SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER || t.s.

06. my name is whatever you decide

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. brighton brielle . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Brighton Brielle pushed open the door to her bedroom while carrying the shopping bag, Taylor following at her heels. As soon as they'd gotten into the room, she set down the shopping back and turned to face the singer who was somehow dating Travis, studying her with a quizzical look on her face. She didn't want to start asking questions that Taylor didn't know the answers to; not only would it make her feel stupid, Taylor would probably feel bad that she couldn't give the girl with the dead mom and a stranger as her father all of the answers that she wanted. But she also didn't just want to do this whole thing in awkward silence. If she was being honest, the only reason why she'd agreed to Taylor's little plan was because she knew Taylor had met her mom, and that she'd met Taylor before. But she could barely remember those moments herself, so how was she supposed to expect Taylor do to the same?

Luckily, Taylor was the one to ask the first question. "Do you prefer going by Brin?" she asked the teenager.

Brighton Brielle shrugged in response, her normal lack of words seeming to kick in. She didn't really interact with enough people at this point to have enough of an opinion of what people called her. As long she wasn't being referred to as "the girl with the dead mom," she didn't really care. Well, actually, she wasn't in love with being called "Travis Kelce's daughter," either.

"Your dad always calls you Brin when he talks about you normally," she said. "I didn't realize your full name was Brighton Brielle until he introduced you to me today. I just wanted to know what you prefer I call you, so I can be respectful and all."

"You called me Bella," Brighton Brielle pointed out.

Taylor nodded. "Yeah, I did. I... you... uh..."

"It's because of my mom," Brighton Brielle said, effectively stopping Taylor's stumbling over her words. "I know she used to call me that when I was a baby."

"Is that just her nickname for you?" Taylor asked. "Does she still—" she cut herself off before she could finish asking the question, a sadness weighing down her chest. Not only had she not realized that her boyfriend's daughter was the same girl as the daughter of one of her earliest and most loyal fans, but it had also taken her until now to realize that Lily had indeed passed away. Upon explaining that he had a child moving in with him, Travis had explained to Taylor that his daughter's mom had passed away suddenly in a car accident, and he was ordered by the court to take care of their fourteen-year-old daughter. But Taylor hadn't realized that the woman who died had been a fan of hers; more specifically, she didn't realize that the fan had been Lily.

"No, it's not just her nickname for me," Brighton Brielle said. "Honestly, she hadn't used it in years. When you said it... it was the first time I've heard it pretty much since a year or so after the '1989' tour. She used it on occasion since, but she pretty much stopped and just started calling me Brin like everyone else did."

Taylor nodded in response, and Brighton Brielle wondered if she was putting the pieces together on her own about their meeting and the past moments they shared that Brighton Brielle longed to hear about through her mother's point of view one more time. But while she knew that wouldn't happen, she also knew that, with luck, Taylor had enough of a memory of meeting Lily to tell her about her mom.

"Do you remember my mom?" she asked, her curiosity surfacing as she spoke.

"Lily?" Just hearing Taylor speak the name of the woman made a soft pain resurface in Brighton Brielle's chest. Brighton Brielle nodded in response to Taylor's question, praying that the singer would have some sort of a positive response to her own question.