Stay - Taylor Swift

Chapter 12

For Taylor and Grace, January ended up being pretty bleak. Grace buried herself in work, only seeing Taylor when the contract required her to. The thoughts of that day kept arising, getting worse and worse every time they saw each other. 

They went shopping in a boutique, grabbed lunch at their favourite restaurant, went for an escorted walk in the park and played scrabble in Taylor's apartment for Instagram photos. As much as Taylor wanted hated to admit it, it was driving her crazy.

"1989" was selling faster than stores could restock CD's, Taylor was busy doing promotional events and preparing for tour. She was learning choreography, deciding on set lists and finalizing decisions. She was barely keeping up with it all.

Texting conversations were rare and phone calls were a thing of the past. They had distanced themselves out of the friend zone, ending up in some weird limbo between acquaintances and exes. People close to them started to notice and ask questions.

It was Karlie who said it first, being best friends with both the brunette and blonde. She brought it up to Grace, deciding that was the easier of the two to interrogate. It was little things like "you don't talk about Taylor anymore," or "we should all get together again soon," that drove Grace mad. 

She wanted to tell someone, to scream at the top of her lungs off a tall building that she liked Taylor Swift more than a friend. The worst part of it all, was that she couldn't. 

She couldn't tell her mom, her friends or her brother. She wasn't allowed to bring it up with anyone, and even if she could, she wouldn't know what to say. How do you explain that you've fallen in love with you female best friend when you weren't even sure you liked girls two hours before it happened?

February was even worse. 

Valentine's Day meant seeing advertisements about couples and being constantly reminded of the one thing they wanted but couldn't reach. Taylor coped by once again trying to write songs. She spent long hours practicing her choreography and still had some music videos to shoot that occupied her for the most part. It was not uncommon for a glass of wine or something stronger to be in her hand at the end of the day.

Taylor's mom started bringing up Grace, pushing even more than Karlie did. "I thought you and Grace were getting along so well," and "you should invite Grace over for dinner if you're lonely," were frequent responses to anything Taylor said. Even if she was talking about the clouds in the sky, Andrea would find a way to relate it back to the younger girl as she was hoping to find some answers.

Tree was getting irritated that she was having to be a mediator between the girls, constantly reminding them of when they were scheduled to see one another and passing along messages they were too shy to share themselves. 

There was a party that Tree insisted Grace attend along side Taylor. It ended in Taylor barely talking to her and getting drunk, making fun of the way Grace accidentally said trousers instead of pants on the ride home. Taylor had sent Grace a list of events to remove from her calendar after that night.

Parker threatened to quit after Taylor told him off one night even though he did nothing wrong. She was incredibly irritable after one of her days in the dance studio and wanted a glass of whiskey, unfortunately she ran out a few days before and had forgot. She got mad when Parker told her that stores would be closing before anyone could pick up some more. She went full diva on him and instead of her usual throwing pillows, she threw a glass.

Parker took two weeks vacation after that, providing the singer with no notice. She had to get Greg to fill in and was even more miserable in the absence of her usual company.

Taylor tried going to her Rhode Island home for a few days to get away from it all, only to end up thinking about all the things she wanted to do with Grace there. She wanted to sit on the roof and watch the sunset, show her the amazing view from the cliff and get drunk under the stars. She did accomplish the last one, alone.