SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER || t.s.

02. they called it all off

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. hazel . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

In some unexplainable turn of events, Hazel's father finally kept a promise to Taylor Swift.

It wasn't that Hazel thought her dad wasn't a man of his word. Out of anyone, she knew him the best. She knew the ins and outs of his personality, she knew when he meant what he said, and she knew when he said things in order to get out of a difficult situation.

Despite that, Hazel didn't know her father after a breakup of almost seven years. Before her mother had left, Hazel's parents had been together for just over five years. And while she knew that her mother's leaving and the subsequent divorce had absolutely shattered her father, Hazel had no clue how he had processed the events. She was too young to remember any of that happening.

Which is why, when her father had told Taylor that Hazel wouldn't call again, Hazel had thought it was one of the times where he was saying something in order to get an easy way out of a difficult situation that he didn't want to be in. In her panicked state, Hazel had thought of the worst case scenario first, which had led her mind to swirl around the possibility of what would happen if her dad actually never let her talk to Taylor again. But when she woke up the next morning with a slightly more clear head, she pushed the thoughts of her panicked state to the side. Her dad wouldn't actually forbid her from talking to Taylor again, would he?

At precisely nine-thirty the next morning, Joe had walked into Hazel's room. He smiled at the fact that she seemed to be relatively content scrolling through her phone. After the rough events earlier in the night, the last thing Joe wanted to happen was for his daughter to still be in distress.

However, he wasn't sure whether or not his next moves would cause her to fall back into that state again. Joe took a deep breath before he sat down on the edge of Hazel's bed."

"I need you to delete her number from your phone, Zellie."

Hazel looked up with a start. He wanted her to do what? Her father didn't even need to give a name for Hazel to know exactly who he was talking about and what he wanted her to do. And the sheer thought of doing that scared Hazel to death.

Taylor and Joe's breakup was one thing. It hurt, of course, it hurt like hell. It felt like she was getting torn in two; one piece of her was staying with Joe, and the other piece was forever gone with Taylor's sudden absence from Hazel's life. And while Hazel knew that the breakup meant she probably wouldn't be able to see Taylor in person for a long time, at least she still would've been able to call or text her. Her father's new request meant that Hazel wouldn't have any way to contact Taylor at all.

"Why?" Hazel replied. She kept her gaze focused on whatever TikTok video she was watching on her phone, but her eyes narrowed slightly at her father's request. If yesterday she'd been sad, then today, she was livid. The only thing was, she wasn't going to let it show unless she felt that she absolutely had to.

Joe sighed. "Because," he said, "we all need some time to heal, Zel. I did it last night, after you... went to bed. Keeping her around isn't going to be helpful for any of us. As much as you may think it'll be good for you, it won't. I need you to trust me on that."

Hazel could feel the tension in her forehead and jaw increasing as her father talked, though she didn't say anything out loud. How could he possibly know what was good for her? Sure, he was her father, but that didn't mean he knew everything about her. If Hazel was being completely honest, there were days when she felt like Taylor knew more about her than her father ever did. Maybe it was the maternal instincts that Taylor always seemed to have when Hazel was around, or maybe it was that Hazel loved having another girl around, someone who seemed to get her. Her father understood her, for the most part, but it didn't compare to the way that Taylor got her.