right now (a gracie abrams au)

prologue

i hope you know to talk to me
i'm right here, fall to me, to me
'abby' by gracie abrams

Gracie's eyes pan around the room as she tries to take it all in. These things, her memories, suddenly seem so important with this life-changing news. The little ornaments, books, candles and torn-up lyrics that make her Gracie Abrams. She looks over at Abby, sitting there sending a text with one hand and holding a glass of red wine with the other. How did they go from dancing around in fairy wings and climbing trees to sitting here drinking alcohol, talking about their adult lives? Her little cousin is so beautiful; Gracie only hopes that Abby can see that about herself. She looks at Weenie, curled up and dreaming of a world full of puppy treats and chew toys. She glances out the window, the last bit of sunlight streaming in as the sky is painted vibrant pink and burnt amber. She wants to remember this day forever. This moment, the second, this single instant that's unfolding in front of her eyes. She wants to treasure it, catch it in the palm of her hand as it sparkles like pixie dust... put it in her pocket and keep it forever. 

Memories - even good ones - have a way of fading too soon though, to the brunette's dismay.

It's all about to change. That's clear as day to Abby. Abby fucking hates change. She hates that one moment you know exactly where life is heading and the next, the wind changes and you're thrown off course. Life seems to be just a big series of changes, one after the other. Some good, some brutal... some inconsequential. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't terrified.

She's thrilled for Gracie. There's no denying that. Opening for Taylor Swift... it doesn't get much better than that. Gracie just got the call this morning, and told Abby right away, her words hidden under a veil of secrecy, an oath that Abby can never share with another soul. Not for a little while longer, at least. No amount of money could be enough for Abby to break that promise of silence.

Abby remembers being kids, running barefoot down the street to Gracie's house, not bothering to look both ways before crossing. Hop Scotch and jump ropes, giggles and golden smiles. Gracie's hair in two pigtails with ribbons around each one, her own hair hanging messily at her shoulders as she refused to let her Mom brush it into a fancy style (no matter how much she'd begged Abby to let her try just once.) No cars ever came down the road of their rural Ohio hometown. Well, maybe the middle-aged daughter of the elderly couple who lived at the end of the crescent street, but that was only on Thursday nights after bingo. She remembers how she'd always find Gracie in the playhouse out back, indents from guitar strings on the tips of her fingers as she would sit Abby down and tell her to listen. She was always a little bossy, even then. When Abby was sitting cross-legged on the hard floor, Gracie would play her whatever Taylor Swift song she'd learned the chords to that day.

When they were a little bit older, the melodies of the girl with the golden curls subsided as Gracie would begin to pen lyrics of her own. But Abby still remembered the night Gracie surprised her by singing Fifteen... with a homemade cake and candy to celebrate the moment they'd talked about since they'd first heard Taylor's Fearless album. Abby and Gracie were always there, at every concert, with glitter on their faces and thirteens on their hands. Their voices were always gone by the end of the night, and smudged mascara from sobbing so hard that they were alive and in the same stadium as Taylor Alison Swift. Country to pop, through the ups and downs, no matter her reputation, Taylor Swift was something they've always shared. Never in her wildest dreams would Gracie have thought that she'd be the one up on that stage. Opening for the singer she'd always dreamed of becoming. Here she was, she could practically taste it.

Abby's proud of her friend - she's excited to be waiting in the wings, to be the one to capture the moment through the lens of a camera. It would be a moment they'd both been waiting for - everyone had that great dream of making it in the world, spending their lives doing something they truly loved. It seemed as if they'd both gotten exactly what they'd spent so much of their childhood wishing for. Abby was ecstatic, but she was also sitting, waiting for the familiar buzz of her phone in her pocket. Her childhood best friend, now turned boyfriend, Sam, tended to always message her nonstop whenever he wasn't working - so she was waiting for the chance to get to talk to him again. It was a Sunday evening and Abby knew he'd be sitting around the dinner table with his family. She'd always subconsciously avoided the scenario - Abby always felt like she was the tiniest bit too... free-spirited for his parents. She'd been around to his place when they weren't there - when it was just her and Sam, but she always accidentally had things to do on a Sunday evening. Thankfully.