ink. (haylor)

xvii. arguments

a/n:

look who's updatin whoo

~bet you didn't see this coming ~

*im full of surprises *

we're already on part seventeen (what) and im still deciding how long i want this to carry on for :): 

anyway if you had school today, i feel your struggle - and I believe in you! you can do it :)

also - i love all of you

-kay

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[Taylor's POV]

I was running.

Up the stairs, down the landing – all while I was trying not to break down. There wasn't one isolated reason why I was crying.

I was a combination of a few different things – Harry wanting children and not telling me, the fact that he would drop a bombshell like that  in front of my family, the fact that we may be too different and that we seemed to want different things in life, and the way I felt about him, even when I was angry, I wanted him to hold me.

I hated this feeling.

Dragging the door of my childhood bedroom open, and entering, I saw that they had kept everything almost the same – from the huge bed in the middle of the room, to the pink walls and plush white carpet – everything was the same as it was when I'd last been in here.

It seemed almost fitting that they hadn't changed anything from when I had been a teenager, since I had collapsed on the bed and allowed the torrential rain of my tears flow, as if I'd been dumped by my high school sweetheart on the eve of the prom.

I felt like the biggest ball of rolled up sadness.

But before I had wet even one side of the pillow with tears, there was knocking at the door.

"Go away!" I called, but my words were muffled by the pillow and it sounded a bit like, "Guh-wah-wayy".

I didn't have to check who it was to know.

"Taylor let me in," he said, his low voice down to a lull, as if trying to convince me to let him in – but that was what I was so afraid of – that I'd let him in far too much already – that it would hurt when I had to let him go.

I lifted my head as the door swung open. I should have locked it.

"You should have locked it," he echoed with a small smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

I buried my face back in the pillow, hoping the point got across to him that he was the last person I wanted too see right now.

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know it would affect you that much," he said and I felt his weight settle onto the bed next to me.

I said nothing.

The warmth of his hand pressed onto my bare shoulder and tried to steady my breathing.

He sighed, "I shouldn't have said that without talking to you."

It sounded like he was finally getting it.

"What if," my voice came out all thick and heavy with emotion, "what if we want different things in life?"

"What do you mean? I want you, I thought you wanted me," he said, at a slightly slower pace than before.

I found myself sitting up, like he was pulling me towards him with his mind, urging me to come closer. Like our bodies just assumed that they could touch every time we were near each other – and that wasn't the case.

"I want you," I said, "maybe too much, sometimes. But that's not what I meant."

I paused and steeled myself, trying to channel the great authors whose books lined the bookshelves of my apartment – it wanted this to make sense to him.

"People our age – they're settling down, having kids – buying houses. I don't want that – yet. Maybe in the future, when I don't feel so much like the wind is blowing me around  and I'm a leaf – when I feel like I know who I am. I want to work and grow and laugh and do all the things I want to do without worrying about anyone."

"Without worrying about me?" the hurt tone was evident in his voice.

"That's not what I meant –"

"Then what did you mean?" he pushed, annoying me more than I already was.

"I mean, if our relationship is going to last, and we're talking about this right now, I don't want kids. I have a job – we both had companies to run –"

"We could get a nanny – we could make it work. I don't want to be a dad living on Facetime, but I know a lot of working parents—"

This time, he was the one who was interrupted, even though it was by the ringing of his phone.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing as I watched him fish it out of his pocket – he was answering his phone in the middle of our first serious argument.

What the hell?

He cleared his throat and tried to dismiss all emotion from his voice, "Yes, Brandy?"

Trying not to get even angrier at him for taking a work call while we were discussing the future of our relationship, I laid back into the pillows and staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out our next move.

"Right now's not a good time," he said, tossing his hair out of his face combing his fingers through it.

"I mean, can it not wait? I'm in the middle –" he glanced over at me and sighed into the phone again.

"Okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he said and I rolled my eyes into the next dimension.

He ended the call and I found all I could say to him was, "Leave," which was funny because he already was – but it made me feel powerful, like he was leaving because I'd told him to, not because he had so little commitment to our relationship.

"Taylor, I – One of our biggest clients are threatening to pull out of a major deal, I really need to do damage-control," he said staring down at me, his intense green gaze searching deep within mine.

"And when are you planning on doing damage-control on our relationship? This is why we don't need to bring any kids into this shit – you're always working, and I'm always working – no child deserves this. It sucks  when your parents can't even finish an argument  without one of them running to work to fix something," I said with as much venom as I'd ever heard in my own voice, and I found my words had struck a chord somewhere deep within me.

My own parents only began getting along with each other only after my dad had cut down his working hours by half – but by that point, Austin and I had already moved out and had already grown up with and absent father with a doting mother who tried to compensate for his absence.

I thought I'd seen his eyes glisten as he stood and walked to the door backwards, the whole time looking at me and mouthing the words, "I'm so sorry," over and over.

With his back almost touching the wooden door, he looked at his own hand on the doorknob and then back at me, sitting on my bed, as if he was making some choice – only to me, it felt permanent.

If he went, that would be it. He would have to live with his life after that without me. He would have to pack all my stuff away and have it sent to me – move on and forget about all of this mess.

He had to choose now – his job, or me.

"Please don't make me choose. We're not breaking up," he said desperately and his words hung suspended there – in the air waiting for me to do something about them.

"Just... go."

"Taylor, please –"

"Just go, Harry. Don't wait up; I won't be coming home tonight."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and I knew he had to go within the next five seconds or he wouldn't make it back into town fast enough.

And with a final look back at me, I watched him leave, closing the door softly.