"It isn't what it looks like" Taylor lied as Travis set about fixing the front door.
Ever since kicking it open and finding his injured ex he had been silent.
He had touched her face and investigated her wounds in silence, sighing only when she flinched at his gentle touch and then he had walked to his house and returned with his dad's tool kit in silence.
Her words were a lie designed to ease his mind and get him to leave he was sure of it, just as sure as he was that he wasn't going anywhere until he knew Taylor was safe and her asshole boyfriend had paid for what he had done
"I'm sure Ashleigh has told you all kinds of stories and lies..."
"I haven't spoken to Ashleigh, her pregnancy is turning out to be a difficult one, I didn't want to add to her worries"
Taylors stomach clenched to hear her friend was having a difficult time and she wasn't able to help
"I'm clumsy"
"No you aren't, you're a dancer. You aren't clumsy at all"
"I am, and I had too much to drink"
"You don't drink that much, you can't, you're too tiny"
"Travis, you don't know me anymore!"
"I know you better than anyone else ever will"
Taylor dropped her head, wishing Travis would just accept her lies and leave, hoping he would realise they no longer knew each other and walk away but she knew Travis too well, she knew his heart and her place in it.
Travis Kelce wasn't leaving until he had an explanation he believed and by the look on his face the only explanation he would accept was the truth and that's the one thing Taylor was desperate not to show him
"What's going on Tay? And don't tell me nothing, don't tell me it's not what I think"
"Okay, how about 'It none of your business'?" she turned and began walking down the hallway but as she heard footsteps begin to follow she panicked and began running
"Taylor..."
"Leave me alone!" She yelled as she ran into the kitchen and dropped down under the wooden table pulling her knees to her chest and covering her ears with her hands
"Tay..." Travis couldn't believe what he was seeing, his beautiful, strong, funny friend, cowering under a table, afraid of him!
"Don't hurt me" she said her voice and her hands trembling
"I won't... I would never..." Travis knelt beside the table, reaching under it with one hand and gently wrapping it around Taylors wrist "Come here" but she just shook her head viciously "Taylor please, it's me, Travis, you know me, you know I would never ever hurt you"
"But you did" her voice was little more than a wet whisper "You left me"
********************
"Travis!" Ashleigh threw her arms around her old friend and savoured the feel and the smell of him, it had been a long year without him, so much had happened and changed and all she wanted to do was drag him into the living room and chat until they had nothing left to talk about but the weary look on his face told her that there was only one thing Travis wanted to talk about today "You've seen her!"
"I just left her at her place, asleep on the couch"
"Come In" Travis and Ashleigh walked down the narrow hallway of her apartment and took a left into a small but immaculate living room, they hugged once more before they both took a seat on the dark brown, pleather sofa "How is she?"
"Bad"
"Wait. Did you see Jared?!"
"He's out of town on business"
"Out of town on business?!" Ashleigh scoffed, pushing her black dreadlocks over her shoulder and rolling her eyes dramatically "She means he's out of town fucking another girl and she knows it too, she knows what he gets up to"
"What's going on Ash?"
"He's a fucking abuser that's what's going on, she's living with a bully, an abuser, a rapist" she held up a finger for each of her accusations
Travis' heart stopped so immediately that he thought he might actually vomit from the force of it shuddering to a stop in his chest
"Rapist? What are you talking about?" He felt his breathing speed up as his fingers began to tremble with fear of the answer
"Ask her about their first time"
"She won't tell me. You tell me" his voice was low and cold as he steeled himself for the information he was about to receive but wasn't sure he could handle
"We had been day drinking at a friends house, we were all wasted and Taylor went home with Jared. Next day she wakes up and knows immediately that they had sex but she had absolutely no memory of it, she confronted him he said she consented when she was drunk"
"If she was that drunk she was in no state to consent to anything"
"Thank you!" She cried, throwing an arm in the air "That's what I told her, in fact I called the cops but she lied, told them she consented and remembered everything"
"I don't get it Ash, she was so confident, so full of life, she had so many plans when I left..."
"When you left without her you broke her heart, it knocked her confidence and guess who turned up right when she was at her lowest?"
"I told her it was just a year, I told her I would be back"
"She regretted not coming with you. Did you know she came to the airport with her bags but she'd missed the plane?"
"No!" Travis stood up, his brain well and truly struggling to accept and comprehend all the new information he was being given "I can't believe this, nobody told me, if I'd known... if I knew about this asshole boy I would have come home immediately. Fuck!! I could have stopped this, I could have saved her Ash!"
"So what are you going to do?"
"He's out of town until Sunday night, that gives me until then to talk some sense into her and get her out of that house"
*please comment and vote
