miracle | tayley

and i still dont know how i even survive

Taylor takes the winding curves toward his house a little faster than is absolutely necessary, his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles go white with the pressure. He knows he should probably relax his foot a little on the gas, but he can't. In his mind, he's already miles ahead, and he can't seem to keep his body from trying to catch up with himself. 

Thankfully, he knows these roads well, and he's pulling into his driveway in record time. The fixer-upper he'd bought a couple of years ago is only about a ten minute drive from his parents' house.

     He'd just made it in four.

     He springs from his car, taking the front porch steps two at time, before fumbling with his keys as he hurries to get inside. He's not sure why he's in a hurry, but his mind is so scrambled he just needs to be in the comfort is his own home.

     He wants to find Hayley, but knows it needs to wait till morning. So, instead he goes to change into something more comfortable. His hand pauses on the sleeve of a faded, black hoodie. His favorite.

     It's the one she'd always stolen from him when she'd curled up next to him on the couch, when she was sixteen... And nineteen... And twenty-six. It completely swallowed her petite frame, and he'd loved to watch her pull her legs up inside of it until only her toes peeked out, curling over the edge of the couch cushions.

     God, he misses her. He misses her like he imagines someone might miss a severed limb, like a part of himself that had just always been there, until suddenly it wasn't. As bandmates and best friends they'd had their own way of communicating; for years, they'd finished each other's thoughts and sentences, moved together with almost unconscious fluidity, and then the one time they'd crossed that line into something more, they moved together perfectly.

After all this time, he still can't precisely articulate what she'd been to him. At any given point she'd been so many things- she'd been his best friend, she'd mothered him, she'd shared his childhood like a sibling, she'd been his confidante, his biggest champion, his lover... She'd been everything, once. And now...

     He can't even begin to wrap his mind around what happened between them, can't imagine that she'll ever forgive him or even entertain him long enough to hear his explanation, his apology.  He has to try though. He has to because she's out there somewhere, right now, believing the absolute worst of him. 

      He's feeling so many conflicting emotions at the moment. Mostly guilt, and shock, and loss, but there's anger there, too, because how could she believe he'd ever turn her away? How could she think he wouldn't want his child? Any child of his, but especially her child? Their child?

     Okay, so he had shut her out, and he had told her that he couldn't be with her, but fuck, they'd spent the night together after years of dancing around it, and then she'd bolted before he woke up like it was the absolute worst decision she'd ever made. 

    She'd left her own fucking house, for God's sake.

     He'd woken up feeling, he would guess, every bit as apprehensive as she had, only to discover that he was all alone in a bed that still smelled like her. That moment had shut down something inside of him, something that he'd only just allowed to flicker into being. So, he'd decided to give her what she'd been begging for for months, space to find out who she was on her own. 

     You want space from me, he'd thought. Fine. Done.

     She'd told him and Zac after the tour that they needed to take some time to figure out who they were going to be apart from each other. It'd taken him aback because he hadn't really realized that a separation from Paramore would mean a separation from Hayley. He'd feared it, but somehow he hadn't actually expected it.