August 12th 2023
Kansas City, Missouri
She had read the tabloids, and they hadn't been kind. but was there an element of truth smothered in there. She reread what the articles had said, staring at each sentence and syllable as if it was the gospel. They had included photos as well, a selection of images of Travis and Donna at the aquarium in Kansas City two days before with Luna. Being a dad suited him, a role that he was made for. So many people doubted he would be a good father. No one in their inner circle thought so, but the media had. Speculating that his immature antics and drunken outbursts were a sign that maybe he just wasn't ready for fatherhood just yet, or maybe never at all. He had a different temperament to his brother, but this was only in public. Behind closed doors Taylor saw the man that his whole family had always seen. The guy who was the sweetest man she had ever met. Who would constantly check that she was ok, and block out any outside noise that tried to infiltrate her mind.
Travis had practise that day and so it was just a mommy and Luna day. Whilst the tabloids were all speculating about her whereabouts and what state of life she was in, Taylor had no motivation whatsoever to play into their games of speculation. It was her life and she was going to live it her own way. Travis had already left for practice by the time Taylor woke up. Luna was going through the four month sleep regression and it was tiring both of them out. Taylor didn't know how many times she had been awake in the night trying to console their daughter, who would only scream and scream for hours. And the worst part was that her favourite person wasn't there: her daddy. Luna had grown into more and more of a daddy's girl by the day, immediately settling for her dad unless she was hungry. Everything was better when daddy did it. It made her dread getting out of bed, because she knew that Travis was going to be gone for a large portion of the day. He had a long morning and short afternoon session that day and then an afternoon session tomorrow, leaving the pair of them very little time with Travis for the upcoming days.
Glancing over at the clock, she noticed that it had gone past 10am. She peered over at a note that was left for her on the nightstand. Picking it up she read over it, glancing at the sweet loops of Travis' handwriting.
Morning T,
Sorry I had to leave for practice but I didn't want to wake you. I know you were up a lot of the night with Princess Luna. I tried to give her a bottle before I left but she didn't drink a lot of it. Try and have a good day, I'll try to be home as early as I can.
Love You xx
She smiled down at the note, taking advantage of the head start on the morning, well what was left of the morning, stretching and getting up to go downstairs. She popped a pod into their coffee machine, scrolling through her phone as she waited for the coffee to drip down into her waiting cup. Nursing a mug of steaming coffee in one hand, and her phone in another, she mad her way over to the stove to make a start on some breakfast. She had been trying to eat slightly healthier seeing as it can be a potential way to help postnatal depression. At this point she was trying anything to change the DNA. But as she cracked the eggs into the pan, her peace was disturbed when she heard cries come through on the baby monitor she had on her phone. She sighed, pressing the button on the speaker.
"It's ok Lulu, mommy's coming."
She set her coffee down on the table in the living room before leaving to attend to the now screaming baby in their bedroom. When she got round to her side of the bed where luna's bassinet was, her heart broke. Her little girl was obviously incredibly over tired, having not slept properly in the past two days. She used to be a very happy baby. She breastfed well, took her naps without any trouble and whilst she had always been a daddy's girl, she was always content for a mommy cuddle in bed. But that wasn't working anymore. No matter what position she put luna is, she wasn't latching on. She was showing signs that she was hungry, chewing at her hands and rooting her head from side to side in an effort to find a food source. Travis had used up the last fresh expressed bottle she had in the fridge and it would take her a while to defrost any that they had stored in their freezer. She sighed, wishing and praying that this was all a dream. She wanted the ground to swallow her up and take her to a place of peace. Her mind was in constant conflict. The paranoia and anxiety in her worried every single second whether she was ok. Was there something wrong with her for her to be crying this much, was she sick? But the overarching desperation and despair was so strong that she just felt numb. There was no feeling other than grey.
She brought the baby back downstairs, settling for the final straw she had in her book of plans before she considered calling someone for help. Something she wished she wouldn't have to do because the shame would be all too consuming. What kind of mother can't even look after her own child's basic needs. A bad one, that's who.
She grinned the tv remote, going through their saved and recorded tv shows until she came across what she was looking for. As soon as the opening sequence of the game show played and the host game into view with his signature goofy grin and humour, the baby began to settle in her arms, contently beginning to latch on and eat. The problem she faced with Luna was that without Travis around, it was hard for her to settle. Travis could just play her music to Luna and she would hear her voice but there was nothing for Travis, except this. Old runs of episodes of Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity? that Travis was the host of during the off-season.
The day passed on, not as quickly as she would have liked but slowly but surely the things that needed to get done were completed. Luna settled back into her napping routine fairly well, allowing Taylor to get some emails answered. She had pretty much finished rerecording debut, the finishing production touches now being put in place and now came the hard decision of when to release it. It couldn't just be any old random day. There had to be meaning behind the day. It had to be special for some other reason other than it being an album release day. She had thought about her birthday, but it wasn't a big birthday for her that year. 36 wasn't exactly something special that one usually celebrates. She resigned that thought to be something for the future, playing around with some new ideas for songs whilst Luna napped. She felt her phone buzz in her pocket, pulling it out to read what was sent.
Trav: Just about to leave practice now. Will see you soon xxx
She smiled, placing the phone back down and focussing back on the piano chords she had just been playing, enjoying the melody she had just come up with.
As Travis swung his bag over his shoulder, bidding goodbye to his fellow teammates for the day, he noticed the familiar lenses. The paparazzi where there, something uncommon for the quite of Kansas City. It was the whole reason that Travis had become so settled in Kansas City and why he felt comfortable raising his small but growing family there. The reporters followed him his whole journey home and it became relentless. Pulling up at the gates of his and Taylor's private and gated community, he had finally had enough. Rolling down his window, Travis began to shout out of it.
"I am only go to say this once and once only. Please leave me and my family alone. I do not consent to having constant cameras shoved in our faces, we wish for and deserve the same privacy as everyone else on this earth. So please, get off of our property before I am forced to call for you to be removed." He spat his final words out the window at the photographers before rolling his window back up and opening the gate to his driveway. To his relief, no one followed his car inside. When he got back into the garage, he noticed that Taylor's car was still parked there, meaning that she hadn't gone out anywhere that day. Not that it surprises him.
When he got inside he found Taylor in the kitchen, preparing some food for dinner that night. He came round to where she was standing by the kitchen island, wrapping his arms around her. Despite it being the middle of the summer, she felt cold. There was no colour in her anymore. She used to be full of so much sunshine and daylight and now she was a grey as a winters plague.
"How has she been today?" Travis asked, knowing that Taylor would know what he was talking about. It was one of the only things that he and Taylor could talk about these days: their daughter. He placed his practice bag down by the front door ready for tomorrow, taking out any clothes that need washing ready to put straight in the laundry.
"Difficult this morning. I could only get her to settle down to eat by watching old runs of Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity on the TV. Must be because she can hear your voice. But apart from that we did some tummy time and playing before she went down for a nap. She has napped for almost two hours now so she should be waking up soon, otherwise I will have to go in and disturb the peace. She won't sleep if I don't soon." Taylor sighed, wishing g more than anything that Luna would wake up on her own rather than having to have Taylor wake her up. She just knew that it wouldn't end well.
"It's ok Tay. I'll go wake her up now." Taylor thanked him as he placed a light kiss on her cheek. She focussed her attention back on the vegetables that she had been chopping to prepare for their dinner. She knew Luna would need a feed soon and that would time in perfectly as Travis could cook whilst Taylor feed Luna and she would be content for a while whilst they ate. Well, that was the plan. Whether it would be executed was a different story.
Travis returned not long later with a wide awake Luna attached to his hip, bunny rabbit in hand. She never went anywhere without her bunny, so much so that Taylor had to ask where Kylie had bought it from seeing as it was a present from Wyatt so that she could buy two or three spare toys in case it ever got lost anywhere. Kids were notorious for dropping things and it wasn't exactly going to make much noise when it dropped somewhere. What would make noise would be their daughter when she would realise it was missing. And that sounded like a death sentence to both of them.
Luna seemed to be much more settled that evening and Taylor could only hope that this would continue into the rest of the evening. maybe that night would finally be the night she would start sleeping through again. She managed to feed her before placing her into her bouncing chair next to them by the dining table. The couple talked about their days and upcoming plans before it became time to go back to their parental duties. She bathed Luna, softly humming a sweet lullaby in her ear to get her to drift off to sleep as Travis got himself ready for bed. She was just falling asleep when Travis returned from their ensuite.
"Night night Lulu." Travis whispered, placing a soft light kiss on the top of her head before patting her belly lightly. The baby sighed in contentment as she rolled off into a peaceful dream. Taylor breathed a sigh of relief, swinging her legs over read out of the bed, making her way over to the bathroom.
She opened the medicine cabinet they kept above the sink, sensing she would need Tylenol for her headache. She knew it was most likely from sleep deprivation. However what caught her eye was not the bottle of Tylenol but a different one. An orange bottle she had thought she had thrown away. The bottle of sleeping pills she had been prescribed by her doctor right after she had given birth to Luna and had awful anxiety induced insomnia. The amount she had slept in those weeks was genuinely concerning and unhealthy but they had passed through it, and she hadn't had to think about those pills, until now.
A thought crossed her mind. A bad one, but there was truth hidden within it.
The truth was that Travis didn't need her anymore. He had his child, and whilst yes he did want more than one, so did she, he could be content with just the one. For now. He had done his biological job, to further the human species. Now was he was looking for someone new. There were no clues to say it was so. but that could never mean it was not true. Whist she had believed what Travis had said about Kyla, that it meant nothing and thats he was gone from their lives forever, she couldn't help but feel like this was just the beginning. An omen, for the future.
All of her albums had been rerecorded and she had no obligation to put out any new music. It was just something that had made her happy. And Travis had his child from her. They weren't married. He could move on,w without her. Would it be hard, yes for all of the, . But it was possible, because they loved each other and above all else, wanted the other to always be happy and be at peace.
And she couldn't be at peace like this. Every day felt greyer than the last. And even with all the will in the world to want to get better, it seemed like there was no possible way out.
Her therapist had told her that anxiety and depression were serious illnesses. A plague that is physically painful. It debilitates you, sometimes beyond all basic thought and internal recognition. And it isn't something you can just decide to get over. But her thoughts were now turned to this sole idea: sadness is a simple human condition; an emotion, no different from something like happiness or anger and if we don't think of those as illnesses, why should we imagine this as one. But she could not imagine the rest of her life being like this. A constant dark cloud looming over her head, the possibility of rain constant and the idea of an anxiety hailstorm left her in a constant state of paranoia. And if it isn't an illness, it cannot be cured. It is a human state, a constant. And that thought alone was something that was simply unbearable.
And it brought her back to the present. The here and now as she stood in front of the cabinet, the pills and presents staring straight back at her. All of the possibilities laid out before her very eyes.
And looking now at the possibilities in front of her, Taylor is thinking of ending things. It would all be for the better, wouldn't it?
AUTHORS NOTE: Ahhh cliff-hanger. This is the penultimate chapter, with the final chapter of Part 4 coming soon. What could possibly happen....