1. shimmer (a taylor swift au)

-chapter twenty two-

Taylor walked off the stage, and she searched for a familiar face. Anyone. She just wanted someone to comfort her before she had to walk back to the car and tell Ellie that she had to go back to her birth parents. She had never felt like this before, and she knew that out of all the concerts in the Eras tour, this would be the one she'd always remember.
"You did it," a voice called out from behind her. Gracie. Taylor's face crumbled the moment she saw her. Gracie didn't always hang around back stage after the concert, it was unusual for her to be waiting - but oh how Taylor appreciated it.
Taylor turned around to see the familiar face, the woman who loved Ellie too, and she felt her guard come down. Her eyes filled with tears and her heart felt like it was cracking in a billion pieces. She didn't care if her dancers or the Starlights or anyone in the whole damn stadium saw. She didn't care if photos of her and Gracie were circulating if on the off chance, someone took a photo of them. She didn't care. Her feet were saw and her chest was aching. It felt like a tonne of bricks were resting on top of it. It felt as if her heart had cracked right in half, like she was broken and bleeding on the arena floor.

Gracie took her hand, pulling her into the cleaning cart that Taylor arrived at the concert in. Turning her on the flash from her phone, Gracie closed the doors. Gracie's mascara was smudged - it looked as if she'd tried to fix it but failed.
"I figured you'd need a few moments to compose yourself before you went out there," Gracie's voice was quiet and soft. Gracie had been a friend for some time now, they'd text each other daily... but this moment was when the friendship became more than that. It became a sisterhood. It became something that Taylor never knew she needed. Gracie had been here - she was the only person that knew what was going on.

Taylor knew Ellie and her Mom would be waiting for her in the car, but she had to get herself together before then. She couldn't see Ellie when she was falling apart. She couldn't let Ellie see how emotional she was. Taylor didn't have the ability that her Mom had had after the cancer diagnosis. She couldn't just be... emotionally distant from what was going to happen.
"I just... I think I hoped that I'd never get that call." Taylor's words were messy and her breathing was heavy. She always felt a little out of breath when she first walked off the stage... but this time was different.
"Fuck, this is just... this is just so not fair..." Gracie's eyes were full of tears. Gracie's hands were trembling, her nails chipped. Taylor knew she'd only painted them this afternoon, because Ellie had requested dark blue sparkles just like it. Gracie had done Ellie's nails for her - and now they were chipped from Gracie's habit of chewing them when she got really anxious.
"I don't know what to do. I have to go out there and I have to pretend like it's not killing me. How am I even supposed to tell her that?" Taylor sobbed. "How the fuck am I supposed to climb into the car and greet her with a smile?" Taylor stared over at Gracie, wishing that she had all the answers. She wished that she wasn't hurting as bad as she was right now. She'd been absolutely crushed when she'd discovered her Mom had cancer, but this was... this was something else. This was heartbreaking in a way she'd never been broken before. This was the life of a child. This was her child, the little girl she'd breathed love and life into every day for the past seven months. And now she was just expected to hand her back over to the people who left her little body purple.
"I knew this was going to happen eventually but any time would be too soon, I hadn't planned on it being so soon." Taylor choked. "I love her, Gracie. I fucking love that little kid more than I've ever loved anyone or anything in my entire life and I can't send her back there. I can't look her in the eyes and tell her that she's being sent back. Every time she wakes up in the middle of the night with tears running down her cheeks from a nightmare and I sing her to sleep again... I silently promised that she'd never go back to that fucking place." Taylor knelt down, her knees on the floor. "I can't do it." The sparkles and sequins from the Midnights attire was digging in, but the pain was a relief.
"Taylor," Gracie knelt down beside her, resting her hand on Taylor's back. "She's going to know that it's not your choice."
"She's eight, she won't get it. She knows a part of it, but she won't see the full picture." Taylor breathed. "She's eight." She bit her lip. "I didn't even get to take her to the Plaza hotel for her birthday. I didn't... I didn't get to give her... I haven't had enough time to prepare her for this. I've got to go and get in the car, they're waiting for me."