August 13th 2025
Kansas City, Missouri
He tried calling her, but it just rang out. He thought it was weird, but he just let it slide. He wished he hadn't. He wished he hadn't have left that house for training that morning, it wasn't even mandatory. Maybe he could have saved her from it all, but hindsight is a gift only the guilt striken process.
Travis returned home only a few hours after he had left the house, and we he returned, it was haunted. He knew as soon as he stepped over the threshold that something was wrong, but what it was exactly, he couldn't pinpoint. When he came into the house, he immediately heard the baby crying but there was a defining silence. There was no sweet song of Taylor's voice to reassure the baby that she would be ok, there were no signs of life.
"Tay?" Travis shouted, looking around the ground floor of their house. He cursed himself in that moment for being so big headed and purchasing such a huge house. He didn't exactly need it but it was nice to flaunt your wealth once in a while, if you have it that is. And they always had plenty of friends and family to fill it, with Travis finally convincing Taylor that Luna having a sibling at some point was not a bad idea. Travis knew that she was in the house somewhere: her car was in the driveway and he could see her purse and phone still laying on the sofa, as if she had plans to flee but just didn't have the time. He noticed a piece of paper with his name on it, sitting on the table but he decided he would read it later. Pocketing it quickly, he decided to follow the noise up the stairs, noticing that their bedroom door was ajar.
"Tay." There was still no response. It was icy.
"Taylor." His voice now quivered as he slowly approached the door. He wished he hadn't opened it. Because there she was, sprawled out on the floor, Luna crying out in her bassinet merrily inches away. He stood there frozen.
No, she must just be asleep.
Or maybe she had just fallen over and knocked herself out for a bit.
She would wake up.... wouldn't she.
"Oh my god, Tay. Taylor.. darling wake up. Wake up for me." He came crashing down next to her lifeless limbs, taking her cold presence into his arms. She had seemed so angelic, her golden hair sprawled out like a halo. His arms shook her with desperation, as he tried to rouse her from what he still believed to be sleep. That was until he saw it...
The little orange bottle that was so cruelly staring back at him from the nightstand. Leaving Taylor where he had found her, he snatched up into his fingertips, trying to read the words on the little white label on the side bottle, but it was no use. They were all blending into one. One thing was known to him: they were Taylor's sleeping pills, and whilst he wasn't sure how many she had taken, he knew she had taken enough.
Why had she done this?
He asked himself over and over as he tried to process what was happening in front of his eyes, and then a noise in the room brought him back to the present. his daughter. Their daughter. Their beautiful little girl with eyes as glistening as the ocean and the sweetest smile that anyone had ever seen. It hadn't been enough to revive mortality. But she was fine, and so he had to ignore her cries.
Collapsing back down in front on Taylor, he swore that his shouts could be heard from miles away.
"Taylor... TAYLOR come on this isn't funny anymore. Wake up, wake up... wake up!!!!" he shouted, but nothing changed. Her eyelids remained glued shut and her body still laid lifeless in his arms. Something instinctual came over him as he grabbed for his phone that he had discarded at the scene of the crime, roughly dealing the emergency number.
He listened as it rung out, for what felt like a lifetime until someone connected.
"911 what's your emergency." Travis chocked on his words, not believing them until they came floating out of his mouth in unstrung sentences.
"I- I think my girlfriend is dead." He didn't want to believe what he was saying but with every step they asked him to complete, the facts and stars seemed all to align. There was nothing of his girl left. She was gone. And when he could no longer feel her laughter, that warmth she always had coursing through her veins, he could no longer stifle his cries. So much so he felt sick.
The hospital was alerted, and everyone was on their way. He was brought back to reality by Luna's continuing cries. He pulled her out of her bassinet, his hands shaking with grief as he placed his little girl next to her mother, her cries silencing when she grasped out for Taylor's hair and stroked her hand subconsciously across her cooling cheek. She was slowly slipping further and further away. In that moment he tried to believe anything but the truth that was staring right at him. Could she still be breathing?
Can someone stop breathing for a while when they sleep?
"Tay baby, please. Come back. I can't do this without you. I love you... I love you so much it's not even funny. Don't do this to me." He felt like screaming at her, for breaking those promises they had made together. The first night they had been together, lying side by side in bed together in her apartment in New York City. The city lights and sirens sounding off all around them, but nothing else mattered, because they had each other.
"Promise me something Trav?" She whispered into his ear as they laid together, naked body tangled in bed sheets from their cohabiting activities. The next step in their relationship with one another.
"What is that?" Travis had smiled, looking into her eyes. The same beautiful eyes he hoped his children would inherit one lucky day in the not so distant future of hopes.
"Never leave me."
"I will never leave you Tay. I promise. As long as you never leave me." Her head shook, her giggles lighting a thousand suns with their joy.
"Never."
She had lied. Time was still as he heard the faint noise of paramedics climbing the stairs and barging in through their bedroom door. And it was all a blur, watching as they dragged her limbs from their home and into the back of an ambulance, the lights on and the car going full throttle.
"How many of these did she take sir?" One of the doctors asked him. He shook his head, his free arm covering up his eyes that hadn't stopped flowing tears. His other arm cradling Luna, who had managed to fall back asleep, pacifier in her mouth and her white bunny tucked into her chest.
"I I I don't know. I just came home and found her like this. The bottle wasn't full but she has taken a lot. Maybe fifteen or twenty. I don't know. I'm sorry Tay, I am so so sorry." Travis cried into her soul as he clutched onto her hand, the last piece of her that he had left with him.
He had to make some calls. He wasn't allowed back with her in the hospital where they tried to revive her. Travis knew the truth, he was too late to save her. And that kind of guilt would eat away at him for the rest of his life. But what he couldn't imagine being even harder, but was ten times worse.... was making those calls. The ones to the ignorant who thought he had news of hope. Of happiness. He had started with Tree. He had to! He hated the fact that he had to, but he knew that it would be over every single newspaper and gossip site in the world by now.
He shakily pressed the dial button, praying she would pick up. She did, the only good thing that happened for him that day.
"Hey Trav, what's up." He couldn't quite stomach the sentences he was about to regurgitate. "Trav, are you there? What's happened." She knew without him needing to say anything, that something was wrong.
"It's Taylor... she's" It took him a while to say it, and it didn't make it any easier when he heard the tears chocking the publicists throat.
And it didn't get any easier with the next person he called, or the next. The hardest had been her parents, whose cries tugged at his heartstrings more than he could have ever wanted to imagine. He didn't want to imagine any of this. He saw doctors rush in and out of the room and he sat there and prayed that she would be ok. He wasn't religious, and he had never prayed, but none of that mattered now. Desperate people find faith and so now he prays to Jesus too.
He prays that she will get better. She will overcome all of this. That she will return to his arms once more and this will all be ok. He had gotten past the point of wondering, and hoping that this had all been a bad dream. Travis had slapped himself round the face enough to know that sadly this was the cruelty of reality.
His parents knew what was going on and would be flying out to see him and Luna and he knew that Tree had organised flights for Scott and Andrea almost immediately. It wouldn't take them long to get to Kansas City from Nashville. None of their friends knew just yet. He hadn't wanted to worry anyone and the least people knew the better. He didn't want anything leaking or getting out to the press before they and time to say anything. He could only imagine the sort of level of press this would get. And it wouldn't be good press either. He sat there for an eternity, waiting... and waiting. The clock seemed to tick so slowly and he just kept going over and over it in his mind. He wanted to hate her for leaving him like this, leaving little Luna who was currently passed out in his arms. He had managed to feed her some formula milk and gotten her back off to sleep contently with a blanket and her bunny rabbit comforter. The doors swung open, and two faces white as ghosts came rushing down the corridor in graceful floats.
"Oh my god Travis!" He heard the man shout who was closely followed behind by a shorter blonde haired woman. It was Taylor's parents.
"What's happening. Travis, is she ok." Andrea chocked, rushing to travis' side as he stayed hunched over on the blue plastic seats outside of the hospital rooms. They hadn't let him, not before and not now. And maybe that as for the best. For his last memories of her to be of them together in the house, with Luna. Was that why she was so happy this morning? Because she knew deep down she was going to soon leave him. Leave them both behind.
"I don't know. They won't let me in. I've tried but they keep shoving me out. I haven't." He stopped, not sure he wanted to tell them. "I haven't seen anyone come out in a long while. He buried his head into Luna, the tears too strong. And there they all huddled, for however long he just didn't know because there seemed to be no days or nights in hospital beds. No sense of time other than stillness.
"Can one of you guys hold her a minute. I just, need to go to the bathroom." Travis asked sheepishly, the first words he had spoken in a long while. Andrea nodded, slowly taking Luna from his chest where she had been sleeping, making small grunts in the process but quickly settling back into a normal sleep when she felt the comfort of her grandmother's arms.
As Travis stepped out of the corridor, he felt into his pocket. There was something in there. Pulling it out he saw a piece of paper, with his name on it. And then he remembered. It was the one he saw on the table that he had put in his pocket before he found Taylor. He had promised himself he would read it later but it must have just slipped his mind. He unfollowed the letter, reading every single tearstained line that Taylor had left for him. Her final words to him...
Travis,
So.... here we are. There are so many words I know that I would like to say to you, but I just don't seem to how. I never wanted it to be like this Travis, I promise you I didn't. But I cannot keep going on like this; all of this pretending that everything is going to be ok when every single day I wake up and I feel worse. Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness. But its all over now.
So I guess what I am trying to say is goodbye... and I can't even do that without crying. You have given me everything I could have ever wanted Trav. Our daughter, happiness, you were my dream come true Trav. And now it is time for me to give you something too. Give you back the peace you lost when you found me.
But I want you to know, what I want you to always know, is that none of this is because I do not love you. I will always love you, wherever I am, or wherever we are.. together. That will always remain true. And in truth I do not want to go. It pains me so much to have to leave you behind. But I cannot stomach this pain anymore. It is eating me up from the inside out and soon enough you would have begun to see me the way I saw me.
We now have a daughter, and she reminds me so much of what I used to have. What life used to be like. When she smiles, I think of myself and I see you. When we were happy together.
Goodnight, my darling
I love you
xxxx
Those final words broke him, and he collapsed against the door of the corridor. She was in so much pain, and he couldn't see it. He knew he wouldn't have been able to stop her. She had been waiting for him to leave the house. Staying behind would just delay it and he couldn't wrap her up in cotton wool forever. The haters had gotten what they wanted. They had finally pushed her so far to edge there was no other option than to jump, or else you would fall.
Returning back to where Andrea and Scott were sitting, hugging each other, he felt so blue. And he held Luna in his arms, promising her the world, whatever that was. There was a sudden rush of sounds and desperation. But Travis couldn't move, he couldn't bear to listen any longer...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I am cruel to leave you on a cliffhanger like his but there is hope. Cause I have left it all ambiguous as to what may happen...