One in A Million

Chapter six

The video is not totally relevant but I still love it and it's slightly relative to Taylor. Just a bit. Pictures of everyone in the ecternal link.

"Taylor? Taylor come one talk to me! Move, say something. Please. Okay you got me, you pranked me back, very funny now say something!"

Zoey had jumped off the swing and was now kneeling on the ground next to Taylor. He still held his phone in his hand and was staring at the ground. In his head was just noise. Thoughts mangled into a huge ball. If he tried to line his thoughts up one by one on a straight line he'd be there for a week.  

The first thought Taylor managed to disentangle from the mess was that Zoey was still standing next to him. But it didn’t register until he noticed her taking the phone from his frozen fingers and dialling a number.

“Mrs. Grieve? It’s Zoey. Yes we’re still at the park. He won’t move,”

Annoyance started creeping its way into Taylor’s head. It wasn’t her place to take his phone and call his mum. It wasn’t her business as to why he didn’t or couldn’t get up off the tarmac. But she went ahead anyway.

“Taylor get up,”

Go away Zoey.

“No,”

Taylor knew Zoey would win but he didn’t plan on going down without a fight. So he was very surprised when two wiry arms hooked underneath his armpits and even more so when they hauled him off the ground.

“No fair,” he grumbled.

“Whatever, now are you going to walk home or do you need to call your mum? Or me to,” she smirked. Taylor could feel the smugness rolling off her. Quite right really, Taylor was 1.8 metres and at least 50kg whereas Zoey just passed the 1.5 mark and probably weighed 45kg or less. Zoey didn’t know though. Taylor’s mum hadn’t told her. Taylor was betting she was trying to keep things as normal as possible and he was grateful.

“I’ll walk,”

“Good boy!”

“Shut. Up,”

For the first time she fell silent. The silence was uncomfortable and Zoey kept sneaking glances when she thought Taylor wasn’t looking. It was obvious she was waiting for Taylor to tell her but how could he? Zoey didn’t want to have to ask, but she did.

“What is it?”

Taylor opened his mouth to speak but the words were never formed. It just wasn’t possible. He’d been so sure that Celeste would find him first. That was an unspoken promise. To take care of each other and Taylor had missed his chance to take care of Celeste. Now someone else had found her and he had no way of making it up to her. One tear rolled down his cheek. Taylor wiped it away as fast as he could but it was in vain.

“Oh, Taylor,”

“I have to go,”

“No wait!”

But Taylor was already running. He pushed the soccer field further behind him and blocked out the sound of Zoey calling after him. Taylor didn’t have any idea of where he was running just that he was. Taylor could feel the tears on his cheeks. They were hot and streaked a path down his face. He kept turning at random street corners to make sure Zoey couldn’t follow him and when he was satisfied she wouldn’t he sat down on the damp nature strip and put his head between his knees. Time passed but Taylor didn’t keep track of how much. He just knew it was quite a while when someone sat next to him on the grass. She didn’t say anything, but she wrapped her skinny arms around him. It didn’t seem like much but it meant something. Someone cared.