The Lucky One (2) - Taylor Swift

25

Grace studied Taylor's face for any indication of what the following conversation was going to consist of. She hesitated to sit down, stress bubbling up in her stomach after an already stressful day. Her toes curled in her sock as they suddenly felt like they were too close together, every inch of her body became uncomfortable as she realized this was not going to be a pleasant conversation.

Taylor cleared her throat in her usual nervous habit. Her hands folded in her lap before she reached forward and decided to take Grace's within her own as their knees brushed together, "I want to make sure you know that I'm not saying this to be cruel but because I love you and I think maybe you don't even realize you're doing it."

"Okay," Grace nodded weakly, "Have I done something to make you upset?"

Taylor wondered if she should make it seem less than it was and then decided to be straight up, "Yeah. Yeah, you have."

"Oh," Grace shifted her eyes away, "What is it? I'm listening, I promise."

"You know how sometimes you get flustered by something or you forget to do something you said you would? You get kind of mean and cold, you take it out on me. I know you've been trying to keep everything together but I know that I'm your partner, not your mom. I'm not responsible for making sure you do the things we agreed you would do and I'm not okay that when I've been very gently reminding you, you get mad. It's not my fault, I'm not coming at you! I'm just trying to be like, sweetheart, you said you would take the garbage out and it's still sitting by the door. I'm just- it's hurting my feelings and it's not just that, it's when you take out your bad days on me. Like I said, I'm not saying this to be mean but I need you to try to be kinder because you flip like a switch and Gracie, I'm not sure I can handle that."

Grace kept her gaze on Taylor's face as she explained what was bothering her and then Grace felt Taylor's squeeze her fingers and keep the pressure there until Grace pulled them out of Taylor's grasp and leaned forward to hug her, "I didn't realize and I'm so sorry."

Taylor was stiff as she began to hug back. That wasn't the response she had been anticipating and it took her a moment to reciprocate the embrace. Grace clung onto her as if she was a life raft in a treacherous ocean, "I'm just too... soft for that."

"I'll do better," Grace said it like a promise because it was one. She had seen Taylor walk away once and she would do everything in her power to avoid that situation again. Taylor gave every room air and if Taylor meant she couldn't handle it, that meant she wouldn't stay if it didn't change, "Call me out on that. That- fuck, Taylor, I wish you would've expressed this sooner. I'm not mad at you, usually I'm mad at myself. I sincerely offer my deepest apologies."

Grace's eyes were close to Taylor's as she held her jaw, "I know there's bad days and I tried to let it go and just thought maybe you would realize but today you couldn't find your keys and when I found them you weren't exactly warm to me and I felt like I was going to snap."

"No, no," Grace gently ran her thumb under Taylor's eyes to catch the tears, "There's these steps at my meetings. There's a dozen of them and I don't tend to follow them because they have a religious undertone no matter how many times someone contends that they don't- sorry, anyways, there's one that says to make an amends to people who we have wronged."

"Yeah," Taylor sniffled but it didn't help her shaky composure.

"It would be an understatement to say that I'm not exactly a ball of sunshine when I want to drink or on my bad days. I appreciate you trying to be patient with me for as long as you could and I'm sorry that you were caught in the crossfire of that. I've never had to do things like take out the trash until just recently and I refuse to make excuses about the mistakes I have made there but I will try harder."