"And album of the year, breaking the record for youngest person to ever hold this award.."
Winnie felt the ground shake under her as the audience roared with excitement. Never in her entire lifetime did she ever think that she would achieve so much success at all, especially not at such a young age. It wasn't the bad kind of success either, people loved her.
"goes to... Winona Cooper!"
In her mind, Winnie passed out right then and there, she hit her head so hard on the ground and died dead and was never heard from again.
But without thinking it through, Winnie throw her hands up out of pure joy and did a 360 spin to stand up. "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" she screamed before immediately covering her mouth in shock of herself. Panicking for so many reasons, she sprinted up the stairs spinning around like a girl on say yes to the dress.
Hearing her own song play in the background that she had worked so hard on while walking up onto that stage felt like she was walking up the stairs to heaven, the golden gates were the trophy that sat on a stand with her name carved on top of "song of the year".
As she grabbed the award with her dominant hand, she thought she was going to pass out. She had done it, she made it, and she did it alone. She pushed through, persevered, and made it out on top, without anyone's help. Was that a good thing? Winnie didn't know and didn't care, she had no choice, she didn't choose this path, it was forced on her. But nonetheless, she made it.c
Well, she didn't completely do it alone. She had taken an insane amount of inspiration from Taylor Swift, it was a well-known thing. When people become successful, the internet always tries to dig up anything they can find on them. Thankfully, they hadn't dug up anything Winnie didn't want out there, but they did, somehow find all her old Taylor Swift fan accounts, where she would make music videos to all her songs and rave about how much she loved Taylor.
Of course, the internet had a field day when they found all these old videos, and Winnie wanted to literally dig her own grave, especially when they found her You Are In Love music video. In she swoons over her guy best friend and during the bridge, kisses him on the lips and slowly dances with him.
When it first got out there, she hoped that people would see it, laugh a little, and then move on. But there were hundreds of these videos, and even Taylor Swift talked about it. Well kind of, while drunk at a party, You Need To Calm Down had come on and she did the dance that 12-year-old Winnie had come up with and posted a video to.
"Well, shit. I didn't really prepare for this." She awkwardly laughed out trying to play it cool, Winnie had absolutely no clue what to say and her mouth felt dryer than the Sahara Desert.
"I think that even if the odds are 1 out of a million, and it feels like you have no chance of succeeding, you can always keep pushing and bettering yourself and your work. I want to thank my family and friends for always supporting me, and my producers and label for helping me improve on everything I do. I especially want to thank the fans who have taken my life from 0 to 100 in less than 2 years, you all deserve the world!"
Her palms were sweaty, and her legs were shaking. Was she nervous? Not really, but it was more the fact that she never thought she would ever make a name for herself. Right as she started to make her way off the stage, she remembered one last person she had to thank for being her inspiration.
She turned around on her heels and sprinted back up the stage as fast as she could before they cut the cameras and everyone stopped paying attention to her.
"AND.. AND THANK YOU TO TAYLOR SWIFT" She yelled a little bit too loud into the microphone, causing the entire crowd to look up at her in shock
"FOR.. FOR BEING TAYLOR SWIFT AND THE GREATEST WOMAN ALIVE" She shouted, out of breath before running back to her seat and awkwardly sitting down and looking around and the faces staring at her. Some looked shocked, others were laughing at, and with her but one face stood out. A face she was very familiar with, a blonde-haired blue-eyed cat lady with a perfect smile was laughing while gracefully speed-walking towards her.
In what felt like slow motion, Taylor Swift, the girl she had admired, looked up to for her entire life, engulfed her in a huge drunken bear hug. While holding her and rocking back and forth on her feet, Taylor was cackling. Partially because she was drunk, partially because she had watched all the hilarious music videos this girl had made to her songs, and partially because she had never seen a music artist actually make it so far that was only 15, who was such a huge Taylor Swift fan.
Taylor obviously knew about the girl, besides the fact she had blown up over the past 2 years, Winnie was a huge Taylor Swift fan, and despite what other people thought, this wasn't news to her. The internet knew that Taylor Swift stalked her fans, but they didn't know which ones. Taylor had known about Winnie since around the 1989 era when she first started posting her music videos.
Taylor actually tried to invite Winnie to the reputation secret sessions and tried so hard to get the poor girl to go. She personally called Winnie herself after finding out that she couldn't go for what she said were "personal reasons". She found out that the poor 10-year-old couldn't afford the gas money to drive, obviously, Taylor offered to have someone bring her over, which caused her to have a meltdown over her current home/life situation.
Taylor had been sworn to secrecy by the 10-year-old and told that she had never told anyone ever and that Taylor could never, ever tell anyone. The young girl proceeded to confide in her about how she was more a parent to her mother than her mother was a parent to her. Their father had left them with another woman and her mother had turned to alcohol. With no one left to parent her, she took on a leadership role and at 6, began to parent herself. She packed her own lunches, walked a mile to school, learned how to read and write all on her own, and figured out how to take care of a kindergartner as a kindergartner herself.
On top of all that, she also learned how to take care of a drug addict, alcoholic, 34-year-old woman who was supposed to be her mother. She cleaned up after her, fed her, took care of her and the many men she brought home, and at 6, learned how to use a stove and an oven to cook for her.
The girl was absolutely convinced that someday, her father would come back and somehow make this right, somehow fix her mother, put her family back together her family, and in turn, her heart. Taylor didn't have the heart to tell her that it probably wouldn't happen, she was so young and didn't understand that her father wasn't coming back.
She never stopped caring and thinking about that girl. She had been a fan for so long and her wildest dreams came true, but she never got to live them out. Later that month, she sent the girl a dm that said "Hey honey, I'm just checking in, you can always talk to me and I want you to know that it's late where you live, get some sleep pretty girl!"
Within the next 10 minutes, she received a DM back from Winona that said "HIIII!!!! I LOVE YOUR MUSIC SO SO SO MUCH! Sorry for the super weird phone call, I didn't mean for you to think I was a weirdo lol. I'm doing good, don't worry about me, I'm SO EXCITED for that new album!!!" The way she talked was hilarious to Taylor, but she was still concerned. She knew she had pushed the little kid to her limit on the phone call, and she didn't want to push it further, so she just left it at that. But she always wanted to reconnect, and just know that the girl was ok.
So you can imagine that when she heard the name Winona Cooper in the news, she was praying to whatever higher power there was that it was her girl. The second she heard her song, "The Way Things Go" she immediately knew that it was her girl, but when she saw the photos, there was no doubt in her mind. She had created a bunch of songs on her album "Someday" and she said that they were just songs she had written while making up scenarios in her head. Of course, the world had believed her, but Taylor knew the truth.
When she found out that Winnie was going to be at the Grammys, she jumped at the opportunity to finally talk to her. But she didn't just want one conversation like last time, she wanted the chance to really get to know her, and around that time she had decided to go on a tour. But not just a tour for her midnights album, a tour for all her albums, the Eras Tour. Of course, considering she couldn't have a show without them, she decided to bring three openers. But they weren't just going to stay with her for a few shows then leave, no no. These openers were going to stay with her for the entire U.S. leg of the tour.
She obviously had to bring Phoebe Bridgers, her ride-or-die girl. When she met her, she absolutely knew she had to bring her along on her next tour. The second girl she brought was Gracie Abrams. Her incredible songwriting abilities almost touched her soul, and she was so talented. She was undecided for her third girl, which of course was a giant issue considering she was set to announce the tour in less than a month.
The second she hear Winnie's raw voice and pure talent, she knew she had to ask her. So when she was presented with the Album of the Year award, Taylor leaped at the chance to talk to her. Her chance really came when she sprinted up on stage, getting the attention of everyone in the crowd, and screamed "AND THANK YOU TO TAYLOR SWIFT FOR BEING TAYLOR SWIFT AND THE GREATEST WOMAN ALIVE."
When she heard her say that, she couldn't help but start cackling. As she stood up and started walking towards Winnie, Winnie had this absolutely petrified/excited/shocked look on her face which just made Taylor laugh even harder. As she started to hug her she whispered in her ear "Come talk to me after the show, I have something to discuss with you, also I hope you're doing okay." to which Winnie replied, "I fucking love you holy shit" which made Taylor laugh so much harder she thought she was going to drop dead.