5 (jaylor) forever fearless nights and a mirrorball spotlight

chapter twenty.

"What do you mean 'you can't skate again,' Mom. That's not fair." Thea was sitting in her hospital bed, wishing desperately that she could put some distance between herself and her mother. "You know I love it."
"Just because we love something, doesn't mean it's good for us." Her mother told her while Thea was patiently waiting in her bed for the nurse to come in and check her arm and her head before she could go home. She wished she could leave the room, wished that her Mom had never decided to bring up the conversation of figure skating. She wished that this had never happened. Wished that the nurse hadn't spoken about the scars on her arm. She wished that she could go home and sit in her bed and stare out the window. She didn't want to be confined to this room, with her mother trying to tell her not to do something she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Figure skating was her passion. It was her love, her life and everything she had ever wanted. She wouldn't have anything to keep her sane if she lost skating.
"That's not fair, mom. You performed on stage when it wasn't good for you." Thea snapped. Her mom couldn't take this from her. Not when she was so close to gaining a spot on the Olympic Team. She wouldn't stop skating. She'd find a way.
"That's different, Theabear."
"Don't call me that." Thea was hurt, she was upset that her mom would even consider the idea that she'd stop skating. Yes, she fell. But so have so many others. "It's not different. You performed world tours while feeling like you were going to-" Thea had to clamp her mouth shut, because she realised that her Mom had never told her any of these things.

The hurt that flashed through Taylor's eyes was unmissable. She hadn't told Thea about performing her tours with an eating disorder. It was something she'd specifically decided to keep from her - because she worried that Thea would think that if Taylor had survived, so could she. Taylor hadn't told her because it was best for her not to know. So how did she find out? Who told her? Or did she google it? She'd specifically told her daughter not to google anything about their family. It was one of the rules that her and Joe had strictly enforced. She didn't want Thea to find out about her past in that way. It wasn't fair to Thea, but it also wasn't fair to Taylor.
"Mom... I-"
"Did you google it?" Taylor asked gently.
"No..." Taylor knew when her daughter was lying. She knew because Thea wouldn't look her straight in the eyes. Because she was looking down at the floor.
"You're not skating again." Taylor said before she could stop herself. "I'm sorry, Thea. But until we find a way to get your eating dis-"
"Oh, so now you're using it against me?" Taylor was surprised at Thea's outrage. "You've never used it against me before, Mom. How could you? You know how it works."
"You can't skate when I can't trust that you've been eating enough to cope with the strain of it." Taylor was frustrated with her daughter. "I'm not using your eating disorder against you, Thea. But I don't want to see you slip into the dark again. I know that figure skating is competitive and I know that you feel like you've got to compete with the beauty standard, but I also know that you can't put your body through something like that. It can only cope for so long before it shatters. And I watched it happen to me, and I'm trying really, really hard to prevent you from having to go through the same thing!" Taylor was standing up now, she was so frustrated and she just wanted her daughter to understand what a difficult situation this was. "I spent my entire life up until I met your father, hiding an eating disorder and I will not let you spend it like I did! I am trying to ensure that you are better than I was, sweetheart." Taylor was sitting on Thea's bed now, trying everything to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. "Because I love you and I don't want you to go through what I did, because it's twice as hard to stop as it was to cut down the calories in the first place."
"Yeah? Well... what if I said that you weren't allowed to sing or write songs or perform or meet fans or make music videos or win awards?" Thea grumbled. "You don't get it, Mom. When I'm on the ice... I feel like the world could explode but I wouldn't care because in that moment... I was the happiest I could ever be. I feel like me whole body is tingling because I'm doing something that I love. I feel like all of the thoughts in my head go quiet in that moment. How you feel when you're performing on a stage in front of thousands and thousands of people is how I feel on the ice, Mom. I could be in the Olympics. I want to compete. It's what I want to do. It's what I want to spend my life doing. You chose song writing and music, and I choose figure skating and the ice. I've worked too hard on Carol of the Bells to stop now. You can't stop me from doing what I love. That's isn't fair. So what, you're gonna take Lizzie to her lessons for four days every week and leave me behind? Because Lizzie had more training than me from a younger age and I didn't? Because she never falls and because she has a sort of elegance that I never have?" The words were hot on Thea's tongue and she knew that they burned her mother but she didn't stop. "You can't do that, Mom. It's not fair. I know Lizzie is better than me but I love it more than she does!"
"I never, ever, not once said that it was because Lizzie was a better skater than you, Thea." Taylor told her firmly. She was doing everything she could to keep calm, but she was ready to explode. Thea didn't understand it yet - she was twelve and didn't understand everything properly... as much as she'd insist that she did. "I know how you feel on the ice. But you put yourself in danger today. Look at you, sweetheart. Your forehead has stitches and your arm is in a cast, your legs are cut and quite frankly, I can't let you back on the ice if I can't be sure that you're eating properly." Taylor sighed. "I can't let you put yourself in that much danger again. And if that makes you hate me, then I will have to live with that. I would rather know you hate me... than be going to a gravestone with flowers every single day because I let you go too far." Taylor paused. "I would rather have you never speak to me again, than run across the ice like I did today, and see your body lying there but you'd pushed yourself too far... to know that there was something I could have done to stop it." The words cut deep, but Taylor knew it was one of the only ways to get her to listen. Because Thea was stubborn. And she'd gotten that from her mother. "I love you too much to let you go. And you aren't a Mom, you don't know what it's like."
"Yeah? Well you don't know what it's like to be me. And I probably got my ED from you anyway."

The words struck Taylor like a thousand knives. That's what the fucking felt like. Knives slashing her skin over and over again. It felt like she was bleeding out, felt like she'd just shattered into a million pieces. She'd not felt like this in so many years that she'd forgotten just how much it could hurt. The only other time it hurt this much was the first time Adam hit her. But even that could not compare to her daughter telling her that the reason she was suffering from an eating disorder was because of her.
It fucking hurt.
"I'm going to go and get you a glass of water." Taylor said gently.
"Mom, I-"

Taylor knew that the best thing to do is to remove herself from that situation. She didn't want to say anything she might regret, something that scarred Thea for life. Of course she didn't want to say anything like that. So she slipped into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She leaned against the back of the door and pressed her hands to her face.
The thoughts wouldn't stop coming. They were thrashing about in her head because she knew that it was her fault. It was her fault that Thea was struggling. It was her fault that she'd fallen. It was her fault that she struggled with food. It was all her fault and there was nothing she could do to change it.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, desperate for the words of her own mother.
She slid down the door, her knees pulled up to her chest as she phoned her mother.
"Hey, Mom." Taylor said as she tried to pull herself together.
"Taylor! How's Thea doing?"
"She's okay - luckily she's only broken her wrist and a couple of cuts needed stitches but that's pretty much it. But... that's not why I phoned you." Taylor's lips were trembling, her eyes were leaking and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Her Mom asked.
"I got into an argument with her and I told her that she couldn't skate anymore because I couldn't trust that she'd eaten enough to allow her body to sustain the physical strength that skating needs." Taylor paused. "And she... she got mad and told me that she probably got her eating disorder from me. So I'm sitting in the bathroom trying everything I can not to fall apart because I don't know what to say. Because it probably was me. Eating disorders can be passed down. I probably did give her a higher chance of developing one herself and now I want to-"
"Taylor, Taylor. Baby." Her mother was supportive even when it was just her voice through a cellphone. "She's angry, she's hormonal and she doesn't understand where you're coming from. You didn't understand it either when you were her age. When you're twelve, you don't know what's best for you and you say things you don't mean." Taylor heard her Mom sigh. "Yes, they're passed through genetics - sometimes. But Thea also lives in a world with an impossible beauty standard and where just about all the kids in her class are struggling with eating too. She is growing up in a world that makes mistakes and she doesn't know how to process them yet. She's trying her best with things she doesn't know how to cope with yet." Her mom paused, and Taylor felt a wave of calm begin to seep its way into her bones. She let out a breath in relief.
"When does it get better? I can't do anything right or say anything to help her." Taylor asked.
"You just need to listen to her." Andrea told her. "You have to listen to what she's saying."
"Mom..." Taylor asked a final question.
"Yeah?"
"If you'd told me... when I was thirteen that I had to stop playing guitar and writing songs because it wasn't good for me... would I have listened?" Taylor knew the answer before her Mom had even said another word.
"No. You would have hidden the guitar, hidden all the paper and pens in the house, and figured that if you played it in the attic at midnight... no one would have heard you." Taylor could hear her Mom's smile through the phone. "You knew you loved it and you always talked about how when you were playing the guitar... you could feel it in your whole body. In your bones, in your head and in your soul. I think you said it made your heart tingle. Or was it your whole body?" Thea had described it in that exact same way. She'd used that exact word a few minutes ago. That made Taylor want to break down sobbing even more. "What I'm trying to say is that you never would have stopped. You didn't stop when those girls bullied you at school. You didn't stop when a record label wouldn't take you right away.  You didn't stop after Kanye got up onto that stage and you thought that they were all booing you. You didn't stop when Adam was abusing you and your skin was spattered with purple bruises. You didn't stop when your albums were stolen from you. You didn't stop, Taylor. You didn't stop because it makes you feel alive. Because you know that when you're on that stage... it's what you're meant to do with your life. You didn't stop because you were knocked down a few times, got bruised and broken. You didn't stop, baby. You got back up over and over again and each time you did so, you
wrote with a new perspective. You played something new and you came back stronger than you ever were before you shattered."
Her grandmother, Marjorie had told her that exact same thing, once. A long time ago. But the words still burned bright in Taylor's mind.
Taylor sighed, standing up. "Thanks, Mom."
She had the answers she'd looked for.