Listen to your Heart

Chapter 19

Song: “Another Try” Josh Turner

“Taylor?” I said as I say him standing in my living room with a walking cast on his foot.

He had this look on his face; he was smirking at me.

“Thought you’d never see me again eh?” he said.

I tried to keep my distance between him; I knew that being too close to him wasn’t safe.

“Why…. Why are you here?”

“Well my season is over so I figured I’d come back and see the guys, you now wish them good luck before playoffs start”

“Couldn’t you have done that over the phone?” I asked.

“Its not the same Nicolette” My aunt scolded.

“I uh, I better Nico” Jackie said walking over grabbing her purse.

I rolled my eyes. Of course she ditches me.

I looked at my uncle and aunt who were all smiles that the golden boy of Windsor was back.

“So Taylor are you staying with Ryan or one of the guy?” my aunt asked.

“Nah” he said. “I was hoping to get a room at the Hilton”

Typical Taylor, unprepared; or was he planning something else.

“Nonsense” My aunt said. “You can stay in your old room”

He smiled, knowing his plan had worked.

“I don’t want Nico to feel uncomfortable”

Before I could even utter words.

“Of course she’s fine with it. You can take your stuff up to your room if you want to”

He smiled as he went out to get his bag out of his rental car.

I turned back to my Aunt, she had these sparkle in her eyes; her adoptive son was back.

“Why did you offer to let him stay?” I asked.

“Because Nicolette it’s stupid for him to pay for him to pay for a hotel when he could just stay here”

I rolled my eyes, and walked back upstairs to my room. I didn’t want to have any part of this.

I closed my door, and fell face down on my bed. Does he really like torturing me? I rolled over and grabbed my laptop. I flipped it open and went to work on editing pictures.

When things got confusing or I was upset I would usually go out back and skate. But it’s the end of March so I couldn’t just go out back and skate my frustrations out. So I choose a more creative outlet. Id open my handy dandy Photoshop program I got two Christmases ago and edit pictures; whether it was  making cool graphics to them, or  just fixing blemish and the color settings. I opened my picture files and saw a file I hadn’t opened in over two months; if it were a photo album that sat on a self, it would have gathered dust and cob webs. It was almost like coincidence I would see it when he was back here, under the same roof I would notice that file.

I hesitated at first, and then I clicked on the file. Pictures of Taylor and I popped up on my screen. I hadn’t deleted those pictures because I couldn’t. Lots of time and work was put into those pictures.

I looked at them and saw how happy he and I looked. I scrolled down the pictures examining our smiling faces, and all those fun times we had together back in last year. Then I saw one of my favorite pictures of us. It was the one where he and I were laying on the couch together. We were both in sweats and hoodies, and I had fallen asleep on his chest probably watching TV. He had taken my camera and faked sleep, so it looked like we had fallen asleep together. We looked like that old couple who were so comfortable around each other we could be ourselves. We looked so happy, and so content. Where had we gone so wrong?