almost | taylor swift au

chapter 18

As the days go by, everything begins to feel like a ticking time bomb. The time on tour is limited, and in the pit of of her stomach, Taylor can't help but feel like at any time, Jett could blow up. He'd blow up and it'd all be over.

He hasn't said or done anything specific to indicate that he's upset with her, that he's unhappy with the relationship, or that he's over it all. In fact, maybe the opposite. She worries that he's been a bit too calm about everything lately. He agreed a little too easily to sign the contract, and convinced the rest of the band to do it as well.

The arrangements are drawn up for everything to be signed and made official in San Diego- the second to last city on the tour. It's also the next stop on tour. Right now, Taylor is in Tucson, Arizona. She's getting herself 'all prettied up,' as per Jett's request. He wants to take her out for some sort of special night on the town. Though she doesn't quite know what that means, she's sure that it'll include some sort of loud and dingy dive bar, which she isn't too thrilled about. She's pretty tired after last night, which culminated in a bar with the guys from the band after the concert in Phoenix. Jett got a couple cocktails into her, and didn't mention that the vodka lemonade he ordered her, after she'd already downed a big glass of wine, was a double until this morning on the bus, when she nestled her head into his shoulder and whined about her pounding headache.

Once the cocktails were in her system, on top of her first shot of tequila which he convinced her to take with him, she was up and singing karaoke with Jett. She knows that somebody in the band has a video of what can only be described as a truly unique rendition of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart.'

And as she's laying on the bed of her hotel room waiting for the hot rollers to set curls in her hair, scrolling through Instagram, that certainly isn't the video that she's expecting to see. But it's the video that she does see.

It's a whole carousel of pictures from Jett, simply captioned, "Tour Diaries: Santa Fe and Phoenix." There's a lot of chaotic memories included in the post, but that doesn't keep her from being upset about the video.

She doesn't want to fight with Jett today. They've been doing that a lot lately, but he's been in a good mood for the past few days. Ever since their talk about 'Treacherous,' he hasn't been upset with her once. She can't pinpoint what it is, what shifted between them... but she is perfectly content with keeping it that way. So, she isn't going to ask him to take the video down. She isn't even going to bring it up at all. But it hurts.

Nobody had to know about them, they'd agreed on that. It was going to be a secret from the outside world.

Sure, nobody knows who she is right now. She's a nobody, he's a rockstar. It's a tale as old as time. But that could change in the near future. Maybe soon, people will know her name. Then, they'll find the video, and she'll be associated with Jett before she's even got a chance to make it on her own.

But, that's the thing about secrets. They always have a way of coming out. Secrets aren't forever, at least Jett doesn't seem to see it that way. What he thought was a frivolous little thing that was bound to come out one way or another, Taylor saw as something much more serious, more sacred. When they decided to keep it private, out of the watchful eyes of the world, she thought it was a sort of oath to protect their peace, to never be broken.

She isn't tagged in the video. There's no identifying factors, short of her face. But she doesn't care. She cares that she's in it, and she wasn't asked about it.

But she doesn't let herself get truly angry or upset. She instead takes a deep breath and calms herself down. She reminds herself how good everything has been the past few days. She doesn't want to ruin that. She doesn't want to fight with him... again.