When Emma Falls in Love (Taylor Swift x OC)

Birthday Trip

"Fuck you then, I'll find it myself."

"I almost just made a that's what she said joke, but she didn't say it, she just did it. And he, I guess I shouldn't forget Marcus."

"Why are you doing that?"

Emma looked at her curiously, like a puppy that had just heard the word treat. "Eating? You invited me over for dinner, Tay, I would hope you know why I'm eating."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Oh, you wanted to know why I was telling you about my imaginary hookups." Taylor nodded and Emma continued. "For fun. I had to have someone to share the bed with after you left, felt too empty. Now the octopus takes up the whole side of the bed so I don't have to worry about that now."

"I would have gotten you a stuffed animal if I'd known you were going to sleep with the damn thing. You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

Emma smiled and nodded, although contradictory to what she said. "No, never. You know how my birthday is next Saturday?"

Taylor didn't know that. Emma had talked about how much she disliked her birthday but always refused to say the actual date. "What do you want for your birthday?" She figured that was a better answer than saying that she actually had no idea that next Saturday was Emma's birthday.

"I want to go back to Tennessee. I want you to come with me."

Taylor didn't know what to say to that, she hadn't been expecting Emma to invite her on a trip. They hadn't actually stayed around each other for more than a few hours since being back in New York. It wasn't like they couldn't stand to be around each other for extended periods of time, they had lived together once after all, it was just that Emma had been hesitant to let Taylor back into her life to the extent that things were before. If this was what Emma wanted, she wasn't going to say no. "That sounds great. Tell me where and I can find us a place to stay."

Emma nodded and stood up to rinse her plate off in the sink.

March 31, 2017.

Emma

When Emma had told Taylor she wanted to go to a tiny town on the border of Tennessee and Alabama she hadn't mentioned the fact that it was her hometown. Hometown was being generous, it was really just the town that she lived in during the summers. It was a tiny town where everyone knew every single detail about the few hundred people that were unfortunate enough to call this place their home. The only real things there were two dollar generals, a McDonald's, and a locally owned frozen yogurt shop. They had a courthouse and a post office, but those buildings might as well have been deserted entirely.

Driving through the town to get to their rental home was a weird feeling, nostalgia in the most unpleasant way. Nothing had changed a bit. It really hadn't been that long since she had been here, but it felt like she had lived a whole lifetime between then and now. The football field where she would hang out with a group of kids was the exact same: grimy and tattered. The tree she would sit and draw under when she wasn't working was still as dead as ever. Of course no one had bothered to cut it down, that would imply that anyone here cared about such things.

Even though it was the middle of the night, everything seemed so empty. Out of the dozen street lights lining the road, only two were still working. There were no lights on in the windows, no group of kids sitting outside, no dogs barking. There was not a single sign of life at all, yet Emma knew that people still lived here. It was one of those places that you never left even though there was absolutely nothing worth staying for.

Once they got out of the tiny town Emma pulled her eyes away from the window and back to the people in the car with her. Taylor was staring at her with evident concern, obviously trying to figure out why she had wanted to come here. They weren't staying here, there was not a single hotel or rental within fifty miles, but this was the place that she had named when Taylor had asked where she wanted to go.