heroine (taylor swift and travis kelce)

first kiss?

The New York summer was in full bloom, and August was slipping by in the blink of an eye. The final month of summer. Taylor was wearing denim shorts and a white tank top - she didn't feel stressed about her outfit choice in front of Travis. She didn't feel worried about wearing shorts, or showing too much skin. She'd never felt unsafe with him. Ever. He'd done nothing to make her brain panic, nothing to make her feel like she had to be on guard around him.

The end of July had seen Travis hinting at the friendship bracelet situation - of which she'd agreed to when he'd asked if she felt okay about the world being alluded to the fact that he knew she existed.. She didn't feel scared, didn't feel worried about people's reactions. For once in her life, Taylor couldn't care less. She'd listened to his New Heights podcast in a quiet hotel room and she'd smiled. She'd pulled her sheets over her head and laughed a little. That feeling in her chest that she was scared to acknowledge had flickered brightly when she'd heard him talking about her. He hadn't said too much - nor had he acknowledged that anything more had happened than him giving the bracelet to her. But the world knew that the two of them were connected in some way now. There wasn't a single part of that truth that scared her.

"I was disappointed that she doesn't talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings," Travis had told Jason, "so I was a little butt-hurt I didn't get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her."
She didn't know what she was feeling - all she knew was that she hadn't felt this way since... high school.

"You really don't have to do this. I'm perfectly fine just... burning the apartment down and forgetting it ever existed." Taylor told him. Travis was standing beside her in the elevator up to her apartment. Her New York City apartment. She was tense, and she wondered if he knew that. She knew he probably could - he seemed to know it all. She didn't really know how, or why, it seemed that he could read her like a book - but it felt oddly comforting to know that she truly didn't need to pretend.
He glanced down at her, his intoxicating smile lighting up his face.
"We're getting rid of that sofa, and that rug. You don't have to be here - if it's too much for you. The last thing I want is for this to upset you."
"I'm fine," Taylor nodded. "I just... I do really want the rug gone. I suppose I need a sofa, so I'll have to get another one." She sighed as the elevator opened with a ding, and Travis reached out to take her hand. That was the closest the two of them had come, apart from the occasional hug goodbye. Taylor had often debated whether she wanted more. Often thought about what his lips felt like, how his beard would tickle her chin.
She glanced up at him, feeling calmer than she'd ever imagined she could be - walking into the apartment where her life had been obliterated.
His hand squeezed hers, and she smiled.
"Thank you for being here." She told him gently.

She didn't know how to feel when she looked at the sofa in front of her. The stupid sofa that had crushed her soul.
Jen's voice echoed in her head, reassuring her that it was okay. Taylor had been to see her yesterday, in preparation for what she was doing today. Back in New York, back to her apartment, back to this sofa.
"Taylor, honey - you are so much more than the circumstances that have broken you."
Here she was, standing in her apartment with Travis Kelce, her eyes laid upon the sofa that shattered her two months ago. No, it wasn't at the fault of the sofa. The piece of furniture did nothing wrong - it wasn't its fault that she was raped. She knew that Matty probably would have done it anywhere, regardless of whether she had the sofa or not.
But even though she knew that, she didn't want to see the sofa or the rug every time she came back to New York. She'd avoided the place for two months, and finally, today - she'd decided that she was going to act.

It took Travis, two of movers and an hour to get the sofa out of the room.
Taylor tried to help, but even though she was feeling better - that darkness kept threatening to drown her again. When Travis and the movers were gone, taking it down to a moving truck to take it away, she padded across the floor to the rug.