TNT Short Fics

no one likes a mad woman

"I think you need to listen to the rest of the album."

He looks up from the notes he's making on the latest NFL free agent moves for the next podcast episode to where she is sitting on the couch. She peers over her laptop at him, looking determined. Yet under the surface, he sees her apprehension.

"I thought you said I should hear the whole thing when it came out?"

One night in December, she shared some of Tortured Poets with him. Songs she felt helped her reconcile with the end of her previous relationship. He felt the heartbreak as he listened to the pain in her voice. Yet, even in the sadness, he felt a sense of pride knowing she was brave enough to leave and build herself back up on her own terms.

She pushes her laptop to the side and gets up to come sit beside him, looking down at her hands.

"I've been making these playlists for promo and I realize now...I was scared for you to hear some of the others," she confesses. "And I now think I want you to."

"Why were you scared?" he asks. "I hope I didn't make you feel you couldn't share them with me."

"No, Trav, not at all," she reassures, reaching for his hand. "This is all on me. I...I'm ashamed, I guess."

He squeezes her hand. He never would have got that from the songs he heard.

"This album is a lot about other people. But it is also a lot about me. And I didn't always do the right thing. I didn't...there are things I'm not proud of on there too. Things you didn't hear."

"Tay," he says carefully. "None of us are perfect."

"No, I know," she nods. "I just...I was so hurt. So I decided I was going to hurt back."

"Okay."

"Just, can you listen? I put it on this," she says, handing him the jump drive. She sees the notes he's been working on and adds, "You're busy right now. And I think I'd rather...maybe you could listen when I'm not here."

"Okay, but sweetie, nothing is going to make me feel anything different about you. You know that right?"

"Just listen."

He kisses her forehead and takes the drive. "I will."

*****

The next morning she kisses him as he's making coffee and heads off to the gym. He decides now is as good as any to listen. He loads the drive into his laptop and grabs his AirPods.

It starts with songs he's already listened to, down to the devastating fifth track that had had him hugging her tight the first time he heard it. But as the album progresses there are songs intermixed in the familiar that he's not heard and he leans forward in his chair, turning up the headphones to listen closely.

These songs are equally gut-wrenching, yet they also carry tones of anger, jealousy, and even revenge. Despite these emotions, he still hears her devastation, pain, and hurt within them. Heartbreak in all its forms appears to be the theme of the album. And he knows from his own life, that heartbreak is never simple; it's messy and hard.

He sits with the album when it finishes. Reflecting on it, he realizes he hears something that maybe she can't yet. He hears the beginnings of the woman he met almost eight months ago. The brave, independent woman who wore her heartbreak on her sleeve but who gave him a chance when she had every reason not to.

He wants her to know that.

*****

When she walks into the house a short time later, he meets her in the hall with a tight hug.