this is me trying | taylor swift

eleven

❝i can go anywhere i want, anywhere i want, just not home❞

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Ella smoothed out her top once last time, checking her outfit in the mirror. It was the first night of Taylor's concert at MetLife Stadium, and Ella was beyond excited. Taylor had left a few hours prior as she had to prepare, and Ella stayed at home, to get ready for the show.

She was going to surprise Taylor by wearing a personalized top that she had ordered from Etsy. The front of the top said "S.O.H. (Sister of Headliner)"  and the back had a picture of the two of them, with arrows pointing to the Headliner and stars and sparkles pointing to the Sister of Headliner.

She checked her hair, which she had meticulously glued jewels into using lash glue after watched multiple TikTok videos (Swifties were really prepared for everything!), fixed the fraying in her jeans, and grabbed the bracelets she had made to give out to people, before checking her phone to see a text from Gigi.

They had made arrangements beforehand for Gigi's car to pick Ella up from Taylor's apartment. The two would then head to the stadium together, and meet up with Blake Lively, who was also going to the show with her daughters, tonight. Ella heard the garage open, and waited for it to shut, before checking her bag one last time and heading out to the car.

"Ella!" Gigi shouted, getting out of the passenger seat of the car and moving to the back, switching spots with the security, as she planned to sit next to Ella. She was wearing a Lover-themed outfit with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Gigi! Missed ya!" Ella hugged the taller girl, before crouching to enter the car, and greeting the driver and security personnel.

"Oh my gosh, I'm literally dead. Your shirt is hilarious, girl," Gigi laughed, as she pulled her phone out of her back pocket to take a picture of Ella. Ella smiled and posed with her thumbs up, glad that she received such a reaction -- that meant the shirt had turned out good.

"Is it okay if I post this to my story later?" Gigi turned her phone to show Ella the picture. Ella zoomed into it and immediately began critiquing the photo. Rather that view the picture as a sweet moment of sisterly support, the younger girl instead noticed her that stomach looked bad and her thighs looked huge.

"Here, wait. Take another one, I don't like the thumbs up in that one," Ella exclaimed, covering her feelings that were hurt from seeing her own picture and lying for the reasoning of another one.

"Okay, get ready!" Gigi positioned the camera as Ella repositioned herself, sucking in her stomach and sitting criss-cross, so as to do her best to hide herself to virtual onlookers. The second picture turned out much better, to Ella's relief, and she nodded, trying to push the image of her own body out of her head.

✮

The stadium was massive.

After what felt like five hours, but was really only two, due to traffic, Gigi and Ella had made it to the stadium. Because they were running late, they didn't get a chance to meet up with Taylor prior to the concert, which made Ella anxious. She was looking forward to spending some time with Taylor who always knew how to calm her nerves before having to assimilate herself into the crowd, but they couldn't do that now.

Even from the outside, the stadium was so large that it made Ella feel uneasy. She had been to many of Taylor's shows throughout the years and the last time she did a stadium tour was for reputation, when Ella was ten. At ten, Ella was much more carefree and naïve than she was now, so the crowds and size didn't necessarily bother her then, as they did now. The hundreds of videos of Ella during the Reputation Stadium Tour online, dancing with fans and even going on stage a few times proved just how lax she felt then. Now, even from beneath the stadium where their car had brought them, she could hear the roar of the crowd and it made her heart pound in her chest.