The next day seemed to come too slowly, for Taylor's taste. All she wanted to do was finish the damn track running and go home to curl up on the couch and either have a big cry or watch Friends until she was mentally drained from thinking anything about anything other then Chandellers funny haircuts.
She needed to get away from the small group of teens, all who were her peers and friends, minus the obvious few. She just...needed space.
Space to get over the suddenly crushing realisation that Nate wouldn't actually ever fully be hers. The thought had always echoed in the back of her mind, but Taylor felt different now it was sinking in. Actual reality had caught up, and the hollow in her chest made her wish that she could take back that night at Nate's house.
If she could go back and not sleep with him, she may have. Or even if that had happened, she wished she'd left it as a one time thing, nothing more.
Because no boy was worth this.
What shocked her more was the force of painful emotion. For her not to realise how much Nate actually had meant to her was annoyingly surprising. She wondered when she had started to feel like that, and had tried to go back to the first defining moment when she started to develop feelings and erase it from her mind.
If she was to be honest, however, the moment she started to feel something would have been that first night. And her mother had told her once that the moment you start to care, is the moment you start to hurt.
Taylor wished those words weren't so true.
“Hey, T! Coach wants to have a meeting about the relay race.” Jenna, one of the other teenagers on the trip said to her gently as Taylor jolted in surprise and looked up to a smiling Jenna.
“Okay, thank Jen.” Taylor smiled back, standing and stretching her arms slightly. She followed Jenna into the locker rooms, taking a seat next to the door immediately.
Not even bothering to look around the room, Taylor concentrated on the floor and waited until everyone was seated and Coach was ready to talk.
“Alright, first off I'd like to start with a congrats to our main girl Taylor, who won her finals earlier today.” Coach said, beaming like a proud parent. Taylor heard the whoops and cheers of the others, smiling slightly and looking up. She instantly regretted it because her eyes met Nate's automatically, and the fresh stab of pain hit her. Looking away, Taylor focused on Coach again, balling her hands into fists.
“We know the running order of your teams, right girls and guys? There are some aspects of the other teams I want to tell you about...” Taylor tuned out, not really in the mood to listen to Coach's pep talk.
It lasted a good five minutes, and as soon as she heard the room cheer again, she looked up.
“Nate, Taylor, you two know you're roles of being the last runner. You want to go over it with me in private?” Coach asked, and Taylor quickly shook her head before Nate could even say something. He looked annoyed when she glanced at him, but kept his mouth closed. Coach nodded, clapping his hands together again.
“Let's do this, folks.” He grinned in excitement, the two teams feeding off him as they chatted noisily on the way out of the locker rooms.
“Taylor.”
God, that voice.
“What?” Taylor asked, not turning to face Nate in case her heart died of cardiac arrest or something.
“Can I talk to you?” He asked quietly, and she shook her head quickly, walking quicker in hopes to get away from him. “Please?”
“Not now. Not before the relays.” Taylor hissed, desperate to put space between them. Nate sighed, sounding annoyed as he kept following her.
“I really need to say this now-”
“I don't want to hear it now!” Taylor yelled, spinning to glare at him. “You had your chance yesterday, and the day before. Just...just leave me alone, okay?”
Nate's scowl deepened and his eyes darkened in anger. She saw his jaw clench, as if he was trying to hold in the words that he desperate to say.
“I miss us, you know.”
Taylor closed her eyes, tying to pretend he wasn't even there. “Will you just hear me out?”
“After.” She said again, and this time when she opened her eyes, Taylor could tell he could see the pleading in them. “Please? I need to get my head in the right space for the relay race, and I can't do that when you're around.”
“Fine.” Nate said, his jaw clenching further to an almost painful point. Taylor sagged in relief when he brushed against her shoulder and disappeared outside.
Alone again, she got her head under control and followed him, the loudspeaker announcing that the track starters needed the boys teams and the start position. Taylor went over to the rest of their school group, feeling the tense yet excited atmosphere around her. The relay's were the best part of the day, and she managed to find a little of her own excitement as she watched the male teams get into their start positions.
The race started with the gun fire into the air, and suddenly people were screaming and clapping all around her. Taylor watched the first runners hand off their battens, their school sitting in second. The second runner made up a little ground, so they were pretty much tied until the third runner started and lost some ground from fumbling with the batten before taking off in almost fourth place.
“Shit!” Coach yelled, and Taylor laughed.
“You can't say that around your class, Coach!” She giggled, and he rolled her eyes, smiling also.
“I said ship.”
“Uh huh.”
Taylor turned back to the race, watching as Nate gripped the batten in one, fluid movement before taking off a few metres behind the other teams. Taylor watched in slight fascination as his arms pumped back and forth, the muscles protruding, his legs moving so fast they looked a little blurry, his teeth clenched as he sprinted to catch up. The screaming increased when he started to gain ground, passing the third place getter easily before digging his heels in deeper and passing the second just as they passed over the finish line. Taylor jumped and clapped like the rest of them, cheering as Nate turned and met the rest of his team mates, who pulled him into a hug.
Taylor lost her breath when his eyes found hers, and he grinned like an adorable idiot, and in that moment, it didn't matter that her heart was yearning for him and that he'd hurt her, she smiled just as widely back.
“Girls, it's your turn.” Coach shouted over the noise, and the four racers walked over towards the start positions. Alexis bumped her shoulder as she passed, turning to glare.
“Hope you don't drop the batten, Taylor.” She sneered, sauntering off.
Kally appeared beside Taylor, almost growling like an animal. “I want to inject her full of STD's.”
“She's already got them,” Taylor muttered back, and Kally patted her on the back in support. “You're gonna kill it out there. Good luck girl!” Kally said, before turning and running back to where their school group was sitting. Taylor watched her plop down beside Oliver and Nate, and smiled slightly.
Then she got into race mode.
The first two runners put them in a good position in a narrow first place. Taylor watched as Alexis clutched the batten in her hands and started to sprint towards her, lips pulled back from her teeth and arms flapping wildly as she got faster and faster, and all Taylor could think was that the girl really needed a good sports bra from all the jiggling her junk was doing.
Mind you, she probably did that on purpose so guys would ogle.
Alexis was a few metres away when Taylor started to move forward, reaching out for the batten to take from her just as Alexis dropped it at her feet. Taylor froze, looking at Alexis for a second who shrugged. “Oops.”
Snarling, Taylor picked it up and took off like a bat out of hell, thinking that there was no way in hell she'd catch them now.
Anger in her veins, Taylor pushed herself faster and faster, feeling her legs burn with tiredness and her heart beat spike. Breathing rapidly, Taylor pushed past the burning in her lungs and the fire in her chest, gaining even more speed. Suddenly, she past the third place getter, then the second. She could faintly hear the cheering of her team and Kally screaming at the top of her lungs, and she pushed harder, her body responding.
Passing the other sprinter, becoming the front runner, Taylor could see the finish line, and grinned. Two seconds later, she was over it, and swarmed by people who hugged her and cheered her name.
“Out of the way, bitches.” Kally yelled, and as soon as she spotted Taylor, she launched herself at her body. Taylor almost buckled under her, but managed to stay upright. Taylor was still trying to get her breath back and the fire to die down in her lungs, but she clutched onto Kally anyway.
“That cow Alexis dropped it on purpose! Shes such a slag, not even the pimps want her.”
“Kally!” Taylor cracked up laughing, hugging her back.
“What? That's actually what Nate said when she did it, but I liked the phrase so I stole it.”
Taylor nodded, and let go of Kally slowly. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. Now will you go see the poor boy? Put him out of his misery or something?” Kally frowned. Taylor shook her head slightly, a little fear clenching in her chest.
“I can't.”
“Why not? He's like a pining idiot, and Oliver said all his moping is getting annoying.”
“I gave him plenty of chances, K. He didn't take any of them.” Taylor whispered, and Kally patted her shoulder sympathetically.
“You know how oblivious our boy Natey is.”
“I'm scared.” Taylor whispered, feeling the sweat that coated her body start to dry and get cold.
“Of what?”
“Him backing out again.” She replied, and Kally scoffed, folding her arms. Taylor held up a hand before she could continue.
“Seriously, I just want to see what happens. If he really doesn't want to be with me, then I'm not going to force it. Maybe it's just time I learnt to get over it.” Taylor tried a half hearted smile, but Kally wasn't impressed in the slightest.
“So you're not going to fight for it?”
“Well, I was following more along the lines of if you love something, you set it free and all that.”
Kally rolled her eyes. “You know no one does that any more.”
“Well I'm doing it.”
Kally sighed, nodding. She was just so annoyed with the whole situation. Taylor loved Nate, who loved her back, but was too damn stupid to figure out what to do by himself, to put it lightly. She just wanted so badly to give them a push in the right direction, but Taylor was about as stubborn as Nate was oblivious.
“Okay, I understand. Let's get you over to the tent, they're doing to presentation soon.”
As Taylor followed Kally towards the tent, she glanced up to see Nate staring at her. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart skittered, before kicking into overdrive. His mouth uptilted slightly, and he mouthed a 'congrats'.
And all she wanted to do was kiss him.
Taylor smiled back, then turned back towards the tent and walked inside, her insides a mess.
I'm sorry this is a bit of a boring chapter! But the next will be better! This stories nearly over too, :( only one or two chapters left, plus an epilogue if I can be bothered because I've recently started a new story which I'm reaaaaally hoping will get as much interest as Drunken Miracles has! Almost a thousand reads doesn't sound like a lot but to me, it is :) so thank you to the people who have taken time to read this, or have been following it, because it means a lot to me! My new story is a little deeper than this one, and I'll tell you more about it in the next few chapters but in the mean time, thank you for reading and I hope you like this! :)
x
Wow. I think that was my longest authors note ever.