this is me trying: taylor swift + joe alwyn

one

I dropped my bag down by the front door, and let my frail body fall onto the couch. My eyelids started to close involuntarily, but I blinked a few times to keep myself awake. It was only 4pm after all.

I picked myself up from the couch to make myself my third cup of coffee for the day.

I wrapped my hands around the mug, sighing at how good it tasted.

Well, it didn't actually taste that good, but my mind convinced me that I liked it. Coffee was the only thing keeping me going today, especially after last nights events.

*flashback to night before*
TW: SH

I sat on the cold bathroom floor in a puddle of my own tears, with my right hand holding intense pressure onto my left wrist.
What have I done...
I took the pressure off my wrist to see if the bleeding had stopped, but sure enough, it hadn't. I took a deep breath and stood up to run my wrist under some water. The water from the tap on my freshly wounded wrist stung more then I thought it would, and I audibly winced through the pain.

"Taylor? Love are you okay? You've been in the bathroom for a while."

Shit. He's awake.

"Uh.. yeah i'm fine! I'll be right out!"

Shit. shit. shit. He can't know. I love Joe but I don't want him to know. No one knows. I want to keep it that way.

I turned off the tap and observed my wrist. It was still bleeding. I rummaged in a drawer under the sink for some sort of band-aid, and thank god I found one.

I plastered it over my wrist, hoping it would cover almost everything, and looked at myself in the mirror. I could feel myself starting to pick apart every part of my body. I tended to do that often.

"Tay, it's the middle of the night, what are you doing?" Joe questioned, he seemed concerned.

I wiped my tears and opened the door, plastering an entirely fake smile onto my face. "I could ask you the same question..."

Joe furrowed his eyebrows and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Have you been crying?"

I felt my heart sink as my mind begun to race, forming multiple possible answers to Joe's question.  "What? No Joe, of course not, why do you ask?"

Joe knew I was lying, I could see it in his face. He knew me better then anyone. He always knew exactly what I needed to hear, and he always knew when I was faking being okay. So to be honest, I don't know why I bother.

"Love, I know you. You don't have to pretend to be okay when you're with me. I'm always going to want to help you feel better, no matter what's going on." Joe took hold of both my hands, but my immediate reaction was to pull them away. I couldn't risk him seeing my wrist, or even the band-aid that was on it.

This was one of the things Joe didn't know about me. He didn't know that I've been struggling with depression for the last 3 months. He didn't know that hurting myself was how I best coped with the pain. He didn't know that my eating disorder had recently made a reappearance, and that I hadn't eaten in almost four days.

This was the kind of stuff I wanted Joe to know and understand about me, but I still haven't had the nerve to tell him anything, or to let him see this side of me.