Someone's Daughter

22. they assume you know nothing

I am so excited for midnights, I'm already claiming Question..? as my song cause its a track seven and that is almost always my favorite track. Comment your claims!! Tell me your midnights theories! My tiny rainbow clown cab is particularly fond of the morse code captions theory, but i want to hear yours!

It's safe to assume for the rest of time that I'll update every Monday, it keeps working out that way so I'm gonna stick to it! Dedicated to my gorgeous, lovely, angel-saint beta readers.

lovelovelove - r

April 18th, 2020.

Taylor's hands shook as she waited. Beth had said the girl was sitting on her couch with her phone in her hand. She was on the fourth ring and she wasn't sure what she'd do if Caroline didn't pick up. She'd had to jump through a few hoops to get the old TaylorNation number back on her phone. Pietra had said it was working, she'd helped her set it up.

This had to go well. She didn't know what she'd do if it didn't.

"Hello?" The girl said, voice as high as a mouse.

Taylor stilled for a moment, twice as nervous. Caroline was a Pre-rep stan. She'd want to talk to a version of her that was a few years younger. She wouldn't want to see her so excited it could seem fake, but too unaffected and it might disappoint. This was always such a tightrope, meeting a single fan. They could see right through everything. They only accepted an act when they knew there was a crowd beside them. It was always better to under-do it.

"Hey girl." Fuck.

"Uh-oh." Caroline muttered, holding tight to disbelief.

Taylor laughed to break the tension, stifled just enough not to offend. "Is this Caroline?"

"Yeah! Yes. Sorry. Hi. Who is this?" She asked. Her hands were cold and prickly.

"It's Taylor. How are you, buddy?"

Caroline glanced at her phone as her brain melted out her ears. TaylorNation read across the screen. This was unheard of. Impossible, actually.

Taylor pulled the phone away from her face to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

"New intern?" Caroline forced out, trying to calm her breathing.

"Nope!" Taylor cheered.

Caroline's throat went dry. It felt like her airways were closing her in, containing her. Her cheeks pulled down towards her chin. Her sight was hazy like trying to see through rain on a car window. She didn't feel human. She never was.

"Step one, breathe." Taylor hummed. She was unfazed by the panic, but the metered pause afterwards was dense with implications Caroline couldn't name. Fans rarely knew how to act around her, but this was different. This was a rare case, where the fan was more important to someone else she knew than to her herself. She felt nauseous, caught in the middle.

Caroline scrambled to oblige her with a beckoning hand on her sternum. "Uh-huh." She squeaked.

Taylor gave her a minute, then explained slowly, "I was told by both your mom and my sister to do this without a heads up. I usually don't do cold calls, I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Caroline took in another breath to hide the crackling in her voice. Out of nowhere she broke into puffy shocked chortling.  "Wait, how... you know about the steps?"

Taylor's breath hitched. Caroline felt it like a chill down her spine. "Kennedy's mentioned it. She's told me a lot about you."

"Oh neat, okay." The girl muttered as her two worlds collided just a bit. It wasn't uncomfortable, nor was it freeing. It just was.