A Perfect Storm

"I'm on my way back to Nashville, can I come over when I get there? I need my best friend." Taylor sent the text just before she hit the tunnel, not entirely sure what she would do if Abigail said no. This wasn't the sort of thing she was prepared to hash out with just anyone. She needed one of her closest best friends, someone who'd known her when she was just Taylor, to help her figure this out. And then, ideally, she could go over to her mom's. She needed her mom too. But her mom would have an opinion, no matter how hard she tried not to, while Abi would be a sounding board and support whatever she came up with.

"Of course. Need me to pick you up at the airport? I can't remember if you left a car there last time you flew out." Abigail had actually been hoping to see her best friend fairly soon, though this was a bit earlier than she'd planned, it wasn't, she didn't think, TOO early. She didn't like that last bit though. "I NEED my best friend" sounded ominous, somehow. Especially since last time they'd talked, Taylor had been in such a good place.

Taylor spent the entire short flight trying to figure out how exactly to even say what she needed to say. It was just so much all at once. In less than a week, everything she thought she knew about her life and her world had changed. Suddenly, the summer of 2016 felt like a walk in the park. She'd once called that summer the apocalypse. She knew now she was wrong. This is my Behind the Music summer, isn't it? When I said I hoped it was yet to come, that wasn't an invitation for it to begin.She sighed. Maybe talking it out to Abigail would help her figure out what to do with her life. Even the drive down familiar roads to Abigail's just made things feel more confusing. She wished for a moment that they were both seventeen again, but she supposed things weren't any easier back then. It just felt that way with time and distance.

"TAYLOR!" Abigail shrieked, rushing to the blonde emerging from the SUV in the driveway. Taylor had smiled to see the flaming red hair bouncing across the lawn, but Abigail had seen the gamut of Taylor smiles and knew this one was hiding something big. Good thing she and Matt had just bought a shit ton of kleenex at Sam's, and he was out with his buddies until Abi told him it was safe to come home. He knew sometimes they just needed their girl time. Once they'd made their way into the living room and settled on the couch, they could begin. "So, you need your best friend, huh?"

"I do. So much." Taylor pulled out her phone. Sometimes it was easier to show than tell. She opened up the text string with her mom, figuring in this case it made more sense to work backwards. "This is from yesterday. You can read the whole thing, there's nothing there you can't see." The place she'd set it to begin was right after she'd hung up from the most wrenching phone call she'd ever gotten, during which her family had discussed the results of her mom's latest tests, and the doctor's recommendations. She wasn't sure what was worse. The decision they'd made to discontinue aggressive treatments that weren't really working but caused innumerable side-effects in favor of palliative care that would focus on quality of life for whatever time was left, now shorter than she'd allowed herself to fear, or the fact that after, her mom had texted to comfort her. Had wanted to make sure she was okay with the decision even though it wasn't her body or her life they were deciding for. That was what Abigail was reading, the discussion after the discussion, but Taylor knew she'd get the message anyway.

"Oh Taylor. I'm sorry. I know that doesn't really do anything, but I can see why you wanted, NEEDED, to come home right now." Abigail threw her arms around her best friend. Mama Swift was like her own second mom, and she knew how close Taylor was to her mom. She'd been there for everything, her biggest champion and supporter, rarely missing a concert, awards show, or event. She was the person Taylor called for everything. And although the move didn't signal the end was coming tomorrow, it definitely changed the timeline for her best friend.

Taylor had started to cry, a little, but not so much she couldn't speak, for which she was thankful. "That's not even the half of it. Two days before that, four different people sent me this video." She took the phone back and pulled it up, embedded in another text string. Even though she turned the screen for Abi to see, she could picture what she was seeing, having watched it, over and over, as each new friend sent it to her with a caption like 'I hate to be the one to tell you, but I thought you should know.' Over the sound of a bustling club and booming dance music, a familiar blond man with blue eyes and boyish good looks leaned-in to a dark skinned man with a goatee, first laying his head affectionately on his shoulder and then kissing him, passionately, in a way that was clearly not 'just friends.'

"Ohmigod! Is that!?" Abigail had immediately recognized the man she suspected was now her best friend's ex, but...

"Yep. He didn't deny it. Apparently that's why he's been 'working' so much lately. He doesn't even have a new film right now. It's been going on for almost six months, and all he could say to me was they'd been tested so I didn't have to worry. Six. Fucking. Months." Taylor wanted to burn with white hot anger, but all she felt was a cold bitterness. She thought she finally found a good one. Sure, they'd fought in the past, and he'd said he wasn't ready to have kids yet, but that was okay. He didn't have to be. She was willing to wait. He was younger, and her biological clock hadn't been ticking THAT loud. They had time. But apparently she'd been wrong. Again. Like she was about every single person she'd ever let into her life.

"That fucker. I'm going to KILL him! Where the fuck is he, London? Let's go." Abigail was absolutely ready to castrate the dude the moment Taylor gave the okay. She was so DONE seeing her best friend get used and trampled on by the people she let into her life. She'd been so guarded when this one had started and so happy once she'd opened up and why wasn't she more angry about this?

"It gets better. THIS was two days before that." Taylor pulled up the clincher. It was just one photo, but it changed everything.

"Oh, fuck. You're fucking with me, right?" Abigail looked up from the screen, then back down, then back into Taylor's blue eyes, now filling with tears in earnest. "You're pregnant?"

Taylor nodded. "I was going to tell him, when he got home from London. I was actually kind of excited to tell him. He said a while back he wasn't ready to have kids, but I sort of thought maybe he'd be excited with me. I even, it's stupid, but I thought maybe he'd started to pick up on some of the signs I was noticing and that maybe he'd gone home to get, like, a family ring or something. I thought maybe he was going to put a ring on it before I started to show or whatever. I was pretty sure I was pregnant even before he left, even though it's not like I can wander down to Duane Reade and buy a pregnancy test, but I wanted the doctor's confirmation which is how I got the ultrasound pic. I thought maybe he'd be more excited about it if he could see the baby, you know? God, I'm an idiot." Taylor was crying now, but still not sobbing.

"You're not an idiot. Not even a little. Does he know?" Abigail couldn't imagine being in Taylor's position right now. It was just a perfect storm of disasters all coming together at once, over the course of less than a week.


"Yeah. He told me to get an abortion. And maybe I should." Taylor sniffed. "The timing of this is just...it sucks. I'm supposed to be planning a tour, and that's just...there's no way they can fit in a whole tour in like four months before I get too pregnant to do it considering we don't even have venues contracted or anything. And if I were to keep it, I wouldn't try to push myself to come back right away either. So it's probably a year and a half to two years out for me to be able to tour again, if I keep it."

"And yet, you've thought all that through. You were going to keep it if you were still together, presumably. But only you know what you want to do. It's your body, your life." Abigail knew Taylor was still working through what to do here, so she just wanted to keep her talking. If she needed Abigail to hold her hand at a doctor's office while she ended it, she would be there, but it was clear she still hadn't made her final decision.

"I've always wanted to be a mom. I'm going to be thirty and I don't seem to be the sort of girl who can find a partner who will stay long enough to have a baby together. And I've always wanted to see my mom as a grandma, which now has a shorter deadline. But the timing. It's so bad. And is it even fair to the baby to bring it into my world? I should probably just end it. Exercise my right to choose while I still have one." For Taylor, it felt like there were no good options. Keeping the baby would mess up her career, but she didn't really want to end the pregnancy either. The sole upside to her ex was that he'd agreed to sign a contract stating he was purely a sperm donor, so if she DID carry the pregnancy to term, the baby would be hers and hers alone. Well, assuming that was actually a thing. She still needed to consult with her lawyer on that.

Abigail pulled her into another hug. "If you want this baby, then keep it. If you don't or because the timing sucks you just don't think it's the right time or what you want, then don't. But if you do keep it, I think the last couple years have proved that you can keep the baby safe and private. So it's really down to you. You've always wanted to be a mom, and you have a chance right now, but if you don't take this chance, it's not like it will be the last one. Either way, I'm here to love and support you."

Taylor rested her hand on the spot a bump would one day form, if she let it. "I guess I have to talk to my mom before I'm sure, but unless she completely freaks, I think I'm going to keep it. Holy shit. I'm going to be a mom. Oh god." But Taylor was smiling and Abigail knew she'd reached her decision, and was happy with it, for which Abigail was grateful, not only as her friend, but for her own, selfish reasons.

"You are. And you're going to be a great one. This is kind of the weirdest time for this, but now that you've made your decision, I kinda want to tell you something, or, you know, show you something. Because I have a purely selfish reason for thinking you're making the right choice, though I promise I would have said it was the right choice if you'd gone the other way." Abigail hadn't expected to feel nervous telling Taylor of all people, but it was sort of weird timing on the heels of everything happening in Taylor's life.

"As long as it's a GOOD something, I am totally down. I need more good somethings in my life. My baby needs positive vibes." Taylor knew she'd made the right decision. She was at peace, calling it 'my baby' when she hadn't let herself do that until she was sure it was hers.

"The universe has a bizarre way of making things happen, because, um, here." Abigail had pulled out her own phone and pulled up a photo.

"Abigail Anderson Lucier. YOU'RE pregnant???" Taylor was ecstatic for her friend. Unlike her completely unplanned and ill-timed pregnancy, she knew Abigail and Matt had decided to start trying a few months before, and even all the crap in her own life couldn't keep the grin from erupting on her face. "How far along? They're going to be so close in age."

"I'm about six weeks ahead of you, I think. That was the eight week ultrasound you showed me? If you just got that, then yeah, six weeks, because I'm fourteen weeks, just into the second trimester." Abigail was thrilled to see the smile on her face. She hadn't dared dream she and Taylor would do this in tandem. She'd hoped maybe a future child of hers would be close in age to Taylor's first or something.

"So they'll be at most two months apart, if the due dates are accurate. We're going to be moms!" Taylor initiated the hug this time. "I'm obviously not telling people yet. It's still the first trimester. I've managed to hide the morning sickness pretty well, so unless I have to, I'm going to keep it quiet until I show. Though after I tell Mom, I'm going to have to tell my team. All of it. They're going to have to break the break-up pretty fast, because I'm sure it's going to circulate that he cheated. If four of my friends managed to get video, I'm sure plenty of others caught it as well. That's going to be the most complicated bit, honestly. That we broke up and I'm pregnant and we're just going to pretend for the rest of time that it was just a sperm donation and nothing more. But I definitely want the baby to know it's wanted. With everything in my life being public, it needs to know it was very, very wanted by me."

"And me. Aunt Abigail is super excited about it. But I won't tell anyone. Not even Matt if you don't want me to. I've kept mine quiet to fourteen weeks, other than family, and I plan to do the same, wait until I'm starting to show to tell the world. Let's face it, your fans are going to lose their shit. But there IS one person I want to tell sooner than later who doesn't know yet." Abigail offered a shy smile.

"Who?" Taylor wasn't sure why Abi thought she needed to know the announcement plan. She wasn't planning to talk about her own pregnancy publicly for a while, never mind Abi's.

"Your mom. I know she'll love that we're doing this together almost as much as we do. Now more than ever." Abigail didn't want to bring things down now that Taylor was smiling, but it was true. She knew that with everything happening, Andrea would be glad that even without an actual partner, partner, she still had her partner in crime to support her, through the pregnancy and after the baby came.

Taylor nodded. "She will. But I think I'd better tell her I'm pregnant first. I'm going to stay in town for a bit, I think, while the news breaks that we broke up. So, maybe you and Matt could come for dinner some night this week?"

"Definitely. Give Mama Swift my love. And Baby Swift too." Abigail pointed at Taylor's stomach.

"Will do. Wish me luck. This isn't any less terrifying at twenty-nine than it would have been at nineteen, but I hope she'll take it better now than she might have then. Guess we'll see. Love you, Abigail." Taylor pulled her in for one more hug.

"Love you too, Taylor. And I'm here if you need me. I already pee every five minutes so even if it's three in the morning, there's a good chance I'm up to pee." Abigail chuckled. She'd expected the baby to have to be bigger to affect that, but apparently the hormones played a role too.

"I'll still try to keep it to normal business hours, but thanks. The same goes for you. Always." Taylor ducked into her car and waived as she backed out. Time to confess her latest sins to the one woman who knew them all.