"I'm sorry. That was a ridiculous thing to say" said Taylor as she covered her head with her hands and then pulled the blanket up so it covered both her and Travis "Of course you can't leave, you have a job and... stuff here" she turned on her side and wrapped an arm over Travis' stomach and breathed in his scent, as though she was capturing it and locking it away safe in her memory so she would never forgot it
Travis for his part remained silent, wrapping a strong arm around the tiny female lying next to him and closing his eyes unsure of how to process the events of the night but suddenly overcome with fatigue and it didn't take long before he was fast asleep, his dreams hot and confused and completely consumed by Taylor.
Slipping from the bed the girl replaced her negligee with Travis' discarded T-shirt and then slipped outside the van, thankful for the cool night air that wrapped its self around her.
Walking to the front of the van she removed a small box from beneath the brown leather of the drivers seat and from inside retrieved a small, black mobile phone. Turning it on she headed away from the van and into a clearing in the trees thankful for the moonlight that lit her way
She swiped to the only number stored on the phone and pressed call, a female voice answering immediately
"Where are you?!"
"I'm not telling you"
"You have to come back right now!"
"I'm not coming back"
"Taylor please!"
"I'm alive, I'm well, that's all I wanted you to know" and she ended the call as abruptly as she had started it, returning the phone to it's box and then the box to it's hiding place and pushing all memories of the past she was running from as far from her mind as possible.
******************
"Hey Kelce what the fuck is wrong with you today?!" A tall, thin, black haired man wrapped an arm around Travis' neck and rubbed his knuckles back and forth over his scalp violently causing the taller man to push him away and then clutch a hand to his head "You're in a world of your own today. Anyone would think you had a girl on your mind"
Travis turned back to his work station, willing the phone to ring so he could escape this conversation.
Tommy was a good guy, a great friend but he didn't know when to stop talking, he had no filter and no boundaries and was the last person alive Travis wanted to talk about Taylor with
"It is a girl! You're blushing. Aaaaw, little Trav Kelce got some action last night!" Again Tommy wrapped an arm around Travis' neck "But what about the 'no girls cos you were still hung up on that girl from last Summer' situation?"
"It was the girl from last summer" he finally admitted, his face flushing red
"It was the girl from last Summer?! She came back?!"
"Van broke down"
"Oh I like it, van breaks down on the side of the road along comes Trav to the rescue in his big read truck, throws the girl over his shoulder, takes her home and fucks her senseless, it's been a year in the making so I hope to God you fucked her right"
"No I didn't 'fuck her senseless' watch your mouth Tom!" Travis couldn't help but feel protective of what had happened between them and didn't want it made dirty by the filth that spewed out of his workmates mouth
"Sorry, I forgot you were a sensitive kid, what I meant to ask was... did you make sweet love to her all through the night?"
"I'm not talking to you about this, you're a dick! I'm taking my break" Travis huffed in annoyance as he pushed past the older man growling out loud as Tommy laughed his loud, raspy laugh obviously satisfied with the reaction he had provoked from Travis
"Trav, what's the matter honey?" Asked an elderly lady that sat at a computer, her face soft and filled with concern
"Oh it's nothing Carol, just Tommy messing with me" he dropped down onto the vacant chair across from her and rested his head in his hands.
Taylor, the head she had given him and the suggestion she had made to him spinning like a tornado in his mind
"Girl problems?"
Travis nodded, unable to keep his torment to himself any longer, Tommy has pried the lid off of his feeling just enough for him to be unable to put it back on and pretend they weren't there
"I met her last Summer"
"Taylor right?! I remember we spoke about her after she left, you were sad"
"And now she's back and I'm confused"
"Back?!" The deep lines on Carols face all turned upwards as her narrow lips went with them into a smile "Then why so sad lovely?" She reached out and touched his hand and he felt his eyes burn with tears.
This should be a conversation he was having with his mother.
Talking to her about Taylor and the way she turned his life upside down every time they met but it was Carol, a fellow employee at Dees Motor Centre and that stirred the already over flowing pot of emotions within him
"She leaves this afternoon, again. This time she's heading over the border so there's no chance of seeing her again"
"And you don't want her to go?"
"She actually wants me to go with her. At least I think she does, she suggested it last night after we..." Travis struggled to find a word to describe what had happened between them without being too overly graphic bearing in mind Carol was old enough to be his grandmother "after we had a moment" he cringed at his words but could tell from Carols face she had a good idea what he was talking about
"You don't want to?"
"I do but I'm scared of jumping too deep too quick, we have only spent a few days together up to this point, going on the road together is a whole other thing"
"It doesn't work out you come home" she pushed her gold glasses up into her thinning, grey curls "There's always a job for you here you know that"
Travis nodded feeling his eyes filling "This is where my family lived and died Carol, it's all I have left of them. This town, the paths they walked, the stores they shopped in, the school my sister went to, their friends, the familiar faces..." he ran a trembling hand through his hair and begged himself not to cry
"Travis, your family... they didn't deserve what happened to them and you didn't deserve to live your life all on your own but what happened... it happened, you can't change it. Your family would want you to be happy and I get them feeling this 'Taylor' girl makes you happier than you have been since you lost them"
"She does" Travis' voice was a wet whisper as Carol pushed herself from her seat and and crouched in front of him, taking his face in her soft, ageing hands
"You didn't deserve all of that pain but you do deserve all the happiness in the world. Go get your girl and grab every second of happiness she brings you because you should know better than anyone just how short life can be"
*please comment and vote 😀
