trouble | dominic sherwood

xx. stupid goat

    That night, Tara is curled up in her bed, a bottle of coconut tequila in the bed with her. There was a line of coke on the counter in her bathroom, but she had just stared at it, nit able to snort it or because of the guilt flooding her body. So she had grabbed the bottle of tropical liquor and climbed into her bed, her phone in hand. A tweet had been posted to her Twitter, gaining lots of favorites and retweets, but not from the one person she was in need of contact with. So she decided to throw caution to the wind and call him, FaceTime wise. She didn't care that her eyes were probably red and puffy, that her hair was in a not so cute messy bun on top of her head, that her t-shirt was slipping off one shoulder to expose pale skin.

    "Tara?" a beautiful British accent asked, causing her focus to snap to him instead of staring blankly at the wall in front of her.

    "Hey, Dom," she said softly, her grip on the liquor bottle tightening.

    "What's wrong?" he asked, immediately noting how much of a mess she was.

    "I just need you to listen. I know you haven't ever judged me or made me feel bad for my decisions, but this is different. This is a lot bigger."

    "Talk to me," he said, smiling widely at the girl on his phone screen. "My opinion of you is never going to change, neither is the way I see you. No matter what happened or happens in the future."

     "Okay," she sighed, letting go of the tequila to chew on her thumb nail as she thought of the best way to put all of her thoughts into words. "I've had a drug problem for years. I've always been in the spotlight. I've made jokes about drugs and mentioned being high, but I do have a problem. It started when I was around fifteen and then progressed as I got more into the modelling aspect of life. There's always a pressure to be more, to be better. And snorting coke helped me with that. But ever since we started talking, I've dialed it back quite a bit because I was out of control."

    "Okay."

    At that, she bit her lip, "But there's a lot of tension between my mother and me. We got into a huge fight because I have a photoshoot the day of her premier that I'm supposed to attend. And she reminded me of all the reasons I've failed at being a daughter, which drove me to scoring some coke."

    "Did you do it?" he asked gently, afraid of spooking hee into not talking.

    She shook her head, "There's two lines on my bathroom counter, but I can't get myself to do them. Suddenly the thought of letting you down, of letting Kendall and Katie down, of letting the two different cast groupchats I'm in down got to be too much. So here I am. A wreck because I don't know what I'm doing with mt life anymore."

    "Tara, I'm proud of you. Yes, you went and got the drugs. But you didn't do them. And you admitted that you have a problem and that's the first step to getting better. If you want to quit, if you want to be completely done with the drugs, I will be there for you every step of the way."

    "I do," she realized aloud. "I don't want to do that anymore. But I'm not stopping drinking, not right now. That's too much all at once."

     "That's fine," he told her. "Now, I'm going to distract you and then we can discuss how you'll quit once you're past all of this shit. The premier and all of that, okay?"

     "Okay," she agreed, nodding and moving the tequila away from her.

     "So, that groupchat is quite amusing," he told her, making her laugh.

    "Ahh, yes. My honorary family members who all want to embarrass the hell out of me. Aren't they lovely?"

     "Yes," he said, making her grin. "It's obvious that they all love you very much. Even when they're teasing you or telling your embarrassing stories."

    "I can't believe they told you about the stupid goat."

    "That was my favorite," he laughed, leaning back against the couch.

     "Oh my God," she said, her eyes widening as she really looked at him. "You're wearing glasses."

     "That happens sometimes," he chuckled, running a hand through his hair.

    "You look hot," she said without even thinking, then her cheeks flushed. "I mean... well yeah, you look hot."

    "Thank you, gorgeous."

    They kept talking for hours, sharing embarrassing stories about their friends - Katie and Kendall for her, the cast for him - and he kept her mind off of the drugs in her bathroom. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep and he watched her for a few minutes before he, too, fell asleep.

•••

just cute little bonding chapter

[ 10.30.17 ]