Room 13 (Kaylor)

Chapter Ten.

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me and this story guys! Hope you're all well and dandy! Let's see how Taylor's visit to Nashville to hunt down one sexy therapist goes down...
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Things get better.

Somehow, magically...they get better.

Taylor still doesn't know how it happened, still can't wrap her mind around the fact that she and Joe are actually where they are right now. It's been two weeks since everything fell apart, two weeks of Joe and Taylor working through their issues, talking about their problems individually, and now...now they've come to this.

This amazing, beautiful place where Joe understands. This amazing, beautiful place where Joe, with all the selflessness inside him, continues to support her, continues to be there for her.

Of course, there's still distrust there, still anger and sadness over what's happened, and Taylor doesn't blame him. She doesn't think she can ever blame him for being upset about the fact that she cheated on him. But he expressed his happiness that it never went further than a kiss, and that Taylor confessed almost as soon as it happened. But despite that, even now, Taylor continues to apologize for it.

She's quite sure she'll never stop apologizing for it...not for the kiss itself, but for the fact that she did it while still engaged to him. She's explained to him that she can't find it in her to regret the kiss, and even though Joe had been angry at her confessing so, once Taylor had explained it to him, Joe had come around to understanding.

She couldn't regret the kiss, couldn't bring it in her to feel guilt for it when it had opened her eyes to so much, but the remorse rested more in the fact that she had broken Joe's heart in doing so. Once that had been explained, Joe had slowly come around, though the anger, of course, was still there...

But regardless, she's got her best friend back. And Taylor's quite sure she's never been happier.

Of course, handing him back the engagement ring that's been on her finger for so long was rough, but Joe had taken it with a shaky smile and tears in his eyes before he'd told her something that had had her breaking down in tears against him.

"I'm proud of you, Taylor...for having the strength to come out." He had whispered. They'd spent the entire afternoon after that crying in each other's arms, coming to terms with the fact that their relationship was over, to the point where Taylor had run out of tears to cry, and Joe had gotten stiff muscles from hugging her so tightly for so long.

No one had ever held her like that before, held her like she was falling apart. Well, apart from Karlie...

Karlie.

Therein lies, despite all her happiness, Taylor's biggest problem right now.

She has no idea where Karlie is. She hasn't been answering her phone. For the last two weeks, Taylor's been attempting to call her, but Karlie hasn't been answering, and Taylor's beyond worried. She doesn't understand why Karlie has suddenly gone missing in action, why Karlie hasn't responded to her texts or answered her calls.

Even Joe had attempted to call her, something that still baffles Taylor, and she had texted Jack and Abigail to ask if they'd heard from her, but: nothing. The only thing they've heard about her is from Richard, who called Joe a couple of days after they'd last seen her to tell them that Karlie had called him to tell him she was going away for a while and that she wanted construction on the vacation home halted until she returned. Richard had no choice but to agree: they couldn't exactly continue without the owner's approval. It's a good thing, but also a bad thing: it gave Joe and Taylor time to talk through things and heal, both their relationship and individually, but it also left Taylor even more worried than before. Karlie's been so excited about the vacation home, her eyes shining with excitement when they'd discussed it that day at the café, and now...now she's all but abandoned it.