9:30AM, Monday morning;
The time I am scheduled to come face to face with Tanner. With the reason for the biggest confusing area in my life. With the one haunting my dreams and nightmares alike. I don't know what to expect, what I should expect.
It's currently 9 O'clock, 20 minutes after Tanner finished preforming an outdoor benefit concert for some local school. There isn't much reason to believe it was his idea. It could've easily been set up to make him look good in the same way.
I'm sitting in the waiting room, computer case resting against my side as I frequently tend to smoothing down my jeans. I had gone casual, since I would be spending at least a couple hours with him just today, I wanted to be comfortable. Just jeans and a short sleeve v neck, although I feel out of place next to business people bustling in and out of the building. Even though I could've gone with shorts, I'd probably be better off not sweating to death that way, I went with jeans though so I could actually pass for a journalist and not a random teen off the street.
"Miss Swift?" The receptionist says. "Floor 22, room 2218 at the end of the hall."
I nod once, rise, and take the elevator up. For one, I don't know what I should say, 'hey, nice to see you again pal' or act like I don't know him. Now that would be pretty funny, at least for me. He'd think he was seeing things or something.
Despite all that, I end up straining to see my appearance in the glassy silver elevator doors. I don't even know why I'm trying. It shouldn't matter what he thinks of me. He left, I should be mad. I should be really mad, but I'm not. I can't be, if I'm being honest, because he went to live his dream. And if that dream means to seperate himself completely from me and the rest of his old life, that's fine. Completely fine. But when he blocks out his own mother, when he won't even contact her except out of necessity, and even then, only to uphold his good guy persona, that crosses over the line, don't you think?
Room 2218 is honestly nothing more than a big open room with glass lining the side with a couch near the balcony. I walk to it and sit, assuming whoever is meeting me here besides Tanner should be coming soon. I doodle on my notebook that I'll be using for the time being, not really focused as I let the pen guide around the page fluently.
Even though I could easily write an article on him right now, it wouldn't be present, I don't know this Tanner, I know everything about my Tanner, not this one. You might say that's crazy, that no one can change that much in a year, but it's true. Reading him is a lot more confusing as it use to be, mostly because he isn't acting like himself, his act is too strong.
Finally a man barely cracks the door and a couple laughs filter into the room in the form of an echo.
"Scoop reporter?" I nod and he holds up a finger in response as I stand and leans out the door to call to whoever is laughing, then he disappears behind the door again. I'm going to assume that that was his manager and I'll be seeing him too often.
Finally, the door opens and Tanner appears, smiling away as he makes the trek over to me. I try to make it seem like its nothing, like I'm not affected by seeing him again, even though I am, but I smile back.
"Hi. How are you?" He asks as we near a few feet away, holding out his hand to shake and I awkwardly do so. "I'm Tanner Wilde, and you are?"
My initial reaction is that he's kidding, but then, as I see his face, that turns to some kind of a distant sadness, and then comes anger. No grand reaction, no choice surprise, all I get is this.
"Seriously? You don't recognize me?" I can't help but let my tone waver to definitely nothing short of brutish.
He pauses for a moment in thinking. "Detroit concert, right?"
I have to restrain from slapping him. 13 years of knowing eachother, of seeing eachother every single day, of staring at eachother for hours and talking about anything and everything, for just sitting out in the field singing and staring up at the stars too late on school nights, all of that, all for nothing.
"Are you kidding? Are you kidding me?" I repeat, my mouth open now. I can't hold back my anger at this. It's ridiculous, I mean, it's a normal reaction to be like this when he doesn't even recognize me. I mean, it's been long but not that long. I don't know what I was expecting but this was definitely not it. "I'm Taylor. You know, bestfriend since first grade?"
He grabs my arm and pulls me towards the wall as recognition finally floods his eyes. "Taylor. What are you doing here?" but it doesn't sound nice like before, it sounds almost hostile.
I jerk my arm away and cross them in defiance. "I'm working for the Scoop. Consequently, my topic is you,"
He turns and fervently runs a hand through his purposefully messy hair. He actually look distressed, he looks distressed. "How long are you here?"
"3 months. I write my piece on you, follow you around and stuff, get my material, and I go back to Tennessee unless they give me the full time job," I explain. "Did you really not recognize me? It's been a year and you've already forgotten me?"
He makes his way to the window wall, keeping his hands at his head. "It's been a lot harder than you know, Taylor."
"Yeah, well, I also know you've been ignoring your mom, for one. Must be so hard being the pop superstar every girl is galking over,"
"Don't talk to me about my mother," He holds up a hand and that only drives me on.
"Whatever. But just know that this interview is going to be the life or the death of my career so I beg you, if you have one good bone in your body left for what we had, please don't ruin this for me," The words just come out before I have a chance to take them back and I instantly look to him. He still has his back to me, but now curses and slams his hand on the windowsill. I flinch. That's new. He never really had anger issues that were that horrible before, I didn't see that coming.
"What we had? What did we have? All I remember is that we were friends. I didn't think we had anything. Nothing special at least," He spits and I feel my heart plummet to my feet. "But fine. Fine; lets go. I need this interview anyway. So c'mon."
••A/N
Honestly, y'all aren't going to like Tanner for awhile but just hold out on him. Speaking of honesty, go check out Ashley's fanfic Honest. The plot is amazing and you'll love it, trust me:)) love ya, mean it
