Graham and me. I never wanted to be that way. And then the first thing I do, my first act as a father, was to get all messed up in all the shit you’re messed up in—even heroin, too, I’m afraid—and I let my daughter down. Even missed her birth. I turned out to be exactly what I’ve always hated. If it wasn’t for Camila, I think I’d still be that way. I think I would have made all my own nightmares come true. That’s the kind of guy I am.”

DAISY:I said, “It’s like some of us are chasing after our nightmares the way other people chase dreams.”

He said, “That’s a song, right there.”

BILLY:It wasn’t behind me. My addiction. I kept hoping it would feel like it was. Like I didn’t need to keep looking over my shoulder all the time. But that doesn’t really exist. At least not for me. It’s a fight you keep fighting, some times are easier than others. Daisy made it harder. She just did.

DAISY:I was paying the price for the parts of himself that he didn’t like.

BILLY:She said, “If I was a teetotaler you’d like me more, huh?”

And I said, “I’d like to be around you more. Yeah, probably.”

And Daisy said, “Well, you can just forget that. I don’t change for anybody.”

DAISY:I finished my burger and threw down some money and I got up to go. Billy said, “What are you doing?”

And I said, “We’re going back to Teddy’s. We’re gonna write that song about chasing our nightmares.”

BILLY:I grabbed my keys and walked out after her.

DAISY:On the way back to Teddy’s, Billy was singing me this melody he’d had in his head. We were at a red light and he was tapping the steering wheel and humming along.

BILLY:I had a Bo Diddley beat I was thinking of. Something I wanted to try.

DAISY:He said, “Can you work with that?”

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