All We Know Is Falling - A Tayley Fanfiction

Chapter 5: When It Rains

"Hayley...Hayles..."

A voice that is so, so familiar awakens me, wraps around me. I'm wrapped around myself, though, and I won't move. The voice, whispering my name once more oh-so-gently walks to the swing seat that I'm curled up on and cautiously sits down next to me. I'm instantly thankful that it seats two. A few minutes pass silently as we sit together, and I'm exhilarated just by being near him again.

After a while I realise that I need to say something, to reconcile. Shyly I shift my body so that I'm angled towards him and lift my eyes to meet his welcoming ones. My heart feels so much more lifted than it has in so long.

"Taylor...I...I'm sorry-"

A fire lights in his eyes the second my broken voice reaches out, and before I can attempt to say anything more his arms are around me, my face hidden in his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head. It's everything I've needed for so, so, so long, and before I know it I'm fighting not to lift my head, brush my hand along his jawbone and...and...and...

Hayley, you can't! You'd be worse than Chad...

The thought of him makes me shake and burst into tears, my long, tangled hair shrouding me as Taylor holds me close. Minutes pass again, and I'm now so much closer to him than before, and up in the clouds yet falling down at the same time.

"I've missed you, you know," he says eventually. "I called you every day because I needed you to pull me through...and something tells me you've needed me...?"

I look up at him, my face only inches away from his.

"I can't even begin to explain...I've been so torn apart without our band, our music, our past lives..." He sighs. "Without us..."

Slowly, my eyes staying connected with his the whole time, I nod. First once, then twice, then quickly, desperately. Suddenly I can't express enough exactly how much I've needed him. This is the hole in my life that's been ripping me apart. Ever since I left the band, there's just been something wrong that I couldn't explain until now.

Tentatively, he wraps his arms around me tighter and lifts my tiny body up, my face buried into him, carrying me carefully into his house. It's only then that I realise that it's been raining lightly for some time. I was too caught up in the moment to notice.

Once inside, he sets me down on his sofa - one I've sat on, laughed on many, many times. This time though, I'm still squashed into him, afraid to move for fear that he will walk away from me, just like everyone else in my life.

I'm still clinging to him, then, when he gently pries me off him and stands, walking over to pick up his favourite acoustic guitar. He comes back over to me, sitting down slightly further away than before, and begins to play, gently strumming a few chords. It shocks me that it takes a few seconds for me to remember what song is being played to me, but when I realise my heart lifts ever so slightly, and I look up, the beginnings of a smile on my face.

Taking a deep breath, I begin to sing, the song coming back to me easy as anything. My voice is quiet, but I feel so strong. One lyric jumps out at me: "Up until now, I had sworn to myself that I'm content with loneliness, because none of it was ever worth the risk", and as I sing it, Taylor looks up at me, his smile shyer than I've ever seen before.

Realisation floods over me. I've been wrong all this time. I told myself that I was happy with someone else, but the person sitting next to me, playing his guitar to me because I am sad is the one. The one person that can lift me up, no matter how far down I've fallen. He's been there for so long, and for every time that Chad's ignored me, he's hugged me happily a thousand times.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I've finally realised the truth.

I am in love with Taylor Benjamin York.