the list (haylor)

xxiii. chasing cars

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{I grabbed ahold of my suitcase and I called into an airport seeing when the next flight to New York came in.

I didn't want to see Harry for awhile. I needed to cool down, but I had to talk it out with someone and Jake is the best solution to this problem. He may be bias and probably hate Harry, but I have to get the hell out of this hotel room. The air feels almost like its suffocating me with the memories of last night's pleasures with Harry come and go in flashes. I needed fresh air. I needed to get out.

I needed Harry out of my veins.}

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New York City 2:30 A.M.

Three knocks on the door seemed sufficient enough for Taylor's liking. The cool breeze through the night helped the amount of alcohol surging throughout her veins. Taylor had little to none control in what she was doing. Harry kept calling her in the Los Angeles airport so she decided to throw her phone away. Taylor wanted to see Jake, more than ever before. It didn't help that Jake answered the door soaking wet, with a towel wrapped dangerously low along his v lines.

"Taylor!" Jake smiled happy to see her. Her silence was a confusing Jake a little bit as her eyes wandered all around the inside of his apartment.

"Harry, he's a fraud." Taylor admitted to Jake as she stepped inside his apartment. Jake smelled the alcohol on her instantly.

"Well what happened?" Jake inquired concerned with the way she was acting.

"Jake I feel so guilty. It's been eating me alive." Taylor randomly confessed. Jake scratched the back of his neck and furrowed his eyebrows together in confusion. Jake grabbed ahold on Taylor's wrists and looked her deep in the eye. Looking into his eyes was a mere reflection of her own. She almost lost herself in this trance of her half sober, half asleep, more confused than she had wanted to be.

"Let me go grab something." Within an instant Jake had disappeared. Taylor looked around his cozy little apartment. The walls were a golden brown and it made it feel like she was home again. The smell of tea brought her back to her own apartment in England as she cringed at the thought of Harry's face. She noticed dusty pictures of Jake with his mother and father at his graduation. Just below that in a darker frame was a picture of Taylor and Jake from just before she had to leave. Before her mother had passed away. Before she had ever known the last name Styles. Her smile was so simple and pure.

Taylor stumbled over a blanket and sat herself a few feet from the fireplace where she had sat months before. She wrapped herself in the blanket and let her head lay comfortably against the rough stone. She nearly had drifted off to sleep, until Jake had came and touched her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open effortlessly as they were bloodshot from the lack of sleep and stress she'd experienced in the last 48 hours.

Jake comfortably had situated himself behind her as she rested her weary head on his neck.

"I wanted to stop you from leaving the coffee shop." Taylor's whispers were nearly incoherent, but Jake hung on every action of hers.

"Shh," he soothed her. "What's past is past." He wrapped his arms around her waistline and she wrapped her arms in his.

"I've been meaning to give you this." He spoke quietly into her ear. He took her hand and slowly slid a ring onto her third finger on her right hand. It was a simple silver band engraved in it were the words "I promise" in cursive.

"I know with Harry it's hard. And this isn't an engagement ring, but I don't like the uncertainty that comes with being in a relationship. That feeling realizing that your either going to get married or never talk to each other again, it's difficult to deal with I guess for me I've always been afraid of people getting up and leaving and I don't want us to be like that." Jake explained.