Taylor and Victor

Chapter 30

Taylor

"Can I pick you up at your house? I mean, if your parents wouldn't mind," Victor said over the phone, in the middle of the night when she could listen to him all she wanted.

"They wouldn't, you can come."

For they she meant, was her father. And Taylor could know far better than having him over with her mother's present.

They keep quiet, but their phone's still pressed into their ears. Taylor wondered what he's doing over the line. She thought if he could be any closer to the mic, she could be hearing his breath. She holds her phone, covering the mattress over her to listen. For a few more moments there was a silence between them, the one was rather so comfortable. Before he reminded her.

"It's eleven."

"I know," she responded.

"Didn't you need to go to sleep? We'll be busy tomorrow."

"I know," she said. "But I didn't want to end the call."

"I can hold it, for half an hour. Just go to sleep."

"Can you?"

"Yeah."

She thought for a moment, knowing he too should be sleeping soon.

"Can you, really?"

"I can, really."

"In that case," she said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Taylor puts her phone down, imagining as if he's lying beside her. She thought of him watching in her sleep when the only thing visible is the tantalized feeling through her phone.

After she finished brushing her teeth, her father finished making her breakfast. With slices of fruit and juice he thought was healthier and quicker than anything else.

She doesn't eat fruit, nor drink juice for breakfast. But she likes the idea of having her father around when she wakes up.

"Aren't you going out with your friend today?" Leo asked when she just got down the stairs, ready to sit down at the table.

"Later," she said, watching her father's back with him busy peeling apples.

"Do you need me to drive you somewhere, or you'll take public transport?"

"He'll pick me up."

"He?" Leo turns to look at her with his raised eyebrows.

"He," she said again. "The guy from upper grade."

Leo turns back with his head nodded. "You'll go out with Sam?"

"Another guy."

"Another guy?" he repeated, his eyebrows scrunched up with uncertainty in his voice. "Since when did you go out with another guy?"

"Since mom threw away all of my stuff?" She replied. Her father didn't say anything else, but picked his knife up and started cutting apples.

"We agreed not to talk about it."

Taylor sit back in her chair, tossing a grape in her mouth with her displeasing attitude.

Leo only imagined, she had not said a word.

"But what's he like," her father continued.

"Why wouldn't you come meet him yourself, I didn't know what to say."