CLEAN || Taylor Swift Adoption

TWENTY

"No one has to know..."

~EVERLEIGH~

August 6, 2019

I darted out of the house and around the corner, just as the first bus began to drive away after fully unloading a bunch of fans. I squeezed through the crowd, smiling at people and trying to make it seem like I had been there the entire time. I had no idea of anyone else who was going to be at this Session, so it was slightly weird to be wandering around the driveway, looking for people that were my age, and even more so, people that I had already known from some corner of social media. I could only hope that there was at least one other person there who I could hang out with, someone that I already knew, and would guarantee that the rest of this night wouldn't be awkward.

"Oh my god, I can't believe we're actually here!" a girl's voice squealed from over my shoulder. I turned around to look at her and a smile crossed my face. She looked to be about my age, and had sandy hair that hung in loose ringlets that were cut to her shoulders. Her hazel eyes were bright with excitement as she bounced on her toes, taking in the look of the house.

"I know," I replied. Play it cool, Everleigh. Act like you would around Ava or Ryker. "Like, this is actually insane. Who would've thought that we would somehow end up at Taylor Swift's house?"

The girl laughed and nodded in agreement when she saw me talking to her. "Exactly," she responded. "I don't think we met yet, by the way. I'm Hazel."

"I'm Everleigh," I introduced myself. "I don't know if I've ever found your account."

Hazel sort of grinned in response. "Yeah, that's what a lot of people here have told me. I got invited over Twitter, which I guess isn't something that happened to most of the people that are at this Session. I'm sort of unfiltered on there, so I'm a little nervous to find out just what Taylor has seen from my account, and what she thinks of it."

I gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm sure she probably found you humorous," I said, thinking back to when Taylor and I met for the first time, and what she told me about seeing my own account on social media. Plus, I figured that the last thing she would want to do at a Session would be making a fan feel bad about something that they posted. "I'm sure she'll love meeting you."

"I hope so," Hazel replied, staring off into the distance as Sydney began to speak again, giving us the same introductory speech that had been given at the Nashville Secret Session. I didn't pay much attention, knowing that I had heard all of the information before, but still paying enough attention that I was able to pass for it being my first time at a Secret Session.

I tilted my neck from side to side, cracking the stiff joints as I looked around myself in slight disbelief. How did I manage to get lucky enough to be able to go to two Secret Sessions, and know that technically, the house that the Session was taking place in was somewhere that I lived now? Like, I was somehow supposed to sleep in a bed here, have my own room, hang out, and do everything that normal kids were supposed to do in their normal houses. How did that work?

"It's pretty crazy, huh?" Hazel said, noticing my wide-eyed gaze at the whole thing around me.

"What?" I asked, startling out of my thoughts. "Hm? Oh, yeah. This is insane. I can't believe I'm here."

It was only a white lie. It made perfect sense of why I was at the Session, if I really thought about the situation. I mean, Taylor Swift did not seem like the type of person to keep her foster daughter locked up in a random room and away from everyone else while there was a Secret Session going on downstairs, no matter how much I wanted to believe that she may do something of the sort.