Author's Note: So this is the first piece of fiction that I've written in a long, long time. Basically, I've just missed writing so much lately and this is a story idea I've had for a long time, and somehow, it just kinda came out. Hopefully this means that I'll get back in the game and continue my other stories soon. I just hope my writing skills haven't completely perished in the time that I haven't written anything. But even if you think this sucks, please review, it would mean the world to me!
Stay
Summary: And then he said it: a simple word, but it was the word that would turn her whole world upside-down, and maybe, just maybe, change it forever: Stay. A Ryan/Taylor Oneshot
The train ride was a little bumpy, but for some reason, it didn't bother her the slightest. Her breath was still slightly shallow from the exhausting activity that had just taken place, but other than that, her whole body was completely relaxed. Her mind felt blank; as if there wasn't a single thing in the world that she could possibly worry about, and it was a much needed break from her regular stressful and neurotic brain activity. Lying there on his chest and feeling it heave up and down in a steady pace made her feel perfectly safe. This was the way he always made her feel; the way only he could make her feel. And the moment they were sharing was another magical one that she never wanted to let go of.
But all good things come to an end, right? And even though neither of them wanted to admit it, the time had come. She was going to France, and he was moving away to Berkeley, and no matter how perfect the last hour had been, and no matter how much they loved each other, the moment in the sleeper car couldn't change the fact that now was the time to say goodbye.
Playing absently with his fingers, and not really daring to meet his eyes, Taylor was the first one to speak. "So…I guess you should get dressed. The train stops in like 5 minutes."
The sadness in her voice was unmistakable, and just hearing her sound so fragile and vulnerable made Ryan hurt. "I don't want to leave you…," he said slowly.
His words made her feel as if she was tearing apart from the inside. He certainly wasn't making this easy for her. She was already having doubts. She felt as if she wasn't ready for this, that she wasn't ready to go to France, but most of all, she felt that she wasn't ready to let him go… But instead of confessing these fears to him, she obliged herself to be brave. Forcing the tears in her eyes to retreat, she cleared her throat and said in what she hoped was a strong voice: "I know, me either. But it's not like this is goodbye forever… We'll still see each other…on breaks and stuff. I mean, I'll probably be in Newport and you'll be in Berkeley, but it's not that far away…"
Even to her own ears, her words sounded extremely unconvincing, and she had to admit that this was what bothered her the most: they hadn't really discussed what the whole moving-across-the-Atlantic thing meant for their relationship. The past few weeks after Sophie's birth, they'd spent basically every second of every day together, but not once had they ever touched the subject of what would happen when she left. Neither of them had wanted to ruin the perfect moments they'd shared by dragging up something so painful. It was just too agonizing to think about.
"It's not the same thing…," Ryan insisted.
Taylor didn't really know what to say. Why was he making this so difficult? Wasn't it hard enough already? Did he think that it was a piece of cake for her to leave him, the love of her life, behind as she skirted off to a foreign country all on her own? He was the one who was getting the easy part, he was the one who would be going off with his family to fulfill his dream, while she would be isolated and all alone in a country where she had no friends except for her smelly ex-husband, who would most definitely try to win her over again.
Okay, so maybe she wasn't too keen about going to France, but she kept telling herself that she was doing it for a reason, that it was all for the best, that if she didn't go, she would regret it for the rest of her life… She was just struggling to try to believe those words herself. Every second longer she spent with him, the harder it became to convince herself that she was doing the right thing by leaving him.
Suddenly there was an abrupt pull and the train came to a halt. Taylor heaved a big sigh, utterly perplexed by the conflicting emotions inside of her that were pulling her in a thousand different directions, and more than ever, she was unsure of what to do. This was so much harder than she ever could have imagined it would be. It was as if everything they'd ever been through together in their relationship had come down to this one defining moment. It was almost too much for her to bear. She wasn't at all sure anymore that she could do it. But she had to.
Her words were almost a whisper: "If you are ever getting off…"
And then he said it: a simple word, but it was the word that would turn her whole world upside-down, and maybe, just maybe, change it forever.
"Stay."
It was as if time had stopped completely, yet everything was rotating twice the speed of normal. And for Ryan this was the last chance to rectify a past mistake...
They'd been fighting over something stupid. Afterwards, neither of them had even been able to remember what they'd been arguing about, but at the time it had been a very big deal.
"Taylor will you just listen to me!" Ryan yelled aggravated at Taylor's back with a tone that rang of frustration.
Taylor was already halfway out the door, but she swung around to respond to his words, equally upset. "Oh! You mean because I ramble so much I can't even listen to what you're saying, is that it?!"
Ryan was getting extremely irritated. It was as if she misunderstood everything he said and he didn't have the energy to continue to defend himself for something he hadn't even done. "Obviously you can't, since you won't let me explain! You're just like your mom!"
The second he'd said it, he'd regretted it. More than anything, he wished he could take it back. He hadn't meant any of it, and the remorse filled him from head to toe faster than a tidal wave could fill a glass with water.
His words had hit her like a slap in the face, and her eyes narrowed in anger as she moved towards him, navigated by the finger she was pointing at him. She parted her lips to spit out an insult as a retort, but only blinked a few times before she closed her mouth again. With a sad, slow shake of the head, her hand fell to her side and the hatred she'd felt just seconds ago relinquished to be replaced by hurt. When she finally spoke, all the traces of anger were long gone, and she said in a slow and quiet voice: "You know what, Ryan? If that's truly the way you feel, then maybe we shouldn't be together. Maybe we're just too different to make this work."
Ryan simply stared at her, unable to comprehend what she was saying. All of this for a tiny misunderstanding? How had they let things get so far? He wanted to take it back, all of the hurting words that they'd screamed at each other, and if there'd just been the slightest chance that he somehow could've erased it all, he wouldn't have hesitated a second to do it. But as far as he knew, he didn't possess the ability to bend the timeline to change what had just taken place, and he felt completely powerless. He didn't know what he could possibly say to make things better again, and therefore he remained silent.
"I guess we should've known it from the beginning…" Her head was bent down as she spoke so that he wouldn't see the tears glistening in her eyes, but the traces of sorrow in her voice remained unmistakable as she continued. "We're like night and day, it would never have worked out in the long run. I guess I was just naïve enough to think that we could have the storybook ending…"
She paused to take a deep breath and to blink away the lingering tears before she continued: "I just… I've never felt this way before… You just mean so much more to me than I'd ever thought anyone ever could… I guess because I love you so much, I was desperately hanging on to the hopes that we could make this work, fooling myself to believe that we could have it all. That we would go to Berkeley together and that that would just be the start of the rest of our lives, which we would spend blissfully in a perfect home lined with a white picket fence with the kids and the dog running around in the yard. Against my better judgment, I defied my cynicism and allowed my walls to cascade around me to let you in, all while living in the illusion that happily ever after's actually do exist. But I realize now that I was just being naïve."
He didn't know how to reply. He just knew what was in his heart, and though he probably didn't tell her often enough, he was certain of the way he felt: He loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone.
So when she turned her back against him again, he knew that he couldn't just let her walk away. But he'd never been a man of many words and there wasn't possibly a way that he could use his vocabulary to express the way he felt, so instead he just responded the only way he knew how. He grabbed her by the arm so that she swung around, and with all the passion that burned inside of him like an eternal fire, his hands made their way to cup her face as he pressed his lips against hers.
It was as if time had suddenly stopped and the world had melted away. Taylor felt as though a thousand volts of electricity jolted through her body as they united in that kiss, and she responded to it with a hungry and longing passion that she hadn't even been aware of that she possessed. All the worries and emotions that had been torn up by their fight seemed to fly out the window. Heaven and hell might have collided in that moment, but if it had, neither one of them would've noticed; they were entirely absorbed by each other.
His hands were still cupping her face when she at last came to her senses and hesitantly pulled away, and she could feel his shallow breath on her face as she struggled to gasp for some air. It had caught her completely by surprise. She didn't know what she'd expected, but it certainly hadn't been this. Her heart was beating so fast she was almost certain that it would leap out of her chest, and her entire body felt as if it was on fire. She was rendered completely breathless by the intensity of the kiss he'd just sprung on her and was at a total loss of words.
This was the effect he had on her. She seemed to loose all of her senses as soon as she came near him. For him, she'd completely let her guard down, allowing him to inspect all her flaws and see just how vulnerable she really was behind the facade that she always kept up for the rest of the world. It was as if everything else became insignificant in his presence. No matter how hard she'd sometimes try to concentrate on something, she could never get him out of her head and she would always have to surrender to think about him. And when that hadn't been enough, she'd resorted to stalking him.
How had she allowed herself to fall so deep so fast? Six months ago she'd barely exchanged a full sentence with him and now she couldn't picture living without him. No matter how hard she would try, she'd always end up seeing the image she'd described to him just moments ago. She knew it was an idealistic picture of life, and that if that was what she hoped to get out of life, she would be utterly disappointed. It scared her to think of how everything with Ryan was like living in a dream, because it wouldn't always be that way. Life wasn't a fairytale. The truth was that she was strange, and that they were very different, and it scared the hell out of her to think that maybe one day Ryan would realize this and walk away, leaving her with the shattered pieces of the broken dreams that she'd created for them in her dreamy mind.
For her, the fight they'd just had, had confirmed her worst fear: that they really were too different, and she was furious with herself for having been so stupid to believe that it could last, when in reality they couldn't even agree on such a simple matter. And the kiss… It had made her realize that she was utterly terrified of the way he made her feel, the way he always made her feel…
And that's why it could never work. She couldn't keep doing this, she couldn't keep being so damn reliant on him. She needed to regain her independence and figure out what she really wanted; whether it meant having Ryan in her life or not. She needed a break from it all, some space to clear her head without him being present.
" I-I should probably go…", she stuttered weakly.
And as she rushed away into the night, Ryan simply stood there, watching her disappear in the horizon, left wondering what the hell just happened.
Later of course, he'd found out from Summer that she'd gone to France. And there hadn't been a single second when he hadn't regretted not going after her that night. He'd let the love of his life go once before, but this time he wasn't going to make the same mistake. She meant everything to him and he definitely wasn't ready to just let her walk out of his life. So he said it, the word that he should've said that night, the word that could possibly change everything:
"Stay."
She blinked a few times in surprise, unable to comprehend what she'd just heard. No word had ever been so simple yet made such an impact on a person. Taylor felt as if a hurricane had swept her away and she was spinning in a whirlwind of uncontainable emotions, incapable of finding some safe ground. She would never have predicted what he'd just asked of her, and at first she wasn't even sure if he'd meant it.
"Are you serious?" Bewildered, she searched for an answer to her question and found one in his eyes. Those eyes; so intense and passionate, Taylor had always felt that they could look through her eyes and see her soul. And as her eyes connected with his, they were as honest and sincere as always, and she knew with certainty that he'd meant it.
"Of course I am."
Taylor just looked at him completely perplexed. "But I… I never expected you'd say this." She could hardly believe what she'd just heard, what he was asking of her and how much she wanted to surrender to him…
"Look, Taylor, I love you, and I've never felt this way about anyone in my entire life…and the thought of not seeing in you in god knows how long…" His voice trailed off, the thought was just unbearable. The whole six months they'd been apart he'd spent pretending to himself that he was over her while in fact she'd been all he'd been able to think about.
Taylor was still in somewhat of a catatonic state of shock. "But I can't…I've already said yes. I'm on the freaking train already!"
But Ryan wasn't going to give up that easily. "Taylor, I would never have asked you if I thought that this was really what you wanted. But you were miserable in France, you've said so yourself, and if you're just going back to prove to yourself and to your mom that you can do it… then you're going for the wrong reasons."
"I…I…" Taylor wasn't even able to finish the sentence. Somewhere in her mind, she was already giving in because she knew he was right, otherwise she wouldn't have been having so many doubts herself. And of course he was right, he always was when it came to her. Sometimes she was convinced that he knew her better than she even knew herself. Maybe that was what made them work so well: regardless of how different they were, they somehow always understood each other perfectly. But before she could come up with a worthy response, Ryan continued:
"I believe in us; I know we haven't really been together for very long, but I love you. If Paris really is your dream, I would never want to stand in your way, you should go and fulfill it and live life to the fullest, because no matter what, I believe in a future for the two of us. Whether it's tomorrow or in 5 years when you've graduated… I'll wait for you. No matter what, I'll be here when you return, even if it's just for Christmas and summer breaks: I'll be here. I could wait for you all my life."
Taylor's jaw nearly dropped at these words. Those were the sweetest words any man had ever told her. Nothing in Henri-Michel's book about her, none of his cheesy love poems, none of the many sonnets he'd written about her, not even his wedding vows to her, none of those words had been half as beautiful as the ones Ryan had just uttered. And the fact that it came from him, who was known for being a man of few words, made it all the more meaningful.
She'd been amazed by him when he'd told her that he loved her; even in her drunken state of weirdness, she'd been amazed and so happy. "He loves me. Yay!" she remembered having thought, excited about the prospect that they could go to Berkeley together. And for a few seconds, their relationship had seemed perfect, then the earthquake had happened, and a month later, their relationship had ended abruptly and she'd gone to France to get away from it all. She'd convinced herself that things had ended between them because they were too different, but in her heart she'd always known that it was because she'd gotten scared of how perfect everything had been between them, and how badly she wanted it to last. So she'd fled. Yes, it was a twisted logic, but it had seemed to make sense at the time.
She'd even gone as far as convincing herself that breaking up with Ryan really had been the right thing to do and that she was long over him. So she had happily accepted her place at the Sorbonne, excited about the possibility of making new friends, perhaps even meeting a nice French guy, one who smelled less strangely than Henri-Michel.
She hadn't really given Ryan much thought when she'd returned to Newport for Julie's wedding; she'd been excited about seeing everyone again, especially Summer, but also all of the others; all of whom she'd come to think of as her family. And then as soon as she'd set foot on Newport ground she hadn't been able to think of anything but Ryan, and when she'd seen him at the airport, the realization had been to convincing to ignore: she was still in love with him.
So she'd hoped that maybe he felt the same way, and that maybe, they could make things work by seeing each other on the breaks and stuff, and then she'd called him, and she'd found out that the Cohen's were moving… And that's when she'd given up. She'd given up hope on them; it didn't matter that she still loved him, and that maybe, he still loved her. None of it mattered if they were never going to see each other. So when he'd asked her right before the wedding if they could be friends… she'd been a little hurt, but had thought it was for the best. Then she'd reached out to shake his hand… and it had been like a magical explosion of feelings. Like fireworks, and electricity… it had all exploded. The chemistry and the passion they had was just too overwhelming to ignore. It was just love.
What Taylor had come to realize was that she wasn't scared anymore. In fact, she had never been more sure in her entire life. She knew that she would never love anyone as much as she loved him, and that the feelings they had for each other would never fully go away.
She could almost hear the echo of her mother's shrill voice in her head as to what she would say if she knew what she was planning on doing: "You're giving up your entire future and everything you've worked for to be with an ex-con?!"
But Taylor didn't see it that way. Going away to France when she knew in her heart that she didn't want to go, and doing it just to fulfill her mom's expectations and the ones she had set out for herself, was not what would make her happy. And therefore, she didn't see staying as a sacrifice, but going to France and leaving Ryan behind would've been the biggest one she would ever had had to make.
It wasn't that she couldn't live without him, because she was certain that they could both move on separately and live perfectly fine lives, but it was the simple fact that she didn't want to. She didn't want to spend the next 5 years without him by her side, because she was the happiest when they were together. All she'd needed was for him to give her a reason to stay...
For the first time in a long time, Taylor experienced a moment of perfect clarity, and there was no doubt in her mind when she finally turned to Ryan with a wide smile on her face and said: "Okay."
The train started rolling again as they united in another passionate kiss. She wasn't sure where they would go from here; she couldn't even remember what the next station was or when they'd be arriving. But it didn't bother her.
They had this moment, one moment of perfect clarity. And right now, that was enough. They had their whole lives together to figure out the rest.
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