golden [kaylor]

( six. )

This one is from Karlie's POV. But also, #170 in fanfiction? Man, you guys are spectacular. I love you all. Thank you for reading!

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Your hotel room is probably the nicest one in this town, but the walls are still that dingy off-white.  The sheets don't really feel clean, and it still weirds you out to think that countless other people have used this bathroom and stood under this shower.  It's strange to picture the faceless others who have slept in this bed, and you can't help but wonder what they dreamed about.

The TV gets about 80 channels, and you have it set on Food Network, watching some sort of competition where the chefs are attempting to prepare the best vegan meal.  Usually competition shows like this have you twitching and watching with rapt attention, but tonight you're distracted.  The pillows are cushioning your back, and your laptop hums on your lap.

Like many celebrities, you have private social media, under different names so no one will find you unless you want them to.  Currently you're scrolling through your private instagram.  There are only 37 followers, and they're all your close friends.  That's why there are so many pictures of you and Taylor.  In the past eight months, you've posted maybe ten things, total, but before that there is a wall of selfies of you and your girl.

You'd been in a phase of pseudo-dating for months, both admitting your feelings but not making anything completely official yet.  Josh knew, because his sexuality was far from heterosexual, and you were covering for him as much as he was covering you.  So you'd tell him about Taylor on your "dates" and he'd laugh and congratulate you on getting the girl.

You'd made it official three days before the Victoria's Secret fashion show, and you wondered if everyone figured it out because of the way you looked at her dressed in lingerie and singing her heart out on that stage.  But then the incident happened, the one that her tumblr fans called Kissgate.  You'd just been yelling in her ear over the music, but the damage had been done.

You both pulled back, hiding behind publicists and Josh and, eventually, Calvin.  Taylor would call you miserably on facetime after outings with him, disgusted by the feelings of his hands and his lips on her.  You saw each other less, but it was okay, because Taylor was yours and Calvin was just a name on a contract.

She ended it with him in August, and you enjoyed a few months of being able to get dinner with her, touch her subtly when there weren't too many cameras around.  She was talking about discussing coming out with Tree, and how to go about it with as little damage as possible.  That was the end of November.  You never got to experience the freedom, because she died about two weeks later.

You spent two months in bed, ignoring phone calls, ignoring shoots and appointments.  It marbled your reputation, but the media knew of you as close friends, and many suspected the true nature of your relationship, so most didn't blame you for the way that when you did leave your home on very rare occasions, your eyes were dark like bruises and you seemed even skinnier than usual.  Your bones seemed to stab through your sweaters, cutting your skin.

But eventually you moved on.  Taylor wouldn't want you living in a thick cloud of blackened fog, choking as it filled your lungs, no longer living so much as just existing.  You returned to modeling and to your cookie business, but at a slower pace, travelling once every couple of weeks instead of every couple of days.  Eventually the craters in your chest stopped bleeding.  They didn't close, but the slow ooze of your life-force halted, and you were left wounded but not dying.

So to see that face behind a bakery counter, it had shaken you like a skeleton on Halloween.  The freckles were not Taylor's.  The eyes were green and not blue.  The accent was slight but unfamiliar.  There were tattoos on her skin and something dark about her smile.  But the similarities were enough to take the partially healed wounds and rip them right back open.

The date had been a desperate whim of loneliness and blind hope.  She was vaguely like your Taylor, but she was not open.  She was closed off, made of granite where Taylor was sewn from cotton.  But she'd kissed you and her lips had tasted like cinnamon and the flavor had brought memories back so strong that you'd stumbled into your hotel room, touching your lips with one hand while the other gripped the sink to keep you standing because you were so dizzy.

But it couldn't be.  Taylor was dead.  They'd identified the dental records.

Curiosity killed the cat, however.  And that's why you're here, seventeen tabs open, articles about Taylor's death.  You've been reading them for two hours, your hands shaking, your eyes burning and occasionally overflowing when they included transcripts of interviews taken from you and Ed and Ella during the aftermath.  Even as you click to a new tab, your own words reach out to you with broken fingers, tightening around your throat.

Taylor was the brightest thing in my life.  She made everything lighter, and she understood me better than everyone, and I just...don't know what to say.  I can't believe she's gone.  It's like someone has taken the sun and put it out but, somehow...somehow the world is still turning.  And it doesn't make any sense.

You remember the way you'd felt as you said those words.  They were spoken a mere 36 hours or so after Taylor's death, before it had sunk in, when you were still numb.  You'd been shivering, your hands pale, and the interviewer had looked at you with the expression people make when watching those horrific commercials about abandoned animals in shelters.

But the pain of those days isn't what you're searching for.  Instead, you search for inconsistencies.  Things that don't make sense.  It's a struggle to find anything, but the main thing you note is the closed casket at the funeral.  The claim was that it was to hide the horribly burned body beneath, but even a few articles with detailed descriptions of Taylor's car after the accident do not describe flames.

You're just hoping.  You're just wishing too hard.

Your brain spits the thoughts at you like it thinks you're pathetic.  And maybe you are.  But Eva's kiss had felt like home and that's something you can't ignore.  You finish reading the articles and shut your laptop tight, wiping your eyes hard with the backs of your hands.

Maybe Taylor is gone, but you can't believe it completely.  Not yet. You have some experimenting to do. So you grip your phone, texting a few people, letting them know you'll be in Colorado for an extra couple of weeks. You need time to clear your head, you claim, and it's not entirely a lie.

Your hands are shaking, and you can't quite pull in a full breath as you settle down to try to sleep for the night. You're scared and nervous and confused, but also filled with something that doesn't feel like it's painted black.

This is the first light you've seen in eight months.