A dozen different things go dancing through my mind on the way home. I remember dangerous things, like kissing Ed in a club full of swarming bodies and shivering silhouettes, or confessing wild thoughts in tour buses at night, or standing up against a wall out on a balcony, the beautiful sunset before the midnight storm. His ultimate betrayal. I don't even make it out of the taxi before collapsing onto the concrete. The cab driver dashes away as soon as I've paid, pretending not to see as I fall flat into tears on the ground.
The streets are strangely barren, though I'm here on the verge of the city. Lights still shimmer in the distance, of course, and footsteps echo nearby, but only shadows of drunks and clubbers stagger around on the streets. Behind me on the road I hear a car engine slowing down, and realize I have to go. They wind down their window as I haul myself to my feet, staggering towards the hotel doors in front of me. I hear a man's voice hollering something unintelligible just in time to slip in through the door into the lobby.
Only a few lights are still on. One lone woman sits half-asleep at the front desk, her head in her hand as she looks up at me. She doesn't seem as surprised as she should. In fact, when she seems to wake herself up and properly take me in, she only seems concerned.
"Oh, love, are you alright there?"
I suppose it's my make-up. My eyes must be so swollen and black with all my smeared mascara and eyeliner by now, I probably look like I've been clocked in both eyes. I try to choke out a reply, say that I'm fine, but my words get all tangled and crooked and I end up suffocating on my own sentence.
"Do you need help getting to your room or anything? Any way I can assist you?" She probably thinks I'm drunk. Imagine those headlines.
"No, no, I'm fine. You're... thank you, but I'm fine." Thank goodness I'm able to force out some form of an answer. "Thank you though."
Before she can ask any more questions, I stumble my way towards the elevator, as quickly as I can without falling over and letting myself cave in. The doors are already open for me, and I press the button to close them, thanking my lucky stars we're in a hotel tonight rather than the tour bus we were in this morning. Ed could have gotten in to see me too easily in a bus. Here, just leaving his room could cause a riot of people wanting to meet him.
It's a long way to the top floor and this lift is slow. I huddle in the corner of the elevator, barely managing to stay on my feet as I bury my head in my hands. The tears spill over me and stain my hands with dark purple and black make-up, smudges on skin and paled flesh. My stomach feels as if it is rolling, heaving up and down inside of me. The doors slide open and I hunt for the keys to my suite, dashing through the halls with blatant disregard for all the people sleeping around me. My room at the end of the hallway is the only safety I have.
I unlock the door and throw myself inside, sprawling out across the bed. And when I've buried my face into the hotel pillow, I start to scream.
The sound is muffled by feathers and fluff. To anyone outside the room, not a single sound has escaped these thin hotel walls. And yet to me the ceiling is caving in. I scream and scream until my throat is burning and I cannot take any more; when my voice is gone and my entire body aches for some kind of broken relief, I resort to crying into the duvet. I leave tear stains on the white covers and let it all out.
Time runs away on me. And so does consciousness. I cry until I can barely breathe, and then I gasp for air until I have fallen asleep.
*
YOU ARE READING
Red (Ted Sweeran Romance)
Fanfiction"Love is as easy as ABC." That's what everybody Taylor has ever known has always seemed to tell her. Her family, her friends, even some of her past lovers. But if she's knocking down the letters of the alphabet, Taylor's already at Plan G, and she h...
