almost | taylor swift au

chapter 41

Taylor spends all night writing. She writes and writes, a wave of catharsis coming over her as she puts pen to paper. She's written lots of songs about Jett before- she did when she loved him, and she did when he broke her heart. And now, he's broken her all over again, in an entirely different way. And with every word that she writes, she finds her feelings change. She finds herself healing, yet somehow also breaking herself down more and more. She lets herself feel every feeling that comes over her, every feeling that she's been suppressing and every feeling that has been hanging over her head like a dark cloud for several months.

While Gracie and some of her other friends are out until the early hours of the morning celebrating, Taylor is holed away in her bedroom, her guitar on her lap as she writes and writes and writes. She doesn't fall asleep until nearly 4:00 in the morning, when she realizes that she can't keep her eyes open any longer. So she lets herself sleep, only to wake up in the morning and start writing again almost instantly.

She doesn't quite know why it is that she just cannot stop. She can't pull herself away. She's in a creative zone and she knows she needs to write this song to finally allow herself to heal, once and for all.

When all is said and done, when she records a voice memo into her phone to remember what she's written, it's ten minutes long.

Taylor can't believe that. She supposes that she really did have a lot to say. But she loves each and every word of it. She loves it so much. She knows she wouldn't be able to cut any of it. She loves it all too much. Taylor knows it is her favorite song that she's ever written.

She also knows that she'll likely have to put up a fight if, at ten minutes long, she ever wants it to see the light of day.

But before thinking about that possibility, there's somebody else who she wants to play it for. The same person who always hears what she writes before anybody else. So, throwing her hair up into a ponytail and grabbing her guitar and journal, Taylor walks out into the living room where Gracie is eating leftover fried rice from their takeout a few days ago while watching TV.

"Hey you," Gracie says, looking up at her best friend walking into the room. "How are you feeling? Better?"

Taylor nods, the corners of her lips turning up into a smile. "So much. I've got something I'd like to play for you."

"Oh?" Gracie raises her eyebrows. "I'd like to hear it." She pauses her Netflix show and turns to Taylor, who has sat down on the opposite side of the sofa from her friend.

"I wrote it last night and this morning. I'm really, really proud of it."

"I can't wait to hear it," Gracie says with a genuine smile. She gives Taylor a nod, as if to say, it's okay. You can play it.

And though Taylor loves the song, she realizes that she needed that confidence. Even after all this time, all of the countless lyrics that she's written, playing her songs for the first time is still scary for her. It's like sharing her most personal thoughts, her deepest secrets, with other people. No matter if it's just Gracie, who already knows everything about her, it's still vulnerable. It's scary. But it's also beautiful and exhilarating.

So, chasing that high, Taylor places her fingers on the strings and starts to play. She tells the whole story.

I walked through the door with you,
The air was cold,
But something 'bout it felt like home somehow...

As her best friend sings only a few feet away from her, staring down at her fingers on the guitar to avoid any eye contact, Gracie feels her heart breaking. Everything that Taylor says, it's all so raw. It's so real in the worst way. It's an experience that she had to go through, one that broke her down and ran her into the ground. And here she is, recounting it all in brilliant metaphor. It's beautiful, it's personal. To the point where Gracie almost feels like she shouldn't be listening. Like she's intruding on something that shouldn't have a life outside of the pages of a diary. But Taylor is here, brave enough to share it with her. So, of course, she listens. She feels. She thinks. And her heart swells with pride when Taylor strums the final chord of the song.