WHY SHE DISAPPEARED - Taylor Swift x Reader

count to ten, take it in

What the hell are you supposed to tell him? "Actually, Robert, turns out my neighbour isn't just some rich asshole with zero knowledge of law fucking with me - she's a rich famous asshole worth approximately one billion dollars who's been hiding from the entire world in Panama, and I accidentally made out with her last night. Think that changes our legal strategy?"

You cancel the appointment.

The coffee isn't helping much with the hangover, but you keep drinking it anyway, hoping the caffeine will somehow organise your thoughts into something resembling coherence. Instead, it just makes your heart race while your brain continues to spin in circles.

Three months. Three months of increasingly hostile exchanges conducted through intermediaries. Three months of you standing in your doorway in your work clothes, explaining basic agricultural principles to Marco like he's a particularly dense child, while he delivered complaints from his mysterious employer. Three months of you fantasising about giving your asshole neighbour a piece of your mind and maybe a couple punches so they actually have a justifiable reason not to go outside.

And all that time, she was Taylor Swift.

The woman who revolutionised the music industry. Who's worth more money than some small countries' GDP. Who has literal armies of lawyers at her disposal and could probably buy your entire farm as a rounding error on her quarterly budget.

That's what makes this so much worse, you realise. It's not just that you've been fighting with a celebrity; it's that you've been fighting with someone for whom this entire dispute is probably pocket change, a fickle, passing thought. The water rights you've been so desperately trying to protect, the property that represents everything you have left in the world, your entire livelihood - to her, it's probably just a minor inconvenience.

You've been losing sleep over legal fees you can barely afford, stressing about water access that could make the difference between a profitable harvest and financial ruin, while she's been conducting this whole thing through lawyers who probably cost more per hour than you make in a month.

The thought makes your coffee taste even more bitter.

You remember the way she laughed in the bar, easy and unguarded. The way she kissed you, like she had all the time in the world. The expensive whisky that she bought without even checking the price. Everything about her screamed money and privilege, but you'd been too drunk and too horny to pay attention to the warning signs.

Your anger is building now, a slow burn that starts in your chest and spreads outward. You've been played. Not intentionally, maybe, but played nonetheless. While you've been treating this like a matter of survival, she's been treating it like... what? A game? An amusing diversion from her life of luxury and seclusion?

The rational part of your brain knows this isn't entirely fair. She seemed as shocked as you were when she realised who you were. Her reaction had been genuine, you're almost certain of that. But the rational part of your brain is currently being drowned out by the part that's hungover and humiliated and absolutely furious.

-

By noon, you've made three more cups of coffee and started eyeing the bottle of whisky you keep in the kitchen cabinet for emergencies. This definitely qualifies as an emergency, you decide. Maybe not a medical emergency, but certainly a psychological one.

You pour two fingers of Jameson into your coffee mug, just enough to take the edge off, you tell yourself, just enough to stop your hands from shaking every time you think about last night, just enough to give you the courage to do what you're already planning to do.

The whisky burns going down, mixing with the coffee in a way that would probably horrify any self-respecting barista, but it works. The constant buzzing in your head quiets to a manageable hum, and the knot of anxiety in your chest loosens just enough to let you breathe properly.