All We Know Is Falling - A Tayley Fanfiction

Chapter 3: Here We Go Again

As I pull up to the curb outside the Pink Mullet, I realise with a jolt that this is the first time I've left the house in days, weeks, months, quite possibly since everything fell to pieces. My first instinct is to curl up and hide from everything, from the people that will splash my every step over the headlines. But I breathe, once, twice, and climb out of the car.

The moves are familiar - striding across the sidewalk, pulling open the door, stepping in and saying Hayley Williams, here to see Brian? But as I do exactly this, I can't help but feel that something isn't right. Certainly, it has been months since I was here, and maybe there's a new squirrel sitting outside in the Nashville heat, but that's not it. Suddenly, it comes to me - I'm missing the adrenaline I always have when I come to a hair appointment. I'm always bouncing on the balls of my feet, excited to see the new style that'll light up the stage for my next show. That feeling's not there anymore...I have nothing to look forward to, nothing at all.

Well, maybe one thing...

No, Hayley!

Brian greets me with his signature smile, but the best I can muster is a half-hearted shrug. This, in his eyes, merits a tight hug, which cheers me up ever so slightly. Then, I'm back in the same old chair and he's asking me what I want this time, handing me a sheet of paper with all the shades of hair dye on. I scan it quickly, before pointing to the white paper that it's printed on. My life is devoid of colour, so it seems fitting that my hair would be too.

As expected, my decision is questioned what seems like a thousand times, but I am resolved. This is just something that I need to do, and I will not be swayed. Dreary hours pass by as I wait for the dye to do its magic, but eventually it's over and I stand. Brian waves goodbye and I trudge out of the shop.

I don't know what to do now that it's over. My bleached locks fall over my shoulder, wavy and tangled already. My feet drag me around the streets that I used to love, leading me down paths well walked. I'm weary from all the days that I've spent at home, alone, watching my torn world go by, and my shoulders hunch as I trudge along.

My body keeps turning corners, left, right, left, right. I have no idea where I'm going until eventually I look up to see a place that once was my second home. It's fancy, but has just the perfect touch that makes it exactly the house of the owner. Those words stab me in the heart. Perfect.

Grief shrouds me as I sink to the floor, broken and battered. My curved back rests against a brick wall, and I'm sitting, crying on the sidewalk but I don't care anymore. I'm falling apart as mascara tears create rivers on my cheeks, stinging my eyes. Through them I see people walking past me, people passing by in their everyday lives, but I don't see their pitying faces, blurred out by my pain.

What feels like hours passes, and eventually my swollen eyes have dried. I'm broken, but a little more collected than before. Slowly, I pull myself to my feet, my arms weak and limp. I realise then how far I am from my car, from any way of getting home to the place where I can be safe.

Sluggishly, I trudge through the streets of my beautiful home, the colour sapped from the place that gave me life. Luckily for me, I know the way home from here, from the place that I used to come every day. After decades of walking, I reach the Pink Mullet again. As I look towards it wistfully, Brian sees me out of the corner of his eye, and is about to rush out to console me in my bedraggled state when I climb into my car. I just want to hide away, and I don't want his empty words meant to comfort me.

I'm about to drive off when I look up to check my mirrors and see a familiar face. My eyes are stinging and making it hard for me to see but I'm certain. I could never mistake my husband. The man who has loved me for so long. The man who married me just a year ago.

The man...who has his arm around another girl?