Distant Star | Kaylor

Chapter 20

Taylor had grown up admiring her parent's relationship. Back when she was still an oblivious child, she believed that if you find the person you love you'll always grow old together. Love could conquer all, right? Only once her parents and brother died did she realize this isn't the case. Love might be strong, but even the strongest kind of love can be conquered. By death, for instance. Now that Harry's died she's once more faced with that harsh reality.

With a picture in hand, Taylor stands in the middle of the hallway. It's a picture of Taylor and Harry, form when they were on their honeymoon. He was hugging her from behind and she has a shocked expression on her face. Their grins are so big and full of happiness Taylor's heart aches. How she wishes she could go back to that time.

"Taylor. Sweetie, what are you going to do with the picture?" Selena's voice fills her ears. Right, the choice.

Her and Selena are packing all of her stuff, because she'll be moving to her new apartment in Tribeca in three days. Right now, they're going through all things Harry-related and Taylor needs to choose what she wants to do with it. If it's useless she needs to throw it away, if it has value to someone else she needs to give it to his family or friends and if it has value to her she needs to keep it. The problem is that almost everything is of value to Taylor, everything has a memory linked to it. Yet, she doesn't want to keep a lot of things. This is about starting over, not about taking a box filled with memories with her she needs to forget. Well, not forget, she just needs to get away from them for a while.

"I, uh, I don't know," Taylor says still looking down at the picture. She loves the picture, it's her all-time favorite, but looking at it right now hurts.

Selena grabs the picture and puts it in the box that says 'Taylor'. "You're going to keep it. That look you have on your face says enough." Selena squeezes her shoulder and picks up one of the boxes. "Okay, the living room is done. Let's get started on the bedroom."

While carrying two boxes, Taylor trails behind Selena. Not once has she entered her bedroom after Harry's death. She's slept in one of her guestrooms every night. She dreads having to go in there and clean out his stuff. If it hurts to even look at the door, it will probably hurt tons to go in there.

The bedroom looks the exact same as the last time she'd seen it. Shirts and trousers are strewn across the floor. They had been in such a hurry to pack their stuff they never cleaned the mess. The bedspread is completely tousled and the lamp on their bedside table is still on. If you wouldn't know better you would say the both of them are alive and healthy and this had been an ordinary day. Sadly, both girls know that's not the case and that makes looking at it so much harder.

"Come on Tay," Selena says in a soothing voice. She puts one of her hands on the small of Taylor's back and leads her forward. "Let's start with the clothes."

That turned out to be harder than they thought. Sure, a lot of the clothes don't have a sentimental value to Taylor, but they had to come to the realization Taylor and Harry's clothes are mixed all through the closet. It's something Taylor had never noticed before because it was normal and realizing it now, let's just say it isn't nice.

After the initial heartbreak Taylor felt, her and Selena had come up with an idea. They were going to put the clothes that weren't special to Taylor in a bag and send it to an orphanage or something, so they'll still be used. The clothes that were special, such as his wedding suit, are going to be packed in a suitcase Taylor is going to take with her. Taylor wanted all of it to be over as fast as possible, so even when his wedding suit was found she didn't look at it twice. She simply placed it either in the suitcase or in the bag.

After another hour of going through stuff, they're finally done. The girls fling themselves on the couch and breath out. It had made them more tired than the thought it would.