When Love Walked In

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

            Taylor sat back on her heels on the tiled floor and leaned against the wall. I grabbed some tissues from the open container by the sink and gently dabbed her wet cheeks. Few tears streaked down her face but marks from earlier were evident on her cheeks. In that moment, she looked like a little girl sniffling after witnessing something she wasn’t supposed to see. I didn’t ask her any more questions but instead sat next to her, waiting patiently.

            “Don’t you want to ask me something?” she said after we sat there for what felt like hours but was only a few minutes. 

            We looked at each other. Her bubbly smile was overshadowed by the dull look on her face. I remained silent.

            She continued. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I decided to breakdown in the middle of the stairway?”

            “Do you want me to ask you why?” I said.

            “No,” she replied.

            “Then I won’t.” It was as simple as that.

            “I’d rather you hear it from me than anyone else,” she said.

            “So tell me then. But only if you really want to. I’ll never force you to tell me something you’d rather not share.”

            She seemed to ponder for a moment, grasping the meaning of my words. I leaned against the tiled wall to her left and stared into space. I didn’t want her to feel pressured to say something she wasn’t completely comfortable saying aloud. I know firsthand what it’s like to have something you’d rather not talk openly about.

            “We went out last year,” Taylor finally said. “Jake and I. He was my first real crush. The first guy I was really serious about. Since him and Damien were really good friends, I saw him most of the time. But he was also super popular and that meant there a lot of other girls who liked him, too. I thought I had a better chance since none of the other girls saw him as much as I did, so I told him how I felt, and to my surprise, we started going out.”

            She rubbed the runny mascara from her eyes and I went to the sink to wet a paper towel with warm water before handing it to her. “I did everything for him. I even changed my whole look for him. Because he was so popular, I tried to be the perfect girlfriend for him. I never looked like this when I was with him,” she motioned to her punk-rock outfit and colored blonde hair, running her fingers through her bangs. “You know, I even dyed my hair brown because I heard he liked brunettes. I wore high-heels and short dresses just to please him.

            “But then, we were at a party and I caught him making out with another girl in some room on the other side of the house. I was such an idiot for ever believing him and liking him. When I confronted him, he couldn’t even say anything. He just looked at me. I was so humiliated. I dyed my hair back to blonde and chopped it all off, then I colored the ends. I wanted to show him he meant nothing to me. I made sure that when I broke up with him everyone knew I ended the relationship. I was not going to be the punch line. But when Damien found out, he beat him up so bad that he got suspended for a week.” She sniffed and gave me a sad smile. “I know I sound pretty pathetic.”

            I quickly shook my head. “If anyone is going to be called pathetic, it should be him. Everything that he’s done to you and he still has the nerve to look at you with a straight face?” I made a disgusted noise at the back of my throat. “People like that don’t deserve any ounce of respect.”