Summary:
in which taylor finds herself trapped with harry in an elevator, and finds herself trapped in the past.
Notes:
anon wanted haylor in an elevator. and after her comment about 'out of the woods' (WHO'S CRYING ABOUT IT TBH BC I AM), all i wanted was angsty meeting each other after everything. so this happened. (◡‿◡✿)
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It’s the sort of thing no one can prepare you to, walking in an elevator alone to go to the eleventh floor in a building not as modern or beautiful as it could be, in the heart of Los Angeles, maybe too far away from where you live and maybe too close to not be considered home, too. Taylor’s not there because of the amazing restaurant on the twelfth floor, though she could be—no, she’s there to visit a friend of Ella’s, someone who needs to a person to look after their cat, from all things.
When the elevator doors close and she starts going up, she rests her back against the elevator mirror, the button for the 11th floor already pressed, and she grabs the phone from her purse, texts Ella to tell her friend she’s on her way already. When the elevator doors open again shortly after, on the second or third floor, she doesn’t even look up from her cell phone.
It’s only when she hears an awkward, “Oh.” And the voice, well, it’s familiar but it also isn’t, because after such a long time even the voices of the people you once loved so very much turn into white noise if you try hard enough.
And boy, did she try.
Taylor shuts her eyes before she can even look back at him. The elevator doors close behind him, and he tries to say something else, but she interrupts him, speaking more to herself than him: “Unbelievable,” and she’s sighing, opening her eyes to him looking at her with an unreadable expression.
Harry tucks his hands into his pockets a little awkwardly—so much of him is awkward these days, with the awkward bones and the awkward smiles, she can’t decide if that’s just when it’s her or with everyone else—and presses his lips together, holding eye-contact like his life depends on it, and she sort of hates it, too. Wants to scream at him, say that he could have spent so much time staring at her eyes like that when they were still together.
But that was so long ago, and she’s so prone to forgiving.
Taylor looks away from him.
“So hi, Taylor, I guess,” he says.
She doesn’t answer or look his way again, just lowers her eyes to the cell phone, fazed by the 2% battery and how slow the elevator seems to be going. He hasn’t even chosen a floor, hasn’t even snapped out of the shock yet, it seems. Taylor resents that, both for her accepting his presence so quick and for him to seem to not accept hers.
Feeling suddenly tired, she sighs again, softer this time, but still refuses to reply immediately, maybe because leaving him hanging gives her some sense of revenge, maybe just because she’s trying to postpone it until it’s the last thing she says until they one of them leaves the elevator and the other is free to move on with their life again.
