The Singer's Girl

Chapter 17

CAROLINE'S POV

Kelsey was the first of my friends to turn 16. So after school on the day before thanksgiving break started she took Grace and I for a drive. It actually wasn't much of a drive because she was just planning on taking us home, but then she decided to go to Walmart.

"Cause I need shaving cream and razors and deodorant." She told us, making a turn into the Walmart parking lot while I changed the radio station from the passengers seat. A sad song about war was on the first station and I didn't want that to dampen my good day. As we walked into the store Kelsey started talking about her boyfriend and Grace and I glanced at each other.

This is when I realized how great this school year has been in terms of friends. If this was last year I would be home with Taylor, and although I love Taylor, it was nice to have friends. Kelsey picked up all the stuff she needed and as we were walking out after she paid we passed a crate of pumpkins left over from Halloween. Grace and Kelsey stared talking about how they carved pumpkins and I remembered that I hadn't gotten to do that this year.

"You know what I should do?" I said, turning around heading back towards the pumpkins.

"I'm gonna buy two pumpkins and I'm going to make Taylor carve a pumpkin with me because we never got to." I said, looking for two good pumpkins.

"I've got ten dollars. That's got to be enough. Right?" I asked.

"Yeah I think you'll be good." Grace said and he helped me carry the two pumpkins I chose to a check out line. I paid or them and then off we were. Kelsey took Grace home first because she didn't live in the middle of the city like I did, she lived in a nice little suburb near school.

When Kelsey took me home I thanked her and grabbed my pumpkins from the backseat. I rode the elevator up to our apartment smiling because I wanted to see Taylor's reaction when I walked through the door with two huge pumpkins.

When I did get to our apartment a security guard that always stood outside our door had to open the door for me because my hands were full. I walked in and sat the pumpkins on the kitchen counter.

"Hey Taylor!" I yelled throughout the house. I smiled as she walked into the kitchen and gave me a confused look.

"What? Why do you-" She started looked at the pumpkins.

"I got them from Walmart." I said simply.

"Why- why were you at Walmart? Was there some type of school field trip to Walmart?" She asked half joking.

"No, Kelsey took us there after school." I laughed.

"And I saw pumpkins and I had ten dollars so I bought them because we never carved pumpkins." I explained.

"Well I call this one." She said pointing at the bigger one and smiling at me.

"No, that's ones already mine." I told her.

"But if we're gonna carve them today we've got to do it fast because I was going to take you to thanksgiving mass at church tonight." She said while she brought the pumpkins over to the kitchen table. I'd told Taylor a long time ago that I wanted to go to church, I thought she'd forgotten about it until now. So somehow my good day was going to get better.

Taylor carved her pumpkin to say 1989 and I carved mine to spell out my name. I was carving the 'n' when I felt the effects of the five hours of sleep I'd gotten the night before. I put the knife down and took a break. Taylor didn't know that I wasn't sleeping well because I'd gotten much better at hiding it. Five hours seems like a reasonable amount to me now, but it didn't leave me any less tired.

"Will you help me?" I asked Taylor and handed her the knife.

"Do you really think I'm any stronger than you?" She laughed but stuck the knife into my pumpkin and started carving anyway. While she carved I was wondering how I would do in church. I knew I wouldn't have any trouble staying awake because it was impossible for me to go to sleep, but I'd still be tired sitting there. I pushed those thoughts out of my mind when I remembered how excited I was for church, I hadn't been in so long.

"Is that okay?" She asked, handing the knife back. I looked at my pumpkin, it currently said 'Carolin'.

"Yeah." I said starting on the 'e'.

"I'm gonna instagram these." Taylor said grabbing her phone.

"Omg Taylor, Halloween was so, like, last month." I sarcastically said in a high pitched voice while I worked on carving. Taylor laughed and snapped a picture of her pumpkin, which she finished a while ago.

When I finished mine we lit candles and put them on the inside, Taylor shut off the lights so we could see them glow.

"Mines better than yours." I joked, we both knew that Taylor's was better.

"The only good part of yours is the letter I carved." She said while taking a picture of our pumpkins beside each other.

"Will you blow those out." She said while turning on the lights again and I took the tops of of the pumpkins so I could blow out the candles.

I was very content after we got home from church that night. I'd wanted to go to church for a long time but I never knew if Taylor would take me. It was a nice mass and after Taylor said we would go again sometime, which was really important to me because my dad used to take me to church every week.

I felt closer to my dad that night, my mom too. I had my good days but usually there was always that one little thing making it not the best it could be. Today it wasn't like that, I wasn't sad about my parents, everything was okay with Taylor.

I crawled into Taylor's bed instead of my own that night. Lately I've been scared to be with her at night because she'll find out I'm not sleeping, but today I wanted to be with her. Maybe this holiday season wouldn't be so hard after all. Last year I had Taylor but that was different because my dad was still alive, so I didn't fully feel like I had Taylor. This year Taylor would be my actual mom. And I had myself convinced that everything would be better.