Scars and Souvenirs

Four

Something of a flashback towards the end, so there's a little insight into Taylor's past and why she is they way she is. Enjoy.
And unedited as always.

******

Monday morning rolled around and Taylor barely managed to pull herself out of bed. Hunter left at an ungodly hour on Saturday, and Taylor being Taylor, couldn't sleep that night. Memories, so many memories, clawing at her insides until she thought she was going to pass out. She'd cried for the first time in months, not daintily like the female in every movie, but agonising, gut wrenching sobs that not even Jareth stayed to try and comfort. She had Mrs Winkle from next door inviting her round for lunch the next day, claiming she'd heard Taylor. In reality she was just curious about the first visitor she'd ever seen cross the young girl's threshold. Mrs Winkle couldn't say she approved of the curly haired stranger with far too much stubble, but it was Taylor's choice which men she did and didn't invite into her home.

Taylor kept her clothes as simple as she always did, unflattering to divert the eye of the opposite gender, or the same, but comfortable so she wouldn't have to shed them on her return so she could walk Jareth in comfort. Thick black leggings, black jumper about four sizes too big, the same tattered old combat boots she'd worn every day for three years. Pulling the beanie over her semi-greasy bed head, she grabbed her bag, pulled on her leather jacket and set out.

It was chilly that morning, but then again it was heading for mid November so it didn't surprise her. The lack of rain, however, did.

Extracting a cigarette from the box in her jacket pocket she placed it between her lips. The first cigarette of the day had always been her favourite, she thought, lighting the cancer stick.

When she was sixteen and living in foster care she'd had her drug phase. True, she missed some of the illegal substances, when she was alone at night and her mental health was at its worst her body would crave the numbing effect they had on her. The bliss provided by tablets, the colours provided by liquids. The numbness provided by powder. Prescribed medication couldn't give her that. She'd heard from other people like her, although nobody really was truly like Taylor in any way, that sleeping pills and antidepressants had done everything they'd set out for. Maybe Taylor was faulty, maybe something in her brain was immune to anything that didn't come from the disabled toilet of a dimly lit nightclub.

Or maybe this was her mother's way of punishing her.

******

Her music was louder than usual that day as she walked Jareth, watching on affectionately as he rolled around in the yellowing grass in Low Shore public park and football field. There hadn't been a game of football since July, and Taylor thought that explained the lack of the man in dirty green overalls screaming for her to get her beast off the pitch. She didn't understand why he'd called Jareth a beast, maybe because of his breed, but that made little sense. Huskies were gentle, kind, loving. But then again that depended on the owner more so than the dog. When Taylor had been Mykaelah and she lived in Aberdeen, there was a family who owned a Pitbull, a Rottweiler and an Alsatian, and they'd been some of the sweetest dogs she'd ever met. Even Hunter had fallen in love with them, and he wasn't much of a dog person, although he had the same soft spot for the hairy breed of wolf dog Taylor had, and she liked to think she passed it onto him. Although she could never be sure.

It was too cold for many sane dog walkers to breech the five minutes from home walking distance but Taylor didn't mind. Ever since she was a girl she'd always found happiness in the colder months, she thought maybe it was due to her love of oversized wooly jumpers and thick fuzzy socks but she could never be sure.