Damaged Heart (Collateral Damage Sequel)

chapter two

A Few Days Later

Taylor doesn't realize Karlie is missing until Martha Hunt insists on everyone gathering around for a group photo. Taylor scans her backyard, filled with her closest friends, but doesn't see Karlie's head towering over everyone else's.

Damn it. "Um...hold on, bathroom," Taylor stalls as she rushes back into her house before anyone can say otherwise. She makes her way beneath the canopied ivy vines covering her patio, now freshly adorned with large-bulbed string lights shining overhead. These lights are all over the backyard tonight, along with dozens of white lit candles on the ground and the outdoor fireplace blazing strongly. Karlie had set up all the lights for Taylor earlier in the day without a complaint. She was happy to help, glad that her height had been useful with a small stepping stool as she took her time with spacing out the lights evenly along the side of the house and through the ivy leaves to look just how Taylor wanted.

Tonight was a special night and Karlie knew that. Everyone knew that. Taylor pretends not to see Selena's sympathetic look as she maneuvers around her to get into the house. She does her best not to wrongly feel frustrated with Selena— with every one of her friends in the backyard. They probably were all looking at her like that. The key word was sympathetic, not patronizing. They're not patronizing. They care about me. They just want me to be happy.

Taylor knows where Karlie will be, but wishes she doesn't. Now that she's in her empty house she moves much slower than she did when she was outside, panicking to get in here, as if hoping she'll suddenly run into Karlie on her way back outside. So she takes her time, hoping that she can give Karlie enough of it to meet her halfway.

But she's probably not coming back outside.

She walks up the stairs loudly. Karlie definitely hears her coming up, and Taylor is giving her the chance to meet her on the stairs. To lie and say she was coming right down.

But she doesn't.

When Taylor walks into their bedroom Karlie is stiffly sitting against their headboard on her laptop, not looking up at Taylor even though Taylor knows with certainty Karlie is aware she's here.

"You have got to be kidding me," Taylor says. She doesn't even sound mad, just tired.

"I was down there for a while!" Karlie insists. She sounds mad, but not very confident. She knows she doesn't have much to argue over.

"You know that tonight is about my album!" Taylor replies. Now she sounds mad, and very confident about it. "I haven't even shown it to you all yet, let alone play it! And you already left!"

"Well, I don't want to hear it with all of them!" Karlie replies.

"I asked to play it for you last week, just us, and you said you didn't want that either," Taylor replies, running her hand through her hair a little more roughly than she had wanted. "I asked if you wanted to listen alone. And you didn't want that."

Karlie clenches her jaw and continues staring at her laptop. She doesn't have anything to say to Taylor.

Taylor watches her jaw pop for a few seconds before sighing, "Come downstairs for two minutes for a picture. I'm sick of you not being in our pictures."

Karlie quietly concedes to that. She has an odd habit of literally stepping off the bed, standing up on the bed and stepping down from it like a large stair. Even now Taylor can't help but admire the grace and combined uniqueness of it.

"And I want you to smile," Taylor says, following Karlie out of the bedroom.

They walk down the stairs silently and then through the hallway, through the kitchen, to the backdoor.