The Pact

PROLOGUE

Taylor sighed softly as she climbed into her king-sized bed of her New York apartment. She had had a long day in the studio, writing and recording songs and now she was tired. It was currently 11pm and very dark outside beyond her window. She looked over at her two Scottish Fold cats, Meredith, named after Meredith Grey from Grey's Anatomy, one of her favourite television shows, and Olivia, named after Olivia Benson from Law and Order, another of her favourite television shows, who lay at the foot of her bed sleeping soundlessly. She smiled softly at the two cats before lifting her phone from the wooden bedside table to set an alarm for the morning. She set her alarm for 8am, early enough for her to carry out a work out, feed the cats, have some breakfast, and take a shower before she had to leave for an interview at 10am.

Before she put her phone down for the night, she clicked into Facebook and scrolled for a moment. She stopped when she came across a photograph of a familiar face, her childhood best friend, Hayley Williams and her friends, Taylor York and Zac Farro. Together the three made up the band Paramore. The caption above the photograph read 'Thank you Glasgow, UK for a wonderful night. One word: unforgettable.' The post had been put up four hours ago, at midnight in the UK. Taylor smiled softly. Hayley looked happy in the photograph, smiling with her friends beside her. This thought made Taylor happy but also made her long for her best friend.

It has been a while since she had seen or even spoken to her childhood best friend, their careers had taken them in two completely different directions after they had become famous and they had just sort of drifted apart. This thought made Taylor sad. She missed Hayley.

Deciding to go on a deep dive into Hayley's life since they had drifted apart, Taylor clicked on Hayley's Facebook profile and scrolled through. She was surprised to discover that Hayley was single, remembering the pact they had created when they were children: "we'll get married to each other if neither of us is in a relationship by the time we are thirty". She let her finger hover over the message button, hesitating. Would it be strange to message her, after all these years, and bring up their childhood pact? Her finger slipped and pressed the button. Eyes wide she swallowed, studying the blank message board. No messages had passed between them at all after the creation of this social media platform.

Taylor's eyes widened still further, if that was even possible, at the little green dot beside Hayley's profile picture and the active now status. Hayley was awake. She looked up at the time in the top left hand corner of her phone. 11.30pm. She thought. Surely it was early in the morning in the UK, with the time difference. What was keeping Hayley awake? Surely she was tired, she'd just performed in front of thousands of people in Glasgow. Taylor knew from experience that performing and touring was exhausting but she loved it and she was well aware that Hayley loved it too.

Taylor stared at the status, wondering if it would change. For a few minutes, it remained the same. She clicked on the screen and the keyboard appeared. It took her nearly five minutes to compose a message:

Hi Hayley. How are you? I know we haven't spoken in a while but I saw the Paramore post, it looks like you had a blast. How is the tour going? Taylor x

As soon as Taylor hit send, Hayley's activity status changed to offline and Taylor couldn't help but feel disappointed. She sighed, turned her phone onto silent, locked the screen and placed it down onto the bedside table. She turned off the lamp, rolled onto her side and closed her eyes.

*****

Hayley sighed softly as she locked her phone and threw it down onto the bed beside her. She swung her legs off of the bed and got up, finding herself unable to sleep. She jumped down off of the bunk of the tour bus and moved silently towards the living room area, where she sat down on the miniature sofa and looked out of the window, watching the lights of distant towns and car headlights flash past. They were on their way to Manchester, having just performed in Glasgow, where the atmosphere had been electrified. They were travelling overnight and had only left Glasgow two hours ago. She watched the thank you for visiting Scotland sign roll past and sighed, leaning on the back of the sofa and resting her head on her arms, staring at the lights.