Call It What You Want: Taylor Swift + Joe Alwyn

one

June 2016

I stared at my reflection, wondering why I ever agreed to let someone bleach my hair. It looked significantly better now. I had just dyed my hair back to its original, slightly dirty blonde colour. And all of a sudden I could feel myself emerging from the dark place I had been in for the past month.

I had a bad habit of falling into a dark place easily. Whether it's over something someone posted about me, or something someone said, it would trigger me. The bleached hair, and the comments about my bleached hair, very quickly became one of those triggers.

But that was all over now, I had my original hair colour back, and that was step one to finding myself again.

As much as I knew I liked my hair a lot better this way, I knew Tom would not. He said he loved my bleached hair because it reminded him of the night we met.

"Sweetheart what did you do to your hair?" I slightly jumped as Tom appeared in the doorway.

"I didn't like it before... I like it a lot better natural... so I dyed it back." I responded timidly.

"Well my love, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to make other people happy. You know I like it bleached. And not everything is about you baby." His slight smile made me start to think I should believe him. Maybe he was right. I was being selfish. Dying it without asking him first, what was I thinking?

"You're right... I'm sorry." I said quietly as my eyes glanced to the floor.

"It's okay baby. Just make sure you ask me next time you want to majorly change your appearance. I want to like what i'm sleeping next to. I'll see you later alright?" Tom said before kissing me softly on the lips and walking out. The second he left, I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

I had to learn how to be better, or I would end up alone. I really felt like with Tom this could be the real deal, and I didn't want to ruin it by being a shitty girlfriend.

He was going out with his friends tonight, which he did a lot. But I'm not complaining, I like my alone time.

I decided to spend this time alone trying to make it up to him. I needed to do something to say sorry. I couldn't believe I was so stupid to do something like dye my hair without asking him first. I decided to spend the next few hours cleaning the house from top to bottom. Tom liked it when I cleaned the house, he's always believed I should be the one to stay home and cook, clean, do the washing and so on. I can't blame him for liking traditional ways of living, and if I wanted to stay with him, I'd have to partake in those ways of living too.

A lot of my friends, especially Selena, and one of my new friends Joe, continued to tell me they were worried about my relationship with Tom. Apparently I spend 'too much time' tending to his needs rather then my own. But I don't agree with that, this is how a relationship is supposed to go. The guy goes out with his friends, gets drunk, goes to parties and so on, while the girl stays home and makes sure he's happy.

That's how most of my past relationships went, so why would this one be any different?

Plus, I didn't even mind cleaning the house and eating dinner alone. I could turn on music and dance around the house while I cleaned. And making dinner for myself meant I knew exactly what was going into the food, so I wouldn't have to be worried about how many calories were in it.

About 9:00pm had rolled around, and I knew Tom would be home soon. I had made myself a small amount of food for dinner, and then made sure to dress up nicely for him. What he said earlier about wanting to like what he was sleeping next to really got to my head. I usually wouldn't have on a full face of makeup and a dress like this, but tonight was different, tonight was about making it up to Tom.