CLEAN || Taylor Swift Adoption

TWENTY-TWO

A/N: I'm back! Sorry for making y'all wait so long for this update, I was on the verge of losing my mind with all the work I had for the last two weeks. Plus almost everyone in my life has me at my wit's end, except for a couple of my long-distance friends that are *finally* home for Christmas. But I have the next three weeks off, so I'm hoping to get a bunch done for this project, as well as possibly start working on a new one, so let me know if you have any ideas for that!

TW for this chapter: mentions of abuse and alcohol. 

"Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound..."

~EVERLEIGH~

August 7, 2019

After Payton got called back, it didn't take too long for my exhaustion to set in, so I decided to call it and head inside. I carefully wandered through the house and back upstairs to the room that Taylor had deemed to be mine, knowing that she said I could go to bed pretty much whenever I wanted. I was relieved that I'd remembered the way back to the room and that I had avoided an awkward run-in with any fan. It was already bad enough that I'd come clean to Payton and Eloise, the last thing I needed was for more fans to put the pieces together before we were ready to do so.

I took down the hair that had been pulled away from my face and braided the rest of it back for the night, before I ran a makeup wipe over my entire face, trying to get every last bit of makeup off of my face before I went to bed. After that, I quickly washed my face and brushed my teeth before changing into the makeshift pajamas that were neatly folded and sitting at the end of my bed—a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from the Reputation tour. When Taylor had first handed them to me, there was a part of me that was surprised that she still had a large collection of old merch from her prior tours, but she claimed that it was mostly her keeping it for her parents. Either way, she was willing to spare some for me, and it was some of the nicest clothing that I had owned.

I thought back to middle school, where almost everyone had worn sweatpants and T-shirts to school, especially on Mondays, when the entire school was just plain exhausted. There were always other days when people would wear T-shirts or hoodies from concerts that they went to, and the entire day, they would be getting questions and compliments from the entire school about the concert. It was the one time when people got to feel like celebrities in their own school, and a bitter taste filled my mouth every time I thought about the fact that I had never been able to truly be a part of that.

Instead of being the girl wearing a shirt from a concert she just went to, I was always the girl in old clothes. I was the girl who looked like she was homeless because she didn't have a real family to love her in the same way that everyone else had.

I sighed as I turned off the lamp that was illuminating the room and climbed into the bed. It was a much larger, much softer bed than I'd ever laid in before, and it felt almost foreign to know that I was living in the lap of luxury. Taylor had more money than I would know what to do with, and it was drastically different than any other foster parent I had stayed with. Plus, Taylor seemed to actually be willing to use some of that money on me, and the concept of her doing that was just mind-boggling to me. Like, there was no way in hell that I had managed to do something incredible enough to deserve Taylor Swift treating me well.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs broke me out of my thoughts, and I instinctively froze, waiting for the next movement outside of my door. I stared at the door of the guest room in anxious anticipation for the next creak of a floorboard to let me know where the figure outside my door was.