Our Invisible String (Complete Version)

2 (Travis Version)

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High school was the best time of my life.

I'd had it all. I was the captain of the football team, well on my way to success that would hopefully put me into a great NFL team. My friends ran with the popular kids, and we were on top of the school.

I'd probably been a bit of a dick, looking back. A few years had faded the clarity of my memories, but what I did know is that I'd been a bit of a 'teenage boy'. I remembered this girl; one I'd had a secret crush on but would never have admitted it to a soul. Her name had been...Ty? No, Taylor, that was it. She'd been quiet, awkward, keeping to herself most of the time. I'd targeted her as an outlet for my secret crush, teased her gently, always delighting in the way it made her cheeks flush.

We hadn't ever really talked aside from my teasing, since my friends would have laughed at me for having a crush on the girl in the corner who was always scribbling in her notebook. But there's been something weirdly magnetic about her curiously wary blue eyes, her heart shaped lips, the little crease on her forehead that appeared when she concentrated. I'd always found my gaze drifting to her in the cafeteria, but only for a second. I would have been ridiculed for my little crush until the day I died if it had become common knowledge.

And it hadn't really lasted anyway. We'd all graduated, and my crush on quiet Taylor had vanished along with Reading when I left. In all honestly, I'd completely forgotten about her and most of the people I'd left behind in that small town. I hadn't been cut out for life in a place like that. My dreams captured big cities, cheering crowds, thrusting Superbowl trophies into the air.

But dreams didn't always become reality. I'd crashed and burned like so many hopeful guys wanting to make it big, but only just. I'd come to close to getting my dream career only to be shoved aside by a guy who was just a fraction better than me. That had completely shattered my vision of life. What did I do now? I had worked towards my football career my whole life, built up a reputation, staked everything on my shot that had fallen short.

As soon as I'd hung up on the call about not making it in, I'd looked up and seen this god-awful sign in a store window across the street from where I'd stopped to answer my phone.

"Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll still land among the stars."

Not fucking likely.

I'd shot for the moon, missed, and landed on my ass with a bump that shook up my phone life. I hadn't landed in the stars. That was all complete bullshit.

Almost two years of my life I'd dedicated towards making it, and now I had to start all over again. I'd floundered through a few weeks in the big city, unsure what to do. But then I'd accepted that I'd just become another one of the people who'd missed their chance, and I'd slowly started to figure out what else I could do with my life. I was still young, only twenty years old, with my life stretching before me full of endless possibilists. All I had to do was reach out and grab one.

And what had I done?

I'd moved home, back to Reading. Got myself a little place just outside of town, accepted that this was where I belonged now. I knew I could have done so much more, but the failed dream had crushed my will into dust, and it had been all I could manage.

I became the football coach at the high school I'd only spent a few years away from. It was all I could think to do, the only job where I could still involve myself in my passion. Surely it wouldn't be that bad, but I'd see when I started.

So that was how I ended up in the teachers' lounge on the first Monday morning of my new job as a twenty-year-old high school football coach, chatting with one of the P.E teachers that had coached me through my senior years. It was nice to see him again, since he'd really pushed me to be the best version of myself, even though I hadn't exactly made it.

The door had been pushed open as another teacher came in. I'd glanced up casually to see who it was – since the staff had barely changed in the few years I'd been away, and I was likely to know whoever it was – and the sight of who was standing there sent my body into a moment of shock. There was no way. Out of everyone in our year group, Taylor Swift had been the girl I'd thought would take off running the second the graduation ceremony had been called to an end. I'd seen the faraway looks on her face when she daydreamed out the window during class. She hadn't been cut out for small town life.

But there she'd been, coming through the door with her cascading blonde hair longer than I remembered, her posture that of someone who had grown up so much in the few years since becoming an adult. Her blue eyes had been cast down at her phone, a small smile perking up her heart shaped lips as she looked down at whatever had been on her screen. A flicker of something years old had poked at my attention, my heart reminding me of the quiet girl I'd used to pine after. She had looked the same as I remembered, but so different as well. My attention was captured, confused, wondering what path in life had kept her here.

And then her eyes had snapped up as if she knew I was looking at her, deep blue gaze meeting mine. The world had condensed for the split second she'd looked at me, and I'd heard a tiny huff of air escape from those heart shaped lips. She had been just as surprised to see me as I had been to see her.