You drew stars around my scars

Revisiting Taylor

Taylor had been nominated for multiple awards at the VMA's and she had won them all. The following day, she was lounging around the house, recovering from the awards ceremony and catching up on some work.

Jessica was scrolling on her phone when a post about Taylor came up. Jessica never really read anything about Taylor online – she had no need, she lived with her and knew if it was important, Taylor would tell her. This was different though – this was just listing the awards Taylor had won yesterday. Jessica clicked on it – proud of Taylor, she would never get tired of seeing Taylor get the recognition she deserved.

There was a smile on Jessica's face as she read all about the awards then watched her acceptance speeches.

At the bottom, there was a link to another article 'Taylor Swift's VMA wins through the years'. Jessica clicked on that too – she was too young to really remember any of Taylor's early wins, so she only really knew about the last couple of years. The article opened and Jessica looked at the years. It had all the years Taylor had attended - 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024.

Jessica smiled as she realised how long Taylor really had been going.

As the slideshow loaded, Jessica's smile faltered slightly as she took in Taylor's appearance. She clicked through the photos and her smile completely dropped. As she looked at earlier years, particularly 2012 and 2013, Jessica realised how thin Taylor really was.

She had got so used to Taylor being slim but healthy that she had forgotten that Taylor really was unwell.

She couldn't help herself now, she clicked off the article and opened her browser, googling about Taylor and her eating disorder. She clicked through article after article, devouring all the information she could find. She looked through everything Taylor had said about her eating disorder, found photos of her at her worst. It was like she couldn't stop looking until she felt she had looked through everything.

The more she read, there was a shift in her brain. She knew Taylor had been unwell, but seeing it like this – seeing the change in her, she realised that Taylor really had fought through it to come out stronger. As she finished reading the final article, she put her phone down and reflected on it – she knew in that moment that Taylor really did understand.

Anything Taylor said or did wasn't an uneducated guess, it was all developed from her personal experiences. When she tried to console Jessica it wasn't just to pacify her, it really was because she knew what it was like and she wanted to help ease some of the pain she was experiencing.

Jessica sat for a few more minutes, thinking everything through. Eventually she padded downstairs, she saw Taylor lounging on the sofa and she sat down opposite her.

Taylor noticed the serious expression on the teen's face and sat up immediately "what's wrong buddy?"

Jessica bit her lip, her voice shaking slightly "can we talk?"

Taylor nodded "always – about anything..."

Jessica sighed "and you promise that if it's upsetting or hard, you'll tell me and we will stop?"

Taylor forced a smile on "I promise, now what's going on?"

Jessica took a deep breath "how did you recover?"

Taylor frowned "recover?"

Jessica nodded "from your eating disorder. Like, how did you know you wanted to?"

Realisation crossed Taylor's face and she thought about it for a few seconds "If I am being REALLY honest, I didn't"

Surprise crossed Jessica's face but she kept quiet, letting Taylor carry on. The blonde spoke up again "I was basically forced into it to start with. Everyone around me could see things had spiralled out of control and they all decided that it couldn't go on any more. I fought everyone every step of the way at the beginning. I felt like they didn't understand. The eating disorder was really the only thing I had that made me feel in control – everything else was always managed by everyone else but this was mine. I thought it was keeping me safe - I couldn't see that actually, it was the thing that was hurting me"