the stars in your eyes | t.s. one shots

across the ocean

Taylor pulls her blanket up to her chest as she stares at the computer screen in front of her. Her best friend's face is on there as he talks on about how excited he is to see her.

Travis Kelce was the only person who made leaving home hard. She's known him since the first day of kindergarten and they have been friends ever since. As they grew older, that friendship evolved. They started hanging out one-on-one less frequently and more so in group settings. After all, it was weird. That's what Taylor's girlfriends had told her when she was 13 years old, about the fact that her best friend was a boy. But deep down, she enjoyed his company more than anyone, always.

Travis was the star of the high school football team in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Taylor spent most of her time writing stories or with her nose stuck in a book, but she never missed a home game. Then, they both went off to college, Travis on a Division 1 football scholarship, Taylor on an academic scholarship to a fancy Ivy League school.

It was there that Taylor met Joe Alwyn, a sexy international student who every girl was pining for. She fell for him almost right away. His charming smile, his British accent. The difference is that he fell for her too. By the end of freshman year, they were madly in love. Taylor's school friends liked him, Taylor's parents liked him... Travis was never able to put his finger on why he didn't. But he didn't like Joe.

The two men couldn't be more different. Joe studied theatre, learning Shakespeare and Stanislavsky, things that Travis doesn't even know the first thing about. Intellectually, he's a perfect match for Taylor. She always laughs at the man's quick wit and turns to mush at his compliments. And Travis reminds himself of this each and every day. More than anything, she loves him. That's what's so important.

When they graduated, Joe wanted to go back to England. Not only that, but he asked Taylor to come with him. He told her that she could enroll in a university and get her masters, and after graduating, get her graduate visa for two more years, then find a job that'll sponsor her visa from there. He had a whole plan, every step of the way. She leaped to take him up on that offer, accepting a position to study in Cambridge. Joe works a remote job that he doesn't love, but it puts a roof over their heads. They live halfway between Cambridge and London, with her taking the bus in one direction for her classes and him taking the train in the other direction to London for his auditions. He's trying to make it in the theatre world. It might not be a perfect life, but it's a life that they've built together. And Travis can only hope that they're happy.

In all honesty, though, it hasn't been what Taylor was expecting. Joe's the only one she knows, still. It's been a couple of months now and she doesn't have a single friend. That's draining. And it's a test on a relationship, especially on young people. He's the only person she ever sees, ever speaks to. She's completely reliant on him, not just to pay the bills but socially, emotionally... he's all that she's got.

With each and every passing day, she starts to wonder if she made the wrong decision. England is cold, it's rainy and the sun doesn't show itself all that often. It's humid and she can't figure out how to keep mold from growing on her windowsill. Their apartment is musty, but she doesn't want to open the window for too long because there's no screens on the window and she's had one too many spiders crawl in. And to every person that she talks to at her university, hoping they might be a potential friend, is really just interested in the fact that she's American, not in the fact that she's a person. They only want to talk about America, which is one of the few things she doesn't want to talk about. It doesn't help her homesickness, that's for sure.

And in all honesty, she can feel her relationship with Joe falling apart.

Her plane ticket home for the holidays has been a beacon of hope for the last few weeks as it's gotten harder. Every day is the same, spending her afternoons in the library writing her final essays, spending her evenings with Joe. Those are on the days she's lucky, the days where he's not held up in London, waiting to hear if they'll need to see him again at an audition. Or when he's not holed away in his office, trying to make up the work that he missed the day prior at that audition. On the days when she's lucky, he's got time for her.