sweet creature [tayvis]

chapter two

October 31st, 2011.

"Taylor," Ashley, a childhood friend of mine fusses, tugging on my arm. "Would you please come with me and stop moping around like some depressed chick?"

I scoff, pulling away from her as I shrivel beneath the covers. "Maybe I'm moping around like some depressed chick because I am a depressed chick. What are the odds?"

The mattress dips, Ashley plopping next to me. "Oh, shut up," she chuckles, yanking the covers to the foot of the bed. She tangles her fingers in my hair, weaving a brush through my knotted curls. "I'm just saying, you've become really boring."

"Thanks," I sniffle. "I feel a whole lot better."

"Well, you used to be so much fun!" My friend defends. "You used to party your ass off. Now you just lay around, sad over some British boy and his mistress."

"You would be too if you spent six years of your life with him, Ashley," I snap. "And she wasn't his mistress. We were never married. We're twenty-three and she's seventeen."

She places her hand in the center of my back, gently rubbing comforting circles along my spine. "I know you miss him Tay, but you did the right thing. I know you wanted it to be him, but we all, including you, knew that wouldn't be the ending. It's time for you to get your life back."

"Well in every life I planned for myself, he was in it."

For a brief moment there's a thick silence between her and I before she sighs. "I know that's what you wanted Tay, but something's don't work out the way we want. If you let yourself live a little, you'll see there's more to you than him. Have you even gone to the studio lately?"

I shake my head, partly ignoring the second half of her speech. "Two months ago."

"You should go do that sometime," she says. "I know you miss it."

I do miss it, she wasn't wrong about that. I stopped writing songs and recording a few months ago because Joe argued that he didn't like the attention he got from it. That wasn't the life Joe wanted, so I left that chapter of my life behind me and focused on my college major. I was writing a novel, but I hadn't touched it in awhile. "I don't know, Ash."

"But you love it," she insists, sounding rather disappointed. I only shrug, closing my eyes to shield the sun blaring as it sets below the horizon. Tears well up in my eyes, but I force them away. "C'mon, Tay. Just go out tonight, one night. Get out for a bit and socialize. Have a few drinks. Maybe you'll even meet someone."

Well I definitely won't be doing that - meeting someone. That I'm not ready for. I won't socialize either. Fuck that. She slaps my shoulder blade, "Can you just not be depressed for one night? Please?" I glance up as she forms a pout. "For me?"

I sigh, pulling myself in an upright position. "Who the hell is throwing this party?"

"Her name is Brittany Mahomes. Her husband was just drafted into the NFL - Patrick Mahomes?"

"I've never heard of him." I don't watch football and I have no intentions of starting. "Or her."

"Tay, let's go. Go put something nice on and make yourself look presentable. I want to go to this party with you and I'm not going you a choice."

I groan, tossing my legs over the edge of the bed. Goosebumps appear down my thighs as my feet come in contact with the cool marble tiles. "Don't you have a girlfriend?" I complain, wincing to a sheer blanket of pain soaring through my brain. I was hung over.

"She's out of town for a presentation," Ashley urgently says, following me as I walk to my closet.

"Of course she is. Why else wouldn't she be?" I mutter.