[ discovering you ] - sequel to camp discovery || a tayvis story.

chapter four.

JULY 1, 2013

6:54 AM

Taylor's eyes slowly fluttered open. She looked at her surroundings, confused for a second before she realized where she was. Last night she had fallen asleep within minutes of climbing into Tree and Lance's bed with Michael. She looked on either side of her, seeing Michael and Tree to her right and Lance to her left. She laid there for a brief moment, collecting her thoughts, before she [adjective] pressed her way from under the covers. No one around her moved a single muscle as she walked to the end of the bed and jumped to the floor. She was a pro at sneaking out of bed. She had been doing it for so long that he was now second nature to her. She left out of the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.

Her first stop of her "Morning Mission" was to finish up laundry. It was a new day, and everything they had was dirty. She roamed the top floor until she found the laundry room. It was a relatively spacious room, which caught her by surprise. She looked in the washing machine and saw Michael's clothes, which Tree had put to wash the night before. She moved them from the washer to the dryer, catching a whiff of their scent. "They smell so good," she said to herself as she placed the clothes into the dryer. She looked at all of the buttons of the dryer, determined which one was best for dryer Michael's clothes, and turned it on.

She looked at the washing machine, determined which settings it needed to be on for her own load of clothes, and started it. She watched the water run into the machine for a second before she grabbed for a laundry pod and threw it into the running water. She left out of the laundry room, headed down the hall to what was now her bedroom, and picked up all of her dirty clothes from the floor and her phone from the bed. She went back into the laundry room and dropped the clothes into the machine, and closed it. She was taken aback when she stepped back and noticed the countdown on both the washer and dryer. "Cool," she whispered, realizing it was a timer until both would be done with their respective jobs. No guesswork; she just had to remember when it came back and switch out loads.

With the clothes washed, she headed downstairs and let out a sign when she looked at the garbage bags that lined the walls that contained her and Michael's things. She grabbed one of the bags and dragged it into the middle of the living room floor. She took a seat on the phone before she started to pull everything from the garbage back. She started to sort the clothes out, putting Michael's clothes into one pile and her clothes into another pile. Then she separated the piles into smaller piles of pants, shirts, and underwear clothes. As she sorted, she tossed clothes to the side. Clothes she didn't want anymore, clothes that reminded her of a life she wanted to forget, clothes for Michael that were too small, and clothes for Michael that were too stained to save all ended up in the "throw-away" pile.

She got up from her spot on the floor and grabbed another bag of their clothes. Once again, she sorted them into all the separate piles, making sure she didn't throw away something that Michael would have cried over not having. By the time she was getting up to reach for the third and last bag of clothes, which also contained shoes, she heard footsteps moving around on the second floor. Soon, she heard the sound of a door open, and before long, Tree appeared at the top of the stairs. "Good morning," Taylor said, dragging the last bag to where she was once sitting.

"Good morning," Tree said, starting to come down the stairs. "Why are you up so early?" Tree asked, sitting down on the couch near where Taylor had been sitting. Tree looked around the living room, seeing all of the piles of clothes scattered around. "What do you have going on here?"

"I just woke up and thought I should get the day started. I didn't want my and Michael's stuff cluttering up your living room for too long, so I'm sorting everything out so I can wash it, and I can throw away the things we don't need anymore," Taylor explained.