Beautiful things - jaylor story (peace book 4)

a few hours at school and silly videos

"I hope that Ellie took what we talked with her about seriously, because we can't keep going in these circles with her. At some point she will need to start to take responsibility for her choices. I don't mean that in a bad way, she has been through a lot, but she is growing up and she can't act like this" joe says, and I do agree with that. It's hard to raise a child with trauma, especially when they become a hormonal teenager. Clearly, we haven't had good communication with her about this, and that's on us that's our parenting. We are not perfect parents, we make mistakes and clearly, we haven't been handling her like we should. It's not that she needs much direct discipline, but I think we have been walking on eggshells around her at certain times and then being hard in other times, consistency have been lacking. We have also not had an open dialogue with her about these things, why we haven't I don't know, but we haven't. 

-ellies pov- 

I'm sitting in the cafeteria with Rebecca working on our project. It's actually going okay; we are making it work. The mood hasn't been good today, she has been snappy again which is anoying. It's hard to know what she feels about me these days because in one second, she is nice but in the next she is really mean. 

"What is it like being the daugther of two famous people? Like they are crazy famous. Isn't it... exiting?" she asks randomly, and I'm caught a bit off guard but I'm happy to answer it. "Honestly, I don't really pay attention to their job. To me they are my parents, two adults that take care of me and can be embarrassing and boring. They have raised us as normally as they can, so they don't really make a big deal out of their job at home. They aren't normal parents per se, but they try at least" I say and shrug. They make it a point to just be our parents and not act like celebrities. 

"I have a hard time believing that. They are super famous; I would be over the moon if they were my parents. My parents have boring jobs. I knew about yours because my mom has always been a big fan" she says. "it's different for me, because the same way you feel about your parents' jobs I feel about mine" 

I don't know where these questions are coming from, she has been snappy up until now, but now she is all of a sudden nice. There has been a lot of questions coming from her, but I don't mind saying stuff. My parents have always made a big deal out of giving us normal childhoods, so I don't really pay attention to anything they are doing in their work. I sometimes watch my mom's music videos if they are new and she wants to show them to me, but that's about it. Obviously, I've heard all of the music but it's pretty boring for me at this point. It was more exiting when I was younger because when you're really young you think your parents are the most exiting people ever, but now I see that they are just regular adults. I don't watch my dad's movies either, the interest isn't there. I would much rather talk to them about anything else than their work. It's probably hard for others to understand if you're not the child of a celebrity though, so I get where she is coming from. 

"Why are you even asking this. You've been snappy with me all day?" I mumble and keep looking down at my book. It's a genuine question. "I don't know Ellie. I don't know much these days" she says with a sigh, and we keep looking at our project. 

Someone comes up behind me and wrap their arms around my neck, Alex, he kisses the top of my head too. "Hi baby, what are you doing?" he asks and tilt my head back so he can kiss my lips which makes me smile. "We are working on our history project. Aren't you in class?" 

He shrugs "its lunch break Ellie, well it's just about to start" 

"Hi Alex" Rebecca says nervously, and he greets her with a hi too. It's not like her to be this nervous, it's sort of awkward to watch actually. Her usual confidence just isn't there anymore which is strange. 

We start to pack up since its lunch, but I already have my lunch bag with me in my backpack, so Alex sits down next to me. I was going to say that Rebecca can stay if she wants, but I know that she won't want to be seen with me. We are just working together to get this project over with and then she will be back to her snarky self, I guess. 

She walks off and I lean into Alex's arms "was she nice to you today?" he mumbles and kiss my cheek "she was snarky and then nice. I don't know what's going on. But it is what it is I guess" I say and shrug. It's hard to read her, read what she is thinking because it's not obvious. She has these walls up, which is understandable, but it makes it hard to be understanding of her. Why can't she just pick one, be snarky or be kind, it's exhausting to constantly worry about which side of her I'm getting. 

-taylors pov- 

We get home with kenzie who is exhausted after two hours at school, and when she gets this exhausted, she gets clingy and whiny. But we will deal with a clingy and whiny kenzie if that means she got to spend some time with her friends, she needs that. 

"Mommy I feel bad" she whines as I help her change into a comfy outfit, we had gotten ready before we left for school. "I know, but we can relax now sweetie" I say and lead her over to the couch and make sure that her feeding bag is full. 

"My body feels bad, but my mind is alive" she groans, and I burst into laughter which makes her cry. "you're so mean" she sobs, and I wrap her in my arms. "i'm sorry, it's not you. It's just that mommy said my mind is alive many years ago and it made people laugh, so that's why I'm laughing. I'm sorry you feel sick" I tell her, but she is pissed. 

To explain myself further I grab my phone and pull up the video of me on jimmy Fallon all those years ago, God it's been so long, 17 years actually. We watch the start and how jimmy sets me up and then the video. Kenzie is laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes, and I can't help but laugh with her. It was funny, mortifying, but still funny. Actually, it was a good distraction from talking about bad things going on in my life, I would much rather be made fun off than talk about the shitty things. 

"Did they give you drugs?" she laughs, and I tell her how I had to have surgery on my eyes, so I didn't have to wear glasses anymore, but that's obviously painful so they gave me strong pain medications afterwards that made me pretty loopy. I was going to say it made me high as hell, like I said the next time I was on jimmy Fallon, but I rather not say that in front of my ten-year-old. 

"Have you said more silly thigns?" she asks, and I nod. "Well. I got my honorary doctorate back in 2022, and then I said something silly in front of a stadium filled with graduates, and tons of faculty. I said why can we eat salad but not grass" I say with a cheeky smile, and she is bursting out laughing again. 

To show her I pull up a video from the graduation all those years ago where someone had highlighted all of the funny things I said. I talked about how I'm technically a doctor but not one that you would want around if something bad happened to you, how I knew about all the types of wine, the comment about eating grass, how I now know what breathing works and how many times I said cringe. I made a comment about how cringe probably would at some point be cringe too, which turns out I was right in assuming. 

"I thought I was silly mom, but you're sillier than me" she says and dries her tears after all the laughter. "I am silly, but I'm also having more fun than a lot of people that take themself really seriously. I think it's a good thing if we can be a bit silly and laugh at us selves. Being silly isn't immediately a bad thing, it can be a good thing" 

She asks if there are more videos, so I just search Taylor swift funny moments, which there are plenty of on the internet. I'm not exactly someone that's known for being chic or cool, but I'm also having more fun than most people. There are hours and hours of videos out there of me being silly over the years, but I don't care because at the time I was having fun, and that means more to me than being considered cool while being miserable on the inside.

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