Life Makes Love Look Hard (Kaylor)

Chapter 1 (You don't feel pretty. You just feel used.)

        It’s been two weeks since Karlie started staying with her. Not that she minds because of course she doesn’t, but they hadn’t said a word about what happened that night. The purple on Karlie’s face has faded so much that it’s barely visible now, but she’s so curious. What should she do about it? Should she do anything about this? Karlie came to her. Doesn’t that give her the right to be worried?

She’s just so frustrated.

She slams her hand against the countertop, which turns out not to be a good idea. How could it have possibly been a good idea to slam her hand against marble countertops? She regrets it as she hears the cracking in her hand.

“Ah!” she cradles her injured hand close to her chest.

“Taylor?” she looks up to see Karlie, somehow still gorgeous despite wearing sweats, with furrowed brows looking over at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” something gives her away. Maybe it’s the tears in her eyes or the way her voice cracks, but Karlie doesn’t buy it. The model walks over, but she can’t meet Karlie’s eyes. Fingers gently pass over her arm and slowly move to her hand.

“Let me see,” and she has no control. Karlie takes her hand gently, carefully, but it still hurts. She can barely move her fingers and her palm feels like it’s on fire.

Karlie takes one of her fingers and barely bends it and a little cry escapes her. She didn’t want to. She’s trying so hard to make it seem like it doesn’t hurt. Karlie sees through that. She always does.

“It’s not extreme. You’ll probably wanna wear that wrist brace for a day or two, though, just in case. Here, I’ll go get it for you.”

The angel returns with the wrist brace, helping to carefully put it over her hands and fingers.

“Is this about me?”

“What?!” she lifts her head quickly, finally, to look up at Karlie, whose brows are still furrowed and green eyes full of concern. “No, of course not! I just got… frustrated because I… don’t have enough eggs to bake cookies.”

“You just bought eggs yesterday.”

“I did?”

Karlie nods and her cheeks grow red.

“I’m not mad at you or anything it’s just- I-”

“What?”

“I’m worried, okay?! I’m worried, Karlie! You haven’t smiled, like really smiled, in over two weeks. You showed up at my door bruised and we haven’t talked about what happened. I get that you need time and I really don’t want to push you into anything but maybe something would be nice. You don’t have to, of course, but it’s my job to be worried. I’m your friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Taylor shrugs. “This is just me being… me.”

“You’re wonderful that way.”

Heat rises to her face again. She never knows what to feel when Karlie gives her compliments like that.

From the corner of her eyes she sees the clock on the microwave.

“Oh shit,” she runs over to the closet by the front door, grabbing a coat and draping it over her shoulders. “I have a meeting at the studio in like… ten minutes.”

Karlie just smiles at her, “Leave it to you to be worried about me and be late for something actually important like your career.”

“You’re more important to me than my career.”