Chapter 31 #2
She doesn’t ask Jess to leave; in fact, she’s grateful she stays because she feels so alone that the warmth at her back helps her relax and fall asleep.
Taylor wakes to the bed moving. She turns to see what’s happening and sees Jess’s silhouette outlined against the window as she finishes getting dressed.
The bartender gives her a smile and murmurs something Taylor doesn’t catch, because for a moment she feels completely disconnected from reality, not understanding why she’s naked next to a woman who isn’t Abigail Stone.
"You okay?" Jess frowns, and Taylor sits up, checking the time.
"Yeah, sorry, it’s just that since I’ve been here I go to bed really early," she excuses herself, rubbing her eyes.
"Then I’m a bad influence," Jess says as she slips on her sneakers, and they walk out of the bedroom. "I’m heading to an audition. If you don’t have anything to do and want to come with me..."
"I can’t, I have to go to the recording studio," Taylor says, "but there’s coffee made if you want to take a cup."
"It’s fine, I’ll grab something out there," Jess says, fixing her short hair with her hands. "I liked meeting you. Stop by the bar whenever you want and we’ll do it again."
Taylor nods with a smile as she walks her to the door.
She has no intention of going back to the bar, or of seeing Jess or any other woman again.
Maybe Tiffany is right and she needs to sleep with other women to break the connection she feels with Abigail, but last night proved she’s not ready for that yet.
Jess opens the door with a smile, completely unaware of the storm raging in Taylor’s head, and when she’s about to leave, she freezes.
"Oh," she says softly.
Taylor shifts to the side to see why she isn’t stepping out of her apartment and feels the whole world stop.
Abigail is there, in the hallway, hand raised as if she’s about to knock on her door.
She’s wearing gray slacks as dark as her eyes are right now, and her brown hair is loose like the first day Taylor saw her in her parents’ bar.
For a split second, Abigail seems completely human.
Her eyes open wider than usual as she stares at Jess, and Taylor can see something change in her expression at that moment.
It’s barely noticeable, but it’s there, a slight tremor in her jaw that quickly turns into the rigidity that slices through her features as if they’d been cut with a guillotine.
Abigail doesn’t care if the girl is attractive or a disaster, if she’s young or older.
She doesn’t care that her eyes are dazzlingly green, or that she seems nice, or about her expression of surprise at seeing her at her lover’s door.
What cuts her to the quick, what splits her in two, is seeing the hickey on her neck.
For some reason she can’t understand, that’s what destroys her, making her feel like she’s tearing apart inside.
It’s as if she’d staked a claim to those marks in her mind as a kind of property—something that belonged only to Taylor and her—the memory of something she didn’t know she liked, shivering at Taylor’s sighs when she marked her as if she were hers.
But Taylor marks them all; there’s nothing different about Abigail, nothing that makes her special to her.
Abigail has never experienced this kind of pain.
It’s something deep and wrenching that is destroying that muscle beating inside her that now tightens under her ribs.
Her hands feel numb and her eyes sting because, although this was a very real possibility, Abigail isn’t prepared.
She isn’t ready to see Taylor in another woman’s arms, to be aware that other hands are touching her, other lips are kissing her, and other eyes are looking at her without seeing her the way she does—like that woman full of fire who wipes out her senses when she smiles and melts the blaze in her eyes when she looks at her.
"I’m sorry," Jess says, blushing as she looks at Taylor. "I didn’t know you were expecting company."
Taylor can’t move; she can’t breathe. In fact, she can’t do anything but look at Abigail, watching every muscle in her face turn to marble.
"Come see me, okay?" Jess says, slipping past Abigail to leave and walking down the hall like she’d never been there.
"We have a meeting at the office in an hour," Abigail says in a monotonous tone that doesn’t sound like anything.
It isn’t cold, it isn’t threatening—it’s empty of any emotion, just like her gaze, which is unfocused. That’s what shatters Taylor.
"Don’t take more than fifteen minutes or we won’t make it. I’ll wait for you downstairs," Abigail finishes, and turns to leave the building, leaving Taylor with her mouth open and her heart punching holes in her ribs.
Taylor closes the door and leans her back against it, sliding down until she’s sitting on the floor.
She wants to scream, but something is blocked in her throat, as if all her energy were trapped there.
She can’t get Abigail’s expression out of her head, that moment, that slight tremor in her jaw.
It might be nothing to other people, but to someone as incapable of showing emotion as Abigail, it’s a lot—maybe too much.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, Taylor walks out of the building and finds Loretta beside Abigail’s Mercedes.
"Morning, honey," the woman says, opening the back door for Taylor to get in.
"Hi, Loretta," she greets, stopping short when she sees the inside of the car is empty. "Where’s Abigail?"
"She left in a cab. Said she couldn’t wait," the woman explains, brushing a couple of braids off her shoulder.
Taylor feels dizzy. In fact, she really wants to throw up. The bile creeps up her esophagus and she goes so pale that Loretta grabs her arm.
"You okay?"
She nods, feeling cold sweat dampen the nape of her neck.
"Is it normal for her to take cabs?" Taylor asks after inhaling deeply to calm her pulse.
"Of course not," Loretta says, rolling her huge eyes. "If she’s taking a cab, what the hell does she need me for? She told me to stay to make sure you didn’t show up late to the meeting and took off. She was a little weird when she left the building, that’s for sure.
Weirder than usual, I mean," she explains too fast. "Come on, get in or we won’t make it with this traffic. "
"Can I sit up front with you?" Taylor asks her.
Loretta blinks, trying to decide which of the two women is acting stranger this morning.
"Sure, honey. No problem."
Taylor buckles up and traps her palms between her knees, leaning toward the window.
She feels so awful she just wants to go back home and crawl under her sheets.
Not this home, but the one in Smithville, where she has her family and a life she liked, where everything was easy.
She worked in her parents’ bar, sang at Rusty’s, wasn’t in love with Abigail Stone, and didn’t feel like she’d broken her from the inside.
"Are you cold?" Loretta asks, baffled by Taylor’s demeanor.
She shakes her head; she actually feels hot and chilled at the same time.
"Want to tell me what’s going on? We’ve got time, and I’m very discreet," Loretta assures her, nodding.
Taylor glances at her and laughs.
"Think if you drove me to the airport and I went back to Tennessee, Abigail would be really mad?" the singer jokes.
Loretta’s eyes go comically wide as she makes a scared face.
"She’d probably blow a gasket, so I’d better take you to the office," Loretta decides.
Taylor nods, but she can’t stop her eyes from filling or the sudden tears from falling.
"Hey," Loretta says softly, putting a hand on her arm, "you can’t cry now. You’ll show up to that damn meeting with red eyes and they’ll think you’re on drugs. That’s not good for you or for business. Trust me," Loretta says. "There’s a bottle of water in the glove box. Grab it and drink."
Taylor obeys, swallowing the knot choking her as best she can until she pulls herself together, though her chin still trembles.
"That’s better, honey," Loretta says. "Now tell me, why are you so sad when you should be jumping for joy?"
"I did something yesterday," Taylor whispers, eyes fixed on the asphalt.
"Something bad?" Loretta tests.
"No, but I feel like it was. Like I did something terrible. I felt empty then, and empty and guilty now." Her eyes well up again and her voice cracks, but Taylor manages to hold it together.
"Why do you feel guilty if you didn’t do anything wrong?"
"Because I think I hurt someone without meaning to."
"But that wasn’t your intention," Loretta says.
"No, it wasn’t," Taylor sighs.
Loretta could explain that she’s free to do what she did, that she doesn’t owe Abigail anything, that she’s the one who doesn’t want anything between them, so she can’t expect Taylor not to move on with her life, but Taylor doesn’t say any of that.
She doesn’t tell her that Abigail didn’t get in her own car because she probably feels disgusted by her.
Taylor doesn’t say anything else; she just thanks Loretta when they arrive, for driving her and for listening.