[kaylor] mirrored;

puppet strings;

"Mom, it's my education, not yours, I think I --"

Andrea clears her throat, cutting Taylor off. "This is final. I'll send a check to the guidance offices and we'll get everything sorted." Taylor's so stunned that Andrea takes her silence as submission. "How are things going at school? How's Martha?"

"It's fine. She's good."

A silence overtakes the phone call.

"You're not in the mood to talk, I can tell. I'll call you some other time when you're not being short with me." 

"No, wait, I've just had a long day," Taylor replies quickly, trying to backtrack out of being on bad terms with her mother, but Andrea hangs up halfway through her words. In defeat, Taylor falls back onto her pillows and stares at the ceiling.

Taylor never liked being in too low of a mood for long periods of time, so in an attempt to blow off steam and relax, she gathers her sketchbook and pencils from her bed-side table. As she flips through the tan-toned pages, her fingers brush over some of her past work, pride bursting within. Her skills had increased even further with her classes this year. Briefly, she wonders if anyone would ever buy her work, but she pushes that thought away, her mother's words dogging after her; "Artists are starved and poor." 

Sketches of her friends and scenes fill the space between the front and back cover. Her most recent work, a portrait of Martha, beckons her fine-tuning.

Her pencil scrawls over the paper, marking thin, sure lines. She bends her wrist about carefully as to not smudge the pre-existing lines. Slowly, she flicks tapered strokes that eventually turn into eyelashes. 

The girl's thoughts drift back to her classes. She has a casual friend, Marcus, who was majoring in Fine Arts. He had turquoise hair and wild tattoos to match running up and down his arms. A lanky boy wit more personality than his body could handle. He told her about his classes, and where he got jobs and offers, and things never sounded too bad for him. It always made Taylor want to consider switching majors, but that was the one of the farthest options from the realm of things she could do. 

Her parents had, of course, instilled a desire to go into politics in her from an early age. She went to various outings and campaign speeches when her father ran for state senate and grew to view her father as an eloquent hero. The elegance and regal atmosphere of politics drew her in as quickly as it spit people out. 

She pleased her parents incredibly when she informed them she was going to run for treasurer on the student council in sixth grade. They stayed up all night with her making campaign posters for her to tape up around the school, and when she returned home a few days later with the news of her election, she fed off of their praise greatly. The next year it turned into vice president, and the following she aspired for presidency. Her opponents were buffoons who wanted extra lunch time and no homework, but they couldn't charm a crowd as easily as she could.

In high-school, her involvement delved even further. Clubs sprouted up through her classmates and she dipped her fingers in as many as she could handle. Taylor was that student that was in every yearbook photo. 

With her laundry list of extra-curriculars and a stunning GPA to match, Taylor got into NYU without much stress. It was a large leap for her; her parents wanted her to stay close to home, but New York City was a location that had daunted her for years and she needed to conquer it. She remembers the fight that morning she told them she wanted to attend New York University; they had firmly told her no, but Taylor was not giving up. Andrea set an ultimatum; if Taylor wanted to go to NYU so bad, she'd have to pay for it. She stormed out of the house and set out to find a job. She wasn't going to be their puppet. That was the kind of person Taylor was. They finally relented when they knew there was no changing Taylor's mind.

She fine-tunes her sketch of Martha when suddenly, the subject, returns home. A quick glance over at her clock alerts her that it's 2:30 A.M. Taylor looks back at the door to watch her roommate begin to slink into the apartment, under the impression that she was asleep, but when she sees the younger girl wide awake in her bed she straightens up and drops the sneaky act. "Oh, hey. You're still up?"

Taylor cards a hand through her hair and nods. "Yeah. I have a lot on my mind."

Martha nods and tugs the sleeves of her university sweatshirt over her hands and takes a leap onto Taylor's bed, bouncing happily on the mattress. "What's up, buttercup?" She reaches out and tugs Taylor's legs closer so that they lay across Martha's lap. Taylor looks at Martha skeptically. She hadn't planned on telling her roommate about Paris until she was certain, but with her mother's words, she didn't see why she should withhold it any longer.

"I was offered a spot in the college's new abroad program. In Paris."

Martha's hands, which had been absently toying with the end of Taylor's pajama pants, stop. "Oh."

"Yeah," Taylor says, realizing how loaded of a statement that was. "I'd leave in a few weeks and wouldn't be back until April. I wasn't going to tell you until I was certain I was going to do it, but I just talked to my mom on the phone and it sounds like I am going to go."

Martha chews on her lip in thought, eyes looking down at the bed. "Do you want to go or does your mom want you to go?" Taylor swallows hard. Martha knew her mother and had seen how her influence had played a part in Taylor's life. 

"I want to go, too," Taylor says, acknowledging that her mother did in fact want her to go without saying it out loud. Martha nods slowly, but her expression is different. It's almost as if she doesn't believe Taylor. "I do want to. Paris is a beautiful city and I'd love the opportunity to study abroad there. I have no problems with going, but..."

"But what?" Martha questions, eyes narrowing.

"Nothing, really. There's no reason why I shouldn't." Taylor lies. She can't mention that she's feeling entirely unsure about her major. She'll never hear the end of it from Martha if she does. Plus, she's not sure how long of a feeling that will be, if perhaps she's just feeling bothered for the time being. 

"Well, I'm a reason," murmurs Martha with a frown.

"Oh, Martha." Taylor pulls the girl close until she's seated in Taylor's lap. "If you had this opportunity I would want you to go. It's the best for me and it'd be the best for you. You wouldn't hold me back from good things, would you?"

"No," Martha admits sheepishly, feeling childish. "Who am I going to room with?"

"You could move in with Cara and Jourdan." Taylor lets out a laugh as an expression of disgust comes across Martha's face.

"If threeway soul pairings were a thing, maybe. Otherwise I'm not thirdwheeling that hard, Taylor. I don't need the sounds of their sex to fall asleep to." Martha's nose wrinkles even further. "I think you should do the program then."

"I think I will."

/ / /

She calls her mom back when she's in a particularly good mood the next day and tells her she wants to finalize everything for the program. The school is ecstatic when they receive all of her filled out forms and they discuss flight options with her.

She goes online and looks up the electives being offered on the school's American website. The girl is ecstatic to find an entire arsenal of art classes that aren't offered at the same level at NYU. She immediately requests a spot in as many classes as she can. Her mother emails her some links of apartments around the school and various attractions. 

Taylor doesn't click on the links for political clubs and meetings that coincide with the dates she'd be there. She does, though, bookmark the website for an artist studio offering classes fifteen minutes from the college.

It feels like an entire new chapter of her life is starting when she receives the boarding ticket under her name in the mail a week later. She has five days to talk to all of her professors and wrap things up to the best of her ability in America, and then she's off to Paris, France.