The Singer's Girl

Chapter 21

TAYLOR'S POV

I felt like crying myself when I heard Caroline upstairs crying in her room on Christmas morning. I headed up there to see what was wrong, it seemed like lately she had been getting worse emotion-wise. I can tell that she tries to be happy, but with the holiday season here and everything happening she had been having a lot of emotional breakdowns. I was used to Caroline having a lot of emotional breakdowns, ever since her dad died I've been dealing with a lot of that kind of thing, but seeing it happen this frequently this long after he died kind of worried me.

When I reached her room I found her curled up in a ball on her bed, covers pulled tightly over her body and sweat forming on her forehead. She was out of breath and trying to wipe away her tears, but they just kept coming. I walked over to the bed and turned on the lamp, sitting down and brushing hair out of her face.

"Hey." I whispered to her as I found her hand and held onto it with mine.

"Did you have a bad dream?" I asked, watching her try to compose herself. She nodded and when she did she couldn't help but start crying again. I watched as she tried to hold back her tears again.

"It's okay, you can cry." I said, climbing over her to lay down with her. She was still trying to hold back her tears but eventually it all came out and I had to hold back my own tears. This poor girl shouldn't be going through this on Christmas morning. She was crying into my pajama shirt and I was telling her that it was okay, even if I knew it wasn't okay. I listened to her cry it out for a while, thinking about ways to comfort her and then it finally started to die down and it seemed like she had gotten it all out.

"You ready to get up?" I asked her before I moved. I felt her nod so I got out of bed and waited for her to get out. Seeing her standing there in my old clothes with red-rimmed eyes reminded me that her life had not always been like this. Even last Christmas she received a call from her dad, she had the comfort of knowing that he was out there somewhere. So much had changed in her life since then, the most visible change being her 4 inch growth spurt. But the change that impacted her the most was her dad leaving the world, yeah she had already lived with me for a long time before it happened, but it wasn't like she was ever expecting it to be forever, or for me to adopt her, or for her to be standing here in tears on Christmas morning.

I gave her a small smile and wrapped my arms around her before we left the room.

"Merry Christmas Caroline Paige." I said, throwing her middle name in there just to make her smile. I heard her exhale and I took it as a little laugh, which was a small step, but a good one.

CAROLINE'S POV

My day got better as it went along, when I finally went downstairs for the cinnamon rolls that Taylor had made there was a lone present underneath the tree that wasn't there last night when Taylor and I had opened our presents from each other.

"Oh man, what's that?" Taylor said, looking back at me with a smile and gesturing to the present. I went over to the tree and picked up the gift, it was labeled "For Caroline, Love Santa". I read it and smiled back at Taylor as I went to go sit down by her on the couch so I could open it.

"Oh my God, Care, Santa came." Taylor said with a huge grin on her face and I imagined her laughing to herself as she wrote the 'Love Santa' part.

"Oh my God." I repeated as I started tearing the wrapping paper off to reveal a huge picture frame with a picture in it. The picture was of my dad, Taylor, and I on the day my dad left for Afghanistan. We were standing outside with our arms around each other and I was in the middle of them. As I was looking at the picture I noticed a handwritten note in the wrapping paper.

Caroline,

I'm giving you this because it's the last picture that you have with your dad and the first picture you have with me. I know it gets tough because he's not here anymore, but just know that I will always be here when you need me. I love you, babe.

Love, Taylor

I looked at the photo again, realizing that it was the last picture I'd taken with my dad and the first picture I've ever taken with Taylor. I leaned into Taylor and she immediately wrapped her arms around me, I let myself relax in her familiar embrace.

"Thank you." I said softly because I thought I might start crying. It was almost hard for me to imagine Taylor loving me as much as she does. I was a stranger to her not too long ago, and now all I do is miss people that will never come back as she constantly tries to make me happy. I pray that she knows how grateful I am for her, and that I appreciate how she puts up with anxiety attacks and nightmares and bad moods and just breakdowns in general.

Knowing that somebody is here looking out for me, even if it wasn't my biological mom or my dad, felt good. I could often forget that Taylor actually was my mom, we were so close in age and sometimes we talked to each other like friends. But one thing that is the same is how she loves me like I'm her own daughter and she's known me since the day I was born.

She does all kinds of things for me that aren't entirely necessary, this moring she got up super early to make cinnamon rolls. We finally got around to eating the cinnamon rolls after I opened my gift. Taylor sat down beside me at the kitchen table and we had breakfast together before we got ready to go to Scott and Andrea's house.

When we were at Scott and Andrea's later that day I realized that Christmas would always hurt, it would always be painful to sit around a tree and not have my parents there with me. Having Taylor did ease the pain, but it would never be the same. No matter how much time would pass their absence would still be evident to me and I would have to learn how to live with it.

That Christmas did end up being a good one, Taylor tried to make things special for me and I did feel special. Now that I was more used to being around the whole family, spending time with them didn't feel as weird as it did in the beginning. When Taylor was driving us home that night dread started creeping into my mind as it did every night. I didn't want to try to go to sleep because it never resulted in sleep and it almost always resulted in panic attacks that I would try to hide from Taylor.

But suddenly I could see snow starting to fall from the sky, being made visible by the streetlights, taking my mind off of everything.

"Taylor look." I said, leaning forward to see further up in the sky.

"I know, I see it." She said, looking around.

"I still have like 2 or 3 Christmas movies recorded on the TV if you wanted to watch them with me tonight while we're still in the spirit." Taylor said. As it turns out I didn't even have to worry about getting to sleep, because halfway through the second movie that night I fell asleep beside Taylor in her bed. When all there is to think about is the movie there is no reason to overthink and lose sleep. And I have to say, Christmas started badly, but ended well.