Twisted Games

eight - travis

tw: vomit

"Sometimes I think his friends don't like me and that's why he never wants me around them." Taylor mumbled as we sat across from each other at the table. She'd made dinner and was picking at her plate, her glass of wine already half empty next to it. The bottle of wine she'd opened was sitting within reach like she didn't care about moderation, and honestly, I couldn't blame her. She looked wrecked.

"Maybe they're just different people." I suggested.

"Yeah." She huffed. "Or maybe he just thinks I'll embarrass him because I'm not stick thin. And you know, a few years after we started dating we were talking about where it was going..."

Taylor went off on a whole rant about how Joe had said he wanted to marry her and now he didn't, and I just stared at her. The words poured out of her mouth with no need for a response from me as she talked and talked and talked. Throughout it all, somehow, Taylor seemed to blame herself and make Joe seem like the good guy. She turned it around, saying it was probably all her fault, that she hadn't done enough for him. It was kind of heartbreaking to see her trying to defend him even though she was telling me all of these awful things he'd done over the years.

I guess there was a lot you didn't know about people always under a microscope. Taylor had managed to keep her private life under wraps, and I never would have guessed that she was this unhappy. She seemed to genuinely smile in front of the cameras, but a few weeks of working with her and I could see how forced it all was. Taylor was so unhappy around Joe, and she couldn't even see it. She thought she was the messed up one.

The level of wine in the bottle slowly went down and down a Taylor talked, but I didn't try to cut her off even though I could quickly tell she had drunk too much. She was in her own home and wasn't going anywhere, and she looked like she needed this. I understood that. She was just getting it all out.

"But it's hard because I'm so busy sometimes and I forget I'm not supposed to be eating because I don't give a shit about being skinny." Taylor mumbled as she finished off her glass of wine and then frowned at the empty bottle. "Alright." She sighed, standing up and grabbing the bottle, stumbling slightly. I watched as she put it in on the counter, and then to my surprise, grabbed another bottle and put it on the table with a thud. But I didn't say anything. If I had to deal with someone as fucking awful as Joe, I'd want to drink two bottles of wine too.

Taylor was already drunk, but as she talked her way through the second bottle, she started to tip over to wasted. She stumbled through her sentences until I could only understand half of her words, and she started blinking like she wasn't fully there. When I saw those sighs, I shifted forwards to take the almost empty bottle away and Taylor grabbed it, clutching it to her chest.

"Absolutely-ly not." She mumbled. "I'm fine." As I watched, Taylor tipped the bottle up and drank the rest before putting it down so hard it shattered all over the table. She giggled. "Whoops."

"Alright." I sighed. "Don't move okay, I'll get something to clean that up." Taylor just giggled again and nodded, but she sat still as I swept up the glass and threw it out.

Wrapping the broken glass in newspaper, I went over to the bin in the kitchen and threw it out. As I closed the bin I saw Taylor move out of the corner of my eye and glanced up. She was trying to get out of her chair, but her legs were tucked up and I watched as she struggled to get up, before all of a sudden her chair was tipping backwards and she crashed onto the floor. I rushed over as Taylor winced, groaning as she rolled away from the chair.

"I fell over." She told me as I crouched down next to her.

"Yeah I saw." I murmured. "Just sit still a minute." I helped her to sit up but tried to keep her there. She was really out of it now, and I didn't want her to hurt herself.