When she awoke again, Joe was still beside her. He was no longer sitting, instead, he was lying down, his eyes shut. It took her a few moments to realise that her head was resting on his chest. She moved immediately, even though the thought of it brought her comfort. Joe's eyes flew open in surprise. She'd not had a human touch like that in months. She'd avoided it at all costs, and couldn't even be close to her mother anymore. She hadn't wanted to be this close to another person in over two years, but she found herself longing for Joe's presence.
"Oh my god, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to lie on top of you." She gasped and he smiled.
"I didn't even realise that I had done that - you could have shoved me off."
"I didn't want to." He admitted. "You were tired. I was hardly going to wake you up again, and anyway, it's really not a big deal."
But it felt like a big deal to Taylor. Because she usually couldn't stand close human contact after what Adam had put her through. She couldn't hug her friends, couldn't cuddle her Mom... couldn't have her Dad kiss her cheek... none of it. She'd always dodge it. But here she was... doing it with Joe. With Joe, it didn't seem to be a big issue. She didn't feel afraid of him, of his hands or his voice. She thought it would still be a big deal for her and that it would take her a long time to ever feel okay with human touch. But with him, it came easy to her. She could be close to him without feeling like she had to run and hide, or without feeling like she couldn't cope with everything.
"Well... I'm really sorry. You didn't have to stay... I didn't even share my blanket with you. I'm so sorry." She looked over at Joe, his eyes warm. "It's okay, Taylor. It's all okay." He told her, as he stood up. She grinned as she realised he'd listened to her last night when she'd said she liked it when he called her that. "I am going to make breakfast. How do pancakes sound? Then... we're going to have to talk about what we're going to do next."
Those words scared her. They ricocheted off of her, and her panic flooded through her veins. What they'd do next? She didn't feel ready to leave the safety of the sweet moments that she'd shared with Joe. The next chapter would not be filled with such bliss. She knew that Joe was kind, and he wasn't Adam. There was nothing about him that resembled her abuser. Joe was completely different, and for once, she could see that within its entirety. He was so light and that light made her feel warm. He made her feel safe.
"But don't worry, alright? Because you don't have to talk about anything that you're not ready for." He assured her. "I promise that whatever we decide to do, it'll be something you feel ready for."
She wondered if it was possible to completely and truly love a voice. His British accent, the way it was deep but so light, the way he pronounced his words. Everything about his voice was attractive. Everything from his blond hair, his lips and his eyes, to the paint on his fingertips, to the paint on the cuff of his t-shirt.
"I have to go back," Taylor muttered. "There's too much... too much baggage for you to have to put up with. I don't want to just lump it all on you, you don't deserve that, Joe. Besides - you're probably really busy and you've probably got things lined up for the rest of the year and you probably have a thousand paintings to get done before Christmas. You probably have scripts to learn and so many other things to get done before the holidays. Not to mention the -"
"I am not putting up with anything. I'm not a busy person. I paint in my spare time, I send them off to my manager who sends them away to my clients. I just ship the paintings away and then they sit in someone else's living room gathering dust. I don't have any films in progress before the New Year." He assured her.
"Please trust me when I say that I've got all the time in the world to help you. Paintings, scripts and poetry can wait, this can't. You can't."
"It's not fair on you. I've literally only properly known you for less than twenty-four hours, yet, in that time, you know my biggest secret, I've had to call you to rescue me and I've literally slept in a bed with you. You don't need a singer in crisis... haunting your life. You came here for a city of dreams, Joe. Not a city of nightmares."
"Taylor," Joe stepped toward her, and she flinched. She wondered if that would ever stop. Would she ever not flinch like that when someone came toward her? It was the sound of the floorboards that made her scared - because that was often the sound that came before Adam's touch.
"I don't care if I've known you for ten years, six months or twenty-four hours. But in this short time, I have seen you laugh and smile, and your reaction when you do tells me that it was the first time in a long time. You've talked to me about painting, about poetry, about your cats and about your lyrics. I've seen your sparkle. Your baggage doesn't scare me. The thing with nightmares? They end. Bad dreams don't last forever, Taylor. They end." He sat down beside her.
"Every. Single. Time."
"But you don't even know the half of it," Taylor whispered and he carefully took her hand. She knew she shouldn't test him like this, but she couldn't help it. She had to test him; had to ensure that he meant what he said. Had to ensure that he truly wouldn't be scared off by her scars.
"I trust that when you feel ready, you will tell me parts of it. But I want you to know that you can stay here. You can make this room your own, you can live with me and my bookshelves and my paintings. Although paint seems to get everywhere in this place, you'll have to make peace with that. And half the time all of my canvases end up in the hallway and it's always hard to get through there, so that's not always great. I have a piano, so you'll be woken up by it sometimes."
"I think I have an eating disorder." Taylor was testing the waters, she was seeing how he would react when she told him some of the other issues that she is facing. She shouldn't let him keep her, he needed to know just how bad she was. What a fucking mess she was. He had to know.
"I know what you're doing, Taylor. But don't push me away. Don't try and scare me away because I've faced nightmares myself. I've faced the darkness, I've felt numb and cold. I've felt all of those things before. I'm not the sort of person who gets scared that easily. I've got several skeletons in the back of my closet that I never let see the light. Most of them are things I've not talked about to anyone. They're things that I'm the only one who knows. Sure, they're etched into my paintings, but I'm the only one that understands what it means." He stopped and started softly stroking her hand.
"We all have our ghosts, they're nothing to be ashamed of. I ran into you at the cafe yesterday for a reason, and it already feels like I've known you for a lifetime." He spoke gently.
"Sometimes I just sit and stare out the window all day." She was still seeing how far she had to go before he ran for the hills. "In the same pink velvet chair, I don't talk or eat or drink water. I just look out at the city and wonder when it'll get better. When it will stop hurting so much."
"Sometimes I sit at the piano and play until my fingers ache so much that I can't move them. Until they're so sore I can't even play for a week afterwards. Sometimes I hate every single painting I do, and I end up tearing a hole right through the middle of the canvas and sometimes, I am even tempted to throw it out the window. Which I would do if there wasn't the chance that someone might get hurt. Sometimes I paint over the same little area a hundred times because the colour just isn't right. Sometimes I rip pages out of my sketchbook and throw them away because nothing I do is good enough. Sometimes I don't leave my apartment for a month. Sometimes I sit at the piano and don't move for hours. Sometimes I read the same line of a script over and over again but I can't get into character. Sometimes I hate everything I've ever done in my life. Sometimes I blame myself for every inch of darkness the people I love have ever felt." He admitted and she looked over to him as he showed her his fingertips, which are red. "Don't push me away. Let me help you. Nothing you could tell me would be enough to convince me to let you go. I already let you slip through my fingers once, Taylor. I'm hardly going to let it happen again."
"There's nothing you can do to help me. Even if I were to face the skeletons in my closet, there's still the fact that I can't go anywhere without someone taking pictures of me, without a crowd of people calling my name and asking rude questions. I can never escape it. Adam said he'd always find me - that he's got connections." She paused. "You said so yourself that your life isn't like that. People know your art and not your face - but I don't have that luxury. I don't get to be anonymous. I don't get to have a part of me that's invisible, that no one knows of. No one that knows me gets to live a life of peace. And I cannot drag you into this mess. I can't, in good conscience, let you do that to yourself. You don't know how bad it can get. Having your every move watched by a million eyes. Having everything judged. As soon as anything goes public, it turns to dust." She'd had it happen in relationships before, and what she shared with Joe was something that she didn't want the world to know about.
"Nothing good lasts under those flashing lights. Nothing good lasts the winter."
"Well - we could move to the Lake District if we have to because I seriously doubt that he would find us there. No one would find us there. He doesn't seem like the wisteria-covered cottage type of guy. Besides, we could throw all our technology in the lake and live with only the radio and a few books." Joe said, and the thought made Taylor smile.
"Change our names, dye our hair. Grow our own vegetables, sew our own clothes..."
"Spend all day painting and writing. Making hot cocoa." She whispered and realised it appeared that he often had the same escape in his head that she did.
"That's the second time you've mentioned the Lake District. You have to tell me about it," Taylor sighed. "If it's somewhere far away, I'm going."
Over breakfast, Taylor and Joe sat talking about the Lake Poets, and Taylor decided that she had to see it. Some day, she was going to go to the Lake District and she would walk the path of the poets.
"It's somehow very romantic," Taylor observed. The group of poets had shifted to the Lake District to live out the rest of their lives in peace. To escape the world, to work on their poetry and write songs that live forever.
"Of course it is!" Joe watched her as she managed to eat an entire pancake. It was so good, and she thought that actually admitting that she might have an eating disorder helped. She hadn't said those words out loud, ever.
"This group of poets just packed their things and left, with nothing but their passion for words and life." Taylor admired the way that his eyes lit up when he talked about this. Loved how excited he was, how he sparkled.
"We'll have to go there one day." She says to him. "Seriously?"
"Of course!"
"Everyone else thinks that it is so weird. I mean, I guess it is... but I just... I'm tempted by the simple life, you know? Which is probably why I don't paint under my own name."
"I don't think it's weird at all. I think it's amazing - and I'm sad that I never knew that the Lake Poets existed until this moment." She smiled at him, and he grinned back. She knew that eventually, they would have to talk it through. Talk about what she was going to do.
"We should call the police," Joe suggested as they did the dishes together. "He can't hurt you from prison."
"No, no." The thought made her want to throw up those walls again... throw them up and never take them down again. But Joe's eyes were soft, so soft and kind. He wouldn't do anything to intentionally hurt her, and deep down, she knew that. "I can't do that. It's far too public. I can't have everyone finding out about this. It will ruin my career."
"You can be yourself here, Taylor." He ran his hands through his hair, leaning forward. "You don't have to be strong all of the time. This isn't going to ruin your career."
"I know," She told him because she did know that. She could tell from the way that Joe looked at her that he wasn't expecting her to be perfect. He was expecting a human. Someone who made mistakes and fell down, someone with bruises and imperfections. But he also knew that she was more than capable of getting back up again. So, she tried to take down those solid walls in her head, tried pulling at the ivy-covered bricks that she threw up around herself in order to protect herself. "Fuck," she says, exasperated. "Who would've thought? Taylor Swift, the global superstar, is a huge fucking mess on the inside." Joe looked taken aback by her outburst. But she continued. She couldn't stop.
"I'm such a coward - I didn't leave. And I knew pretty quickly that it wasn't normal and that it shouldn't be like that, but fuck. It's not like he kept me locked in a tower. I mean, I was allowed to leave. But still, I stayed. I'm just a failure... because you think that when you're seven and you hear grown-ups talking about what makes a healthy relationship, you think that you are brave enough to leave. You think that strangers are the ones that you have to worry about. But it's not always them. It's the ones you trust that stab you in the back. I'm just a fucking failure, Joe. Perhaps he did it to me because it's what I fucking deserve-"
"Don't you dare say that about yourself, Taylor. Hell, don't even think that! Okay?" He was so shocked by these words, she could see it written all over his face as he came to sit on the couch beside her. He pulled her into him and wrapped her in his arms.
"You don't deserve any of the shit that he did to you, because you are so beautiful and kind, so generous and loving. And you might be a mess. You're allowed to be a mess. But maybe we're all a big fucking mess on the inside but there's only a few of us that are brave enough to admit it. Anyone would be so, so lucky to have you." His voice wavered at the last sentence, and Taylor felt herself soften.
"But they're not lucky to have me, Joe, because I am difficult and-"
"No, you're not. Not once since you arrived here, have I ever thought that you are difficult. Not once since I walked through the coffee shop door, did I ever think that. Not once. Not a single time. That's what Adam wants you to believe so that you think that if you leave him... no one else will ever love you, but that's not true. You are fucking incredible, Taylor, and what you deserve is someone who will write poetry beside you on a Sunday night," He paused, and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes.
"Someone who will take you to the Lake District, someone that is going to tell you how lucky they are to have you every single fucking day of your life so that you never forget how loved you are. That's who you fucking deserve." He tells her as he feels her body relax ever so slightly against his chest.
"You really think that I deserve all of those things?" Taylor asked, a tear slipping down her cheek. She hadn't heard words like this in so long it was enough to break her down.
"I know it." He said this so surely, that it almost made her believe it for a moment. "How are you today?" He added gently.
"Do you want the soft version or the real version?" Taylor pulled away from him so that she could see his eyes.
"The truth," Joe told her. "I want Taylor's version. Not the version you think people want to hear. I want the version that's like... like when I just paint whatever I want. When I write a poem without knowing where it's going to end up. I paint without thinking. That's what I want." He didn't let go of her hand. He held it firmly but softly. "If you feel comfortable with giving it to me."
Taylor sighed, looking down at her lap, and the sight of Joe's hand holding hers, the little circle he was stroking her hand with his thumb, told her that she could tell him. She hadn't been honest about her feelings in... forever.
"I guess that - and this is going to be stupid, trust me, but poetic and lyrical seem to be all I can do when I talk about this - but you love poetry... so I guess that you understand." She told him honestly and Joe smiled at her.
"I don't have a bookshelf full of poetry for no reason." He gave her hand a little squeeze. "It's just... it's numb, you know? Like when the pain hurts you so bad that your whole body goes numb so that you can escape the pain? So it protects you? It does what it has to do in order to survive. It's like, there's the whole flight or fight argument, but then there's just... there's the thing your body does when it has been hurt so bad that it just shuts off." Taylor felt so weird saying all of these things because she hadn't told anyone about her feelings. She'd thought about them, of course. But she'd never let anybody in enough to speak those thoughts out loud.
"But I can still feel the pain, I guess... my feelings are numb? Like when... when he'd do... stuff to me, I'd feel it at the time and when I was alone, all I could do was stare out the window dreaming of another life with someone else." With Joe.
"And my heart ached and it felt like I was leaving little pieces of my broken parts everywhere and standing in a room full of people that couldn't tell how much I was suffering." Taylor paused, catching her breath.
"Like... it's like when you're drowning... when the water is pulling you under, and you're screaming and reaching up for something, anything to help keep you afloat... but then there's this darkness that takes you and doesn't let you go." She paused, taking a deep breath. "It's never-ending. There's no light. No sign of the darkness giving in." She paused, glancing over at him with a small smile.
"Until yesterday. Until today. But I guess that it... it was easier to be numb to it all. It hurt less when I was numb to it. And I just can't understand why you are wasting your time with me, because you honestly deserve so much more than someone who has lost who she is and leaves broken pieces of herself wherever she goes."
Finally, Taylor looked up at Joe, at his ocean eyes, his eyebrows furrowed together in concern for her. He took her other hand and held it tightly.
"I'm not going to leave you, Taylor. We've all got our broken pieces. I don't care how many broken pieces you've got. Quite frankly, I don't care if you disintegrate in front of me. I don't care about your broken pieces. They don't bother me one bit."
Taylor had never had anyone tell her that before. Most other people saw her broken parts as a burden, as a waste of time. As something that was a waste of time, as something that they couldn't put up with. But not Joe, never Joe.
"I found myself wondering if that really was what love is like - and I decided that if that was love, then I didn't want to feel it ever again. I don't want to feel it." She paused, and Joe let go of one of her hands and gently wiped a stray tear. "How can it be love, when there was so much pain?"
"Because it wasn't love," Joe told her bluntly. "It wasn't love. Not... not real love. Because love isn't like that. Love is like... a million different poets sketching your story into the stars, it's not bruises and cuts and scars. Love is golden and warm, it's bright and glowing. It lifts you up, it doesn't drown you and hold you under."
"I feel like I'm soaring when I'm here... with you." She admitted, and at first, she wished that she hadn't said anything. But then Joe smiled. "I feel like that too."
"What does that mean?" She asked, and Joe squeezed her hand again.
"Love is soft. Love is kind." He told her, bringing a hand softly to her cheek. Taylor was surprised when she didn't flinch, when his warm hand held her cheek, his fingertips stroking her softly. "Like this." He whispered as he began to trace stars on her cheek with his thumb.
Taylor leaned into his hand, closing her eyes. She hadn't had anyone touch her like this in years.
"Sometimes... Sometimes you can know that you are in love. Sometimes it just feels so right. Even, I suppose, if you've only known them for a short time. Something clicks into place." Taylor could tell that he was nervous to use these words, nervous to talk to her like this, but she opened her eyes and gave him a smile. That surprised her, considering how he'd always sounded so confident and carefree. He was scared to push her too far, and she wished that he knew how much she was falling for him.
"Love at first sight." She said to him and he nodded. "I've always believed in that, you know."
"Me too."
"Thank you... for being so kind to me, when you literally only just met me." She tells him and he gives a small laugh. "I don't think I will ever be able to thank you enough."
"I'd do it all over again - except... maybe back at The Met, I would have asked you to dance first... before you had to go through all of this pain. Maybe I would have convinced you to have dinner with me some time or told you of a painter called William Bowery that I liked. Then, I would have delivered it right to your door, just so I could see you again."
He remembers, Taylor thought. He knew that The Met was where she'd met Adam that first time, and he'd danced with her the entire night. But she was looking over at Joe because something about him was so captivating. His hands around the chilled wine glass, eyes scanning the room and several of his paintings out the back.
He said that because he knew that if he'd asked her to dance, he'd have never let her go. He'd have danced with her through the night and he'd never have hurt her like that. He would never have made her cry the way she'd spent some of those sleepless nights. He'd have only loved her, only held her close and whispered about the Lake Poets. He would have painted her, that's for sure. He would have painted her a thousand different ways, from all different angles, because Taylor Swift was a masterpiece. He doubted his ability to portray her - he was sure her beauty would get lost in translation along the way... but he'd try. Because beautiful people deserved to be painted. He would have written thousands of poems about her. He would have filled notebooks with ramblings about her eyes, or her smile.
Because beautiful people deserved to be written about. They deserved to be painted. Appreciated and loved.
"But... we're here, together... now," Taylor murmured slowly. "Perhaps it was meant to be all along."
"I think it was," Joe said with a smile. "I... I have to go back and get some of my stuff... and I need to sort out what I'm doing with my cats..."
"They can stay here. I love cats." Joe told her.
"You can stay here." "I don't want to go back there." She sighed, her chest heavy.
"Well... we could go together. I can go with you." He offered, and Taylor gave him a small smile.
"I don't want him to get mad at you. You don't know what he's like." No one did. The person the media saw... was not the person Adam was behind closed doors.
"I could totally crush him," Joe said with a laugh, and surprisingly, this made Taylor laugh too. "We can go and get your stuff, together. This isn't something that you have to do alone."
-
"Are you sure that you want to do this? I can go in alone, I don't... I don't want him to hurt you. You can just wait in the hallway." Taylor murmured before they got out of the car to go inside. She was wearing her sweater and shorts from yesterday, Joe had put them in front of the fire for her so they were dry. It was cold outside, but she knew she could grab her other clothes while she was back at her apartment. She had one of Joe's coats on which hid the torn sleeve, and one of his scarves was wrapped around her neck. Every breath she took smelt like him. It kept her going. It kept her moving forward. There was nothing that smelt like him, and it was quickly becoming something that she wanted to keep for the rest of her life.
"I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to do this alone. I won't let him hurt you." He assured her.
The paparazzi were everywhere today because the weather was dry. Because they all wanted the best picture of the celebrities scattered about New York. Taylor wondered what kinds of articles she would see her and Joe plastered over. How long it would take for the rumours to start rampaging across every social media platform. They took the lift, and Taylor felt herself go rigid as her floor got closer. She hadn't taken the lift in so long, it seemed unusual not to take the stairs. It seemed so unusual to be here because Joe's apartment felt more like home than this place. The door opened, and Joe told her, once again, that he won't let him hurt her.
"Oh, here she is!" Adam came into view and stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Joe. "This is who you've been hanging out with? What the fuck, Taylor, baby?" He spat, charging toward them. "Thanks for bringing her home, mate. Baby, come here. Let's get inside. Back home."
"She's not here to stay," Joe told him firmly, and Taylor was surprised at how collected he sounded.
"Did you not hear me, baby?" Adam was ignoring Joe now and was focusing entirely on her. He reached to grab her, but Joe put a hand to his chest.
"Fuck off. She's not going in there with you."
"You fuck off, get out of my house." His words were venomous.
"This isn't your house, Adam." Taylor found the courage to say.
"If you know what's good for you, then you will fucking leave her alone." Joe stepped in front of her, facing Adam all on his own. As much as she was relieved that she wasn't standing here alone... she knew the kind of person Adam was. She didn't want Joe to have to face that. Although, the Joe that was standing up for her... was not the same Joe that had been talking about painting. Not the same Joe who had taught her all about the lake poets. He was not the same quiet, smiley person that he was when they were playing scrabble.
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but she's my girlfriend, and this is our apartment so you're the one who needs to leave." Adam slurred.
"I've seen what you've done to her, you fucking-"
"You fucking little bitch." Adam snarled at Taylor, his words seemed to cut her open.
"She didn't need to tell me, asshole. I saw it myself. There's enough evidence on her body that would mean a very quick arrest if I were to go to the police."
The world began to move incredibly fast, and the next thing Taylor knew, Adam's fist was on Joe's face. Joe stumbled backwards, flushed with anger. She went to move towards him, but Adam grabbed her waist and pulled her backwards.
"Let me go!" She struggled. "Fucking bitch." His hand caught her wrist, the one with the scars, twisting it. She yelped out in pain, falling backwards.
"Don't you dare touch her," Joe's voice called out, and then he was beside her, punching Adam hard in the face. Adam stumbled backwards with the impact.
"That's a taste of your own medicine." Joe snarled. "Now get the fuck out."
"This isn't the end. Remember what I said? Remember, Taylor? There's nowhere you can go. I love you, baby, we're meant to be together and I will fucking make sure that happens."
The words made Taylor's eyes prick with tears. Adam stumbled out the door, and Taylor quickly moved to get her stuff. She grabbed the cat crates. Olivia went right into it, which surprised her considering the troubles she's had with it in the past. Her other cat, Meredith, also climbed in easily. She set them by the door, before moving to pack her clothes. She was lucky in the fact that she hadn't got any of her truly sentimental belongings here. They were in another one of her houses. Perhaps she knew that one day, she'd need to make a quick escape from this house.
She threw her clothes in a suitcase. She went into the bathroom and packed all of her makeup and shower products. Even the blades.
Even though she knew she shouldn't. That she should make a clean break. She couldn't help it.
"I'm done." She told Joe as she came out with her suitcase.
"Let's go." Joe's cheek had turned a bright red, and Taylor felt the guilt settle in her stomach. She did this. She was to blame for it all. He took her suitcase and she held her cats, and she felt when she'd shut that door, a weight lift off her shoulders.
"I'm proud of you," Joe told her quietly as they got into the car. "We can go home now if you'd like." Taylor nodded. She paid particular attention to the fact that he'd called it home. She hadn't had a home in so long, she'd forgotten what hearing the word felt like.
When she was with Joe, it really did feel like home was closer to her than it had ever been before.