The Singer's Girl

Chapter 36

TAYLOR'S POV

I was cooking supper as Caroline said goodbye to her friends and walked them to the door. They had been taking finals at school all week and tomorrow was their last day. I was just dishing the spaghetti onto plates when Caroline came back into the kitchen. She grabbed a plate and we both sat down at the table.

We ate and we talked, Caroline was a lot better at holding conversations when her anxiety and her panic disorder was under control. She'd been on her medication for about a month and a half now, and she was so much better. She seemed pretty close to like she was before her dad died. After supper we put our plates in the sink, then Caroline went upstairs to study.

Not another word was ever said between the two of us about her counseling after what happened the last time she went. It was a dropped subject, I never brought up making another appointment to Caroline and she never brought it up to me.

It seemed like she didn't need it though, she was doing a lot better. She was sleeping, her panic attacks were minimal if any. I was happy about all of this, her being healthy let me relax more.

While Caroline was studying I went into my room and started packing a suitcase, in a few days we'd be leaving for the summer to go on the U.S. leg of the 1989 tour. We'd be gone all summer but then back when it was time for Caroline to start school again. It was crazy to me that her junior year was a few months away. I didn't feel old enough to be her mother, but I guess this year proved that I could be.

As excited as I was, officially becoming her mom scared me to death. When I became a foster parent 2 years ago it was like I was just trying everything out, I knew that if anything ever went wrong Caroline's dad would be coming back from Afghanistan in the summer, and nothing would be permanent. But then he wasn't going to come back, and for a while I didn't know what I was doing, I was just trying to comfort her but I had absolutely no plans for a future for the two of us.

But then when things calmed down a little and some time had passed since Charlie died I knew I had to figure out what was going to happen. I saw how attached Caroline was to me, and I knew I couldn't put her with any other family. So she stayed with me as my foster daughter for a little while longer until I finally decided that I would adopt her.

Ever since I did things haven't been exactly perfect. There were some pretty good days, but overall she was still struggling with the loss of her dad and when that started building up into what we now know as panic disorder, things started taking a turn for the worst. But just in this last month things had gotten so much better, we'd taken care of everything and I was finally starting to see her like I'd never really seen her before; as my daughter.

I mean ever since I'd signed the papers I'd known that she was my daughter, but when she was always upset about her other parents it was hard for me to really feel like her mom. She called me Taylor and she would constantly be mourning the loss of her real mom and dad.

And she still called me Taylor, with the occasional mom, but otherwise things had really turned around. It had been awhile since I'd seen her get teary eyed over her dad, and she was more willing to go to my family functions. And now that I really, truly saw her as my daughter, I discovered that she really, truly saw me as her mom.

CAROLINE'S POV

A feeling of relief washed over me when I turned in my last final. Today was the last day of school and all of my hardest tests were today, now that I was finished I was free to go. I took my backpack and walked out of the building with some of the other people who had finished their tests around the same time as me, one of them being my friend Grace.

When we all got into our cars and headed out of the parking lot for the summer it killed me to know that as Grace was going to the hospital to see her mom I was going to a restaurant to see me perfectly healthy mom.

Grace's mom wasn't doing very well. Her cancer had spread significantly over the past few months and Grace had missed a lot of school because of her mom, but then again, so had I.

I was supposed to be meeting up with Taylor for lunch at a restaurant because it was only noon when I got out. I was surprised when I found the place so quickly, and I pulled in next to Taylor's car. When I walked into the restaurant one of the hosts told me there would be a fifteen minute wait.

"Uhh, I think my mom is already here." I said, looking around.

"Oh yes, this way." She said as she recognized me. She led me to Taylor's table and I sat down across from her.

"How were your tests?" Taylor asked.

"Fine." I said, sipping the pop Taylor ordered for me. We ordered, ate, talked, ordered dessert, and talked some more when the realization finally struck me; this was the happiest I'd been in almost 2 years. Both my parents were gone, but I had Taylor and somehow I learned to live with having just her, I learned to live with not having my dad, and I learned to live with and fix my anxiety.

Of course I'd had happy times since my dad died, but not ones like this, as I knew that if all of this kept up it'd be a good summer.

The end.

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Thanks for reading you guys! This is the last chapter and then I'll start writing the next story in the series, I'll keep you updated to when that comes out.