The Soldier's Girl (Under Editing)

Chapter 25

CAROLINE'S POV

Taylor woke me up at 11:52pm on November the 29th. We'd gotten to New Zealand early this morning but I hardly remembered any of the day, it was all jumbled together. I'd fallen asleep at around 4 this afternoon and apparently I slept all the way through Taylor's concert. That kind of disappointed me because I wanted to see it but I was so tired I wouldn't have been able to stay awake for it. The jet lag was hitting me hard.

We left the stadium Taylor was playing at and went back to our hotel. Taylor got in bed but I wasn't near as tired as before. My whole sleeping schedule was messed up.

"Just lay down and try to rest." Taylor told me as I climbed into bed beside her.

"I've been resting all day." I said while turning off the bedside lamp. When I got all comfortable under the covers I was wide awake. I just laid there without saying a word for like an hour. I assumed Taylor was asleep until she started talking.

"Care? Are you awake?" She quietly whispered.

"Yeah." I told her. She rolled over to face me and pulled me into a hug. Except it wasn't really a hug since we were both laying down. I didn't really know why she was hugging me but I accepted it and hugged her back. When we pulled away she was still on her side facing me and I squirmed my way under her top arm to where my head was right in the groove of her neck. She didn't say anything for a while and I was starting to think she was asleep.

"Taylor are you asleep??" I whispered. She said she wasn't and she repositioned the way her arm was on my back. I thought of earlier when I'd had a nightmare. It was around 7pm and I woke up startled in Taylor's dressing room. I didn't start crying but nobody was there when I woke up. Right when I woke up I saw Taylor being lead out of the dressing room so she could get on stage, she was looking back at me concernedly but she had to go. Then I was alone and a little frightened. But eventually the jet lag took over and I fell back asleep. I savored this moment where I could be with Taylor and not have her have to leave.

I didn't get to sleep for the rest of the night, but Taylor did. I was lying under the safety of her arm and cuddled into her warm body until she woke up at around 10am. She was much better at jet lag than I was. When she did wake up her and I went to get breakfast at a pancake house down the road. By the time we were done with breakfast it was already almost time for lunch. That was okay though because since my sleeping schedule was off my eating schedule was off too.

We went out to lunch at around 1 with Taylor's mom and we got back to the hotel at around 2 or 2:30. The tiredness hit me all at once when we were back in the room. Taylor and Andrea were talking about going somewhere. I took that opportunity to curl up in bed, I didn't mean to fall asleep, I just wanted to rest for a second.

I ended up waking up 3 hours later. I looked around the room confusedly, Andrea was sitting in a chair by the bed reading a book and Taylor was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Taylor?" I asked tiredly and Andrea looked up from her book.

"She went down to the beach and I told her that I would stay here with you while she was gone." She told me and I flopped back down on the bed. If she would've told me as was going to the beach I would've stayed awake and gone with her. I was actually kind of mad.

TAYLOR'S POV

If there's one thing I learned today it's that Caroline gets grumpy when she's tired. She also talks back, it's a side to her I'd never really experienced before. I'd just gotten back from the beach and now we were getting ready to go out to dinner with my band and dancers. Caroline was in the bathroom and I needed to do my hair.

"Caroline can I come in?" I said while knocking on the shut door.

"No I'm going to the bathroom." She said quickly. Soon she came out and walked right past me.

"You need to put on different clothes." I called out from the bathroom to her. She had on athletic shorts and a t-shirt.

"Why?" She asked.

"Because were going to a nice place!" I snapped at her maybe a little too harshly. Once we were all ready to go I grabbed my phone off the bed and we headed to the elevators. We had it all to ourselves and when the doors shut I asked Caroline a simple question, this time as politely as I could, but she still snapped back with a quick 'no'.

"What is your deal today?" I said after that.

"I'm so tirrrrreed." She whined, her voice getting louder at the end. I did my best not to say anything rude back because the elevator doors started to open and we were greeted by my band. At supper Caroline didn't say much, she was sitting across the table from me and beside my mom. It was an early supper so we got back to our hotel at around 6:30. I decided not to go to the ice cream place that everyone else was going to after supper because Caroline needed to go to bed before she killed somebody.

The first thing she did back in our hotel room was crawl underneath the covers of the bed and shut her eyes. I turned on the TV and got into the other bed because it didn't seem like Caroline liked me too much today. I was still up and watching TV 2 hours later when Caroline woke up crying. She frantically looked to the other side of her bed for me but when she realized I wasn't there she looked to the bed I was sitting on. When she saw me there she slowly slumped back down into her pillow and started to cry harder. That broke my heart.

"Come here, Care." I said sympathetically as I moved over to give her room in the bed I was in. She reluctantly got up and came over to me. I put my arms around her tightly and kissed the top of her head. Her body was shaking because of the crying. The crying lasted longer than usual and what I was doing to try and calm her down wasn't working.

"Shhhhh, I love you." I whispered to her as I pulled the covers over her body.

"It's okay, everything's gonna be okay." I whispered to her while she took in a huge shaky breath.

"Wanna try and sleep again?" I asked her when she wouldn't stop crying. I saw her glance over at the other bed and shake her head.

"Lay down right here, I'll be here the whole time." I told her while lowering her to the pillow since she was leaned up against me. I turned off the TV and laid down too. She had finally stopped crying and was quiet. I was amazed at how she could go from sassy and grumpy towards me to where she wouldn't let go of me.

It was only around nine and I knew that if Caroline slept too long this early that she would be awake later in the night. I let her keep sleeping though, she needed it.