almost | taylor swift au

chapter 17

The next few days are all smooth sailing. Taylor and Jett are back to being happier than ever. Mostly.

There's still a nagging feeling in the back of her brain, wondering what's going to happen about the song. But she knows that she can't do anything until Anthony comes to her with answers, so until then, she just has to wait.

Other than that, everything is great between the two. They find themselves stealing moments together like they did at the beginning of the relationship. She finds herself wanting to write about him. She wants to write good songs, not ones of a struggle or heartbreak.

So she finds herself in the Santa Fe hotel room, guitar in her lap and her journal laid out in front of her. Her fingers dance over the strings of her guitar as she plucks a soft pattern of chords behind her voice, singing out the words that she wrote a while back. It's a song that she really likes. That feels like herself, her identity as both a person and an artist. Like maybe, if she gets it to be just perfect, it could be her first introduction to the world.

The words on the page in front of her seem to feel so representative of everything. Of all of it. As she reads the words, "this is the worthwhile fight, love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right," she thinks about everything she's been through. Of the fights that they've each put in. Not just their fights with each other, though there have been a few of those. But the fights that they've made each on their own. They fought for each other, against all odds. In spite of what anyone may think.

She has put up her own sort of fight, too. A fight for him to view her as an artist in his community, not just as a girl who sells her merch. And though it has been a long road, with more ahead of her, she thinks she might be getting there. And every step of the way has been the worthwhile fight.

Upon revising the song, she makes a few small edits and adds more to the guitar part, a fingerpicking melody that adds a whole new layer to it. Suddenly, her phone starts to ring. The screen lights up with Anthony's name, and Taylor feels her stomach do a somersault. Maybe these are the answers that she's been waiting for.

She picks up the phone and greets the man.

"Hi Taylor," he tells her. "Are you alone right now?"

"Yeah, I'm in my hotel room."

"Perfect. I wanted to talk to you about Jett and The Unprompted's new song."

Taylor feels a small smile creep onto her face. She hopes Anthony has found a good solution to the whole situation. "What's up?"

"I've spent a long time looking into this and talking to people about it, and unfortunately, I don't know that there's really an ideal option," Anthony sighs. "You could ignore it, but you'd definitely never be able to release your song then. You could ask them for a writer's credit, and see if they'll give it to you, but that would still make it tricky to release yours. Or you could sue."

Taylor sighs. "Okay."

"I think we'd have enough for a case. I know you mentioned that you have voice memos from when you were writing, and those have dates attached to them."

Taylor sighs. "Can I just... take some time to think about it?"

"Of course," Anthony assures her. "I know that this is a lot to handle, especially because of your relationship with Jett. This is really hard to face, especially since you're not an established artist yet."

"If I talk to him about this... if I tell him that we have a case to sue unless he comes up with a better option..."

"That isn't a terrible idea," Anthony replies. "I think that even if you can stop the band from ever putting the song on a record, it would be a really good thing."