(A/N) Hi guys, this is just a little one shot about the scene where Taylor posts the video, and Samantha and her mum come in and stop her from OD'ing. This scene was really touching, and triggering for me, but I feel like such an emotionless freak because I've watched the movie more than ten times, and I've never cried once, and I wrote this while listening to Badass, by Saliva. :-/
I don't own any of the dialogue used from the movie, and the scene is set from when Taylor watches that video about her.
Oh, and if anyone's confused, I'm British, so I've spelt "mom" mum, but I've kept the "bucks" thing from the video, because "quid" didn't seem to fit right. I tried it, and it seemed strange.
Reviews would be nice, and enjoy the story.
NOTE: All the comments about Taylor which I'd put in are completely fictional and not my opinion of her at all. I think she was a lovely girl in the movie - with room for improvement but everyone could use it, right? - and I think Emily Osment did a great job playing her.
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"I'm so tired of being here, supressed by all my childish fears." - My Immortal by Evanescence.
~ooOOoo~
Taylor stood frozen on the spot, tearing blurring her vision and no doubt stoking the fiery taunts of her peers. She was truly alone now. Cheyenne had left her because she couldn't handle being called names for being associated with her, Samantha had left because she was too worried about what Scott thought about what was being said about her on her Clicksters page and Scott had left her because he said his Mum was making him take Marnie Fox to the Spring Fling.
The warning bell to get to class rung, and Taylor turned on her heel and made a beeline for the bathroom, ignoring Scott's call of her name. She kept her eyes on the tiled ground, knowing everyone's eyes were on her as she scrubbed the tears out of her own. It was no good, they were burning too intensely, and the metaphorical cuts that she had received were stinging and on the verge of bleeding again.
She pushed open the bathroom door, and found herself looking at eight pairs of blurry shoes. Taylor steeled herself to look up, wiping her eyes again. She was confronted with Lindsay, and a gang of other girls, some leaning casually against the sinks, and the others were stood against a toilet cubicle.
Taylor recognised some of them from when Lindsay had called her, Samantha and Cheyenne the 'Skank Patrol', but Taylor guessed none of them were really her friends, except the dark-skinned girl with the shiny black hair and the large hoop earrings. Becca? Taylor had heard Lindsay call her that once. The rest were just taggers-on who wanted to get in on the action, and make Taylor feel small.
"Aww, she's crying," Lindsay mocked her. Taylor blinked furiously, feeling rage bubble up inside her. The desire to strike at Lindsay's flawless face and bruise it was overwhelming, but there were seven other girls with her. She was outnumbered. Taylor nibbled on her lower lip to quell her rage. "She must have seen the video."
"Everyone's seen it," Becca - probably the only genuine friend out of the whole group - cut in with a sickening flash of her white teeth. Taylor's mind was reeling: Had somebody made a video about her? She didn't need to be a genius that Lindsay was the mastermind behind it, she also suspected her for creating the fake James profile, but she had no proof of either of them.
"Five-hundred views last time I checked," the dark-skinned girl's voice shook Taylor back to attention. Her stomach was doing non-stop backflips. Five hundred views? For a moment she felt like she would burst from all the tears she'd been holding in. She dared to let a few slip, but nobody gave her a second glance.
"You guys have all seen it, right?" Lindsay asked in her sickeningly perfect voice, giving everyone a cursory glance before her forest green eyes locked with Taylor's red and swollen ones. She really was nothing compared to all these girls, they were the flawless group, while Taylor was at the bottom of the pile. She never had been before, but she had been degraded. "Hysterical," Lindsay's giggle and many others snapped her out of her thoughts.
Taylor finally found the courage to speak, all the girls' eyes on her, "What video?" her voice had meant to sound like a demand, but it was only a pathetic wisp of a thing. Like you, her mind taunted her, Should have listened to your mother, and shut your account down, but you didn't listen.
She stood there silently, watching Lindsay twirl a thick strand of shiny brown hair between her index fingers. The bell rang for lesson rang before she could weakly demand another answer. Lindsay slinked up to her, a gleeful smile on her face, and for a moment Taylor thought she was going to get hit, but the other girl merely bypassed her, walking around her to leave the bathroom.
"Just wait until you see it," were Lindsay's final words to her before she disappeared out of the bathroom in a rustle of darkened green silk. Her 'friends' followed her out, all laughing, all making sure to give Taylor derogatory looks, and titter about her. The sound of their shoes and modern laughter died away, and Taylor let out a yell of frustration that she had been holding in for weeks.
She strode over to the sink, grabbing a paper towel to scrub at her eyes with. Once it came away, she was left staring at a girl who she didn't recognise as herself. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face was streaked with dirty tears, and her lower lip was flawed by tiny bite marks. Taylor had been broken, she was no longer Taylor Hillridge, the eccentric girl with a secret passion for writing, she was a nobody, completely alone.
She was done.
Taylor let out an anguished sob she hadn't realised she'd been trapping in her body, and her tears poured forth from her eyes. She sobbed into her hands, not caring if anyone came and found her. She was sick of being treated like this, like she was nothing - a worthless slut who would sleep with any man she made eye contact with.
Not bothering to wipe her tears this time, she turned away from the reflection of the empty shell she now was, and walked out of the bathroom. Instead of turning left for her History classroom, she turned in the opposite direction. Taylor walked down the hallway, heading towards the school's exit. Nobody cared about her, nobody was going to miss her in this place.
She reached the double doors, her hand frozen on the bar. She scanned behind her to check that no-one was coming, and impulsively, like something was driving her, pushed on the bar. The door swung open at her push, and she walked out into the car park, breaking free of the chains the school bound her in.
The route home seemed a lot further away than usual, probably because she usually had Samantha driving her. Samantha. Taylor thought with a pang of regret. If she hadn't been so concerned about Scott's opinion of her, would she still be standing by her? And if they hadn't been in the bathroom that precise minute Lindsay came in and made a jabbing comment about the three of them, would Cheyenne still be with her?
Would any of this be happening?
It seemed like forever until she reached her house. Taylor froze outside the front door, remembering Eric was still home. Her brother's name suddenly turned into venomous poison in her mind. All this had started because of his idea of a joke, but she couldn't bring herself to be mad at him. He'd only changed her status, it was everyone else who were commenting about her.
Taylor's mind immediately flashed back to the day in History when Caleb had tried to offer her some comfort, and she'd said that his torment was true. She resisted the urge to put her hand up to her mouth in shock, had she really been that shallow? She should have said something, she knew that now.
But it was too late, the damage had been done to her. Shutting down her account now wouldn't do the slightest bit of good, all because of the comments, and especially the one 'James' had posted about her saying she gave him an STD. How could someone she'd never met say something like that about her? And what was his reason?
They had been IM'ing back and forth for a few days, and the tone of the messages had been the same. Nice, light, and with the occasional flirt from either of them, until it all turned sour. Taylor swallowed suddenly, feeling all the blood drain out of her face, and a chill sweep through her body. She still had that video to contend with. She peeked into the kitchen through the large bay window, and saw the back of Eric's head from the living room sofa as he played on one of his favourite video games. His headset was on, so Taylor prayed that he wouldn't hear her.
She curled her hand around the doorknob, and gave it a twist, freezing automatically as she heard the click. She gave it a few seconds, and Eric made no indication from inside the house that he'd heard it. Taylor pushed it open, walking inside, shutting it silently. She stood where she was in the kitchen, feeling her bottom lip quiver and a fresh wave of tears burned at the corners of her eyes, forming a large lump in her throat.
She glanced up to the stairs, and then back to Eric, who was oblivious to her presence. She made her way up them, knowing that she wouldn't come down them ever again, and the last memory her brother would have of her, was her telling him she'd never forgive him. Taylor crept across the landing, opening the door to her room, closing it again so Eric wouldn't hear her if he took his headset off.
She walked over to her desk, resting both palms on the sleek wood as her feet worked at getting her shoes off. Feeling her toes slip out of them, she grabbed her laptop by the sides, and brought it to her bed. She opened the lid, and loaded up the internet. She hovered the cursor over the bookmark she'd made for Clicksters, before she tapped on the mouse pad.
The page loaded up, and she anxiously gnawed at her lower lip. Why was she doing this? Why make it worse? Taylor sniffed as a tear trailed down her cheek, and she scrolled down her page. Her eyes scanned the various comments, new ones that she hadn't seen. For reasons she couldn't even comprehend herself, she began to read them.
Robert Fisher: FREAK!
Susan Potterson: I HATE TAYLOR HILLRIDGE! People say she is normal like us. NO! She is the most ugliest thing i have ever seen! She doesn't deserve to be called a human.. more like a creature that crawled out of a sewer! Well, that would explain the smell...
Mark Torriduke: Whore, slut, skank and prostitute, those are the words used to describe Taylor Hillridge, who is a complete and utter disgrace to the human race.
Danielle Ortuva: U give me diarrhea, Taylor. Honestly, y would u want 2 throw urself at guys hu r waaaaaaaaaay out of ur league!?
Cody Walterson: Why I hate Taylor Hillridge: - She has 00000000000000 friends - She always wants to be the center of attention - She has a spacticated face - She is a nasty slut.
Helen Porters: TAYLOR SHOULD BE SHOT IN THE HEAD RIGHT THROUGH THE BRAIN WITH A SNIPER RIFLE UNTIL SHE IS DEAD ON THE GROUND WITH A HOLE IN HER GOD DAM HEAD! THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY.
Susan Potterson: I always knew you were a disgusting skank. Go and die.
Diane McAnderson: Just kill urself already, no1 likes u
Malcolm Pierce: Go and crawl back to whatever hole you came from!
Lindsay Fordyce: prostitute.
CJ Hunter: It's bring ur animal to skool day 2day, I've got a leash if you wanna come with.
Logan Reed: The skool shud get u quarantined. Hu no's how many STD's u have.
Taylor heard a few tears spill over her eyes and crash onto the keyboard. She hated how this was happening to her. She never thought it would, she'd never been mean to anyone, and if she didn't like anyone she just stayed out of their way, except for Lindsay who had established a rivalry with her for reasons nobody knew. She gritted her teeth, and finally reached the video, it had another comment.
Lindsay Fordyce: Enjoy the video Taylor Whore-ridge.
She clicked on the play button, and waited for the video to load up, biting nervously at one of her fingernails. The video flashed on, and it didn't seem like anything special. It was filmed with a tacky camera, and there was a guy walking around with a paper bag over his head. A girl then came into the frame - Taylor guessed it was Lindsay, she had told her about the video - wearing a cardboard cut out of Taylor's head. She was also wearing a skin-tight blue thing which barely covered the upper part of her thighs, a pink jacket, and there was also a large ball placed under the shirt, to indicate Taylor was pregnant.
Lindsay skipped up the the boy with the paper bag on his head, and he turned around. Taylor was disgusted, was this how people saw her? All because of something a stranger had said about her on the internet? Not that it mattered, she wouldn't see the sun tomorrow.
"I'm Taylor Hillridge, wanna have a good time?" Lindsay sang to the camera, flaunting her arms up in the air, "five bucks, all it takes," she circled her hips around, and got closer to the boy. He reeled back and waved his hand over his nose.
"You smell like a bit of a sewer," he commented in an affected voice, pushing Lindsay away from him, "you ever take a shower?"
"How about two bucks?" Lindsay's tone changed, and sounded desperate. Taylor shuddered in abhorrence. They were making her out to be a desperate prostitute. More tears spilled onto her keyboard, but she was frozen in place, unable to move. "Or one? Fifty cents? Or how about I pay you to show me a good time?" Lindsay continued, frantically grabbing onto the boy's arm like she was drowning.
"Urgh, gross," he pushed her away, and bolted towards a forest behind them. The camera zoomed in, and Taylor saw Lindsay's eyes behind the mask of her Clickster's photo. They held true mockery, and Taylor wanted to throw up, but nothing would come.
"I act like I'm the most holy and pure thing at school, but really I'm the dirtiest, little, whore," Lindsay chuckled. Taylor could finally move, a short jerking motion of her arm which slammed her laptop shut. She collapsed on her bed, laying on her side. She grabbed her pillow, and began sobbing aimlessly into it. She felt so dirty, so violated, and all this had started because she refused to shut down her account.
Taylor sat up, throwing the pillow towards her window, it harmlessly bounced off and landed on the floor. She wasn't going to be around much longer. She knew it was the only way to end all this, end the torment she didn't deserve. She thought back to her mum, and how rude she'd been towards her about taking her laptop away. Taylor now knew that she had been doing it for her own safety.
Her mum's face then materialised in her mind, tear streaked and sobbing as she cradled her dead body on the floor, stroking her hair and praying she'd come back. Taylor broke herself out of her mind, she wanted this to end, and if it meant ending her life, then so be it. She opened her laptop, hoping she hadn't broken her screen from slamming it down, and clicked on the webcam icon on her desktop. She set it on her desk, and rounded her position on her bed so she was looking directly at the small camera.
She took a deep breath, and let the camera record her silence for a few seconds, letting her peers know just how much they had effected her, what they had reduced her to. I'm the real Taylor Hillridge," she whispered, tears lacing her voice and the lump in her throat quietening it.
"And I don't know why everybody hates me so much, but, maybe I do," Taylor continued, rubbing under her eyes and sniffing loudly. She truly didn't know why everyone hated her so much, or Lindsay for that matter. She had said something in Health class, but it was like she'd told Samantha and Cheyenne, it was a class discussion that she was participating in, "because now I hate me too," she croaked, coughing to clear her throat before she went on.
"And right now, I really don't see the reason for trying, or for talking, or for breathing," Taylor dropped the truth bombs, feeling her stomach sink. It sounded worse when she said it out loud, "I'm just done."
"So that's it I guess," she managed a weak smile towards the camera, and gave a small wave, "bye."
Fighting the tears, Taylor crossed the room, and pressed the stop button on the webcam. She saved the file, and opened Clicksters back up, simultaneously wondering how she could do this through all her tears. She clicked on the video posts on her profile, and bypassed Lindsay's one. She uploaded the file of her speaking to the webcam, her body shaking uncontrollably.
She clicked the post button.
Taylor tore away from her laptop, thinking about the millions of people who could now see it. 'Taylor once you put something online it's no longer private and everyone can see it,' her mum's reprimanding voice echoed in her brain. She stared out the window, burning holes into the empty driveway below. Soon her mum would be home, soon she would be finding her dead body...
She knocked a few things off her vanity mirror in frustration. How had her life taken this turn? She used to always think she was mentally strong, but her peer group and a few posts on a page which she knew she should have shut down, had broken her down in a few weeks. Taylor thought about Eric changing her status, and wondered if the situation would have been any different if 'James' hadn't posted about sleeping with her.
All the tears flowed from her eyes, and Taylor thought she couldn't cry anymore, but a few always managed to slip out. She walked over to her bed, rocking back and forth as she leaned on the bed rail. Her phone began to ring, but she ignored it. She wondered who it was on the other end, maybe her Dad had finally gotten the message she'd left him. But she didn't count on it.
As her phone continued to ring, she entered a zombie-like state, feeling numb, all her inner rage and torment trapped within her. Taylor got up and walked towards the bathroom, heading for the cabinet above the sink. She reached up and pulled the cupboard open, rummaging through the various medicines, choosing the one which would end her life. She selected a bottle of Prozac.
This was it.
Her fingers were shaking uncontrollably as she curled them around the Prozac. It was truly overwhelming to think that the whole bottle of the little capsules could end her life and solve her problems. It sounded absurd to think about it, but Taylor remembered her Health teacher lecturing them about drug use after a student, a boy named Tyler Monroe, was arrested on possession of Cannabis, Cocaine and Heroin.
Taylor broke her reverie, and gave the cap a firm tug, but it wouldn't budge. She thought about the millions of people who would be watching her video and laughing at her, cackling away like a pack of hyena's. She was almost laughing herself - she was so pathetic that she couldn't even end her own life without there being a bump in the road. Her hands were aching considerably, they were pooling with blood underneath her skin, turning them a bright shade of red.
She heard a door open and shut. Her Mum wasn't supposed to be back yet! Her breathing began getting heavier, more irregular and desperate as she tried to yank the cap off. She was fighting yet another losing battle. Why couldn't she just die? Why did life have to make everything so incredibly difficult for her?
"Taylor!" A female voice called, and Taylor froze. It wasn't her mum, it was Samantha. She'd came back, but with a stinging pang of regret, Taylor knew it was too late.
"Taylor! Taylor!" Samantha called again. Taylor gave a frustrated grunt as her hands began to seize up. "Where's Taylor?" she heard Samantha ask, her voice riddled with urgency.
"How should I know?" Taylor heard Eric's voice, and began to sob again, hearing the oblivion in his voice. He had no idea. No idea about what was going on a few feet above him in the bathroom, no idea that she forgave him for changing her Clicksters status, and no idea that she really did love him and he was a fantastic little brother to have, despite their arguments. "I'm grounded," the silence after his answer gave way to Samantha's footsteps. She did care about her.
"Taylor! Taylor! Taylor!" Samantha's yells of her name became desperate as she ran up the stairs. Chills started to ensnare every single nerve-ending inside Taylor's body as she heard Samantha's footsteps getting closer and closer to her. She didn't want to be saved, she just wanted everything over with, even if it meant stopping her own heart. "Taylor!"
"Taylor...?" Samantha's call sounded hesitant, and much closer. Taylor struggled aimlessly with the cap, letting out a wheeze of exhaustion. She halted in her hastened efforts as she saw Samantha standing in the doorway, her pale face tear-streaked and her lower lip quivering. It felt too surreal, to see her standing there.
"I can't get the cap off!" Taylor let out a yell of sheer frustration and rage, violently jerking the cap, her fingers feeling like iron. As quick as a whip, she saw Samantha's body a few inches from her own as she leapt for her, one hand grabbing the Prozac, and the other wrapped around Taylor's wrist.
"No!" she screeched, no doubt deafening anyone within miles of the house. Samantha refused to let go, and tugged on the cap, but Taylor's grip held firm, and she was forced to her feet. Blood pumped viciously in her ears, drowning out her own cries as they mixed with Samantha's pleas for her to stop.
Two pairs of rapid footsteps - no doubt her mum and Eric - thundered up the stairs, and sirens blared outside the open window. Taylor suddenly felt a huge weight on her shoulders, as if the impact and reality of what she was trying to do was crushing her, forcing her into the Earth. The serenade of mixed cries coming from both her and Samantha suddenly flared up in her ears like a button was pressed, and the bottle of Prozac slipped from her hands, smashing to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of the tiny capsules scattered across the ground.
"What did you do?!" Taylor yelled at Samantha, advancing on her with a mixture of rage and sadness bubbling away inside her. The brown-haired girl landed onto another basket, and began sobbing harder.
"Sit down Samantha. I've got this," her mum's voice came into focus, and Taylor saw a flurry of blonde hair through her blurred vision. As she heard the paramedics talking, her legs gave out completely and her weight dropped her to the ground as there was nothing supporting it. Her mum's hands carefully latched onto her shoulders.
"It's okay, I've got you," her mum's arms formed a cradle around her, rocking her backwards and forwards as she continued to cry, like she was a never-ending spell of rain. The people at school would have a field day if or when they heard about this. She screamed in anguish into her mum's chest, nuzzling into the safe-haven her arms created for her.
"Baby..." her mum stroked her hair whilst she continued to scream. Taylor looked up, and saw Eric stood in the doorway, his eyes swimming with shock and horror. She felt a rock deep within her stomach. If she hadn't posted that video and alerted Samantha, or if she had been able to get the cap off the Prozac bottle, Eric could have been the one to find her dead, and he would be forever scarred by the image of her lying lifeless on the floor like a doll, and haunted by the guilt which would rage inside him like a wildfire.
"Please," she heard Samantha whisper, her hands clasped together. She sounded like she was wracked with guilt, but other than distancing herself from Taylor for a while, what had she really done that was so bad?
"I wanna die, no," Taylor rapidly gasped for breath, suddenly debating whether she would be able to snatch a few pills from the floor without her Mum or Samantha apprehending her, "I wanna die..."
And no words that true had ever left her lips before, not once in her lifetime.
~ooOOoo~
(A/N) Okay-dokey, so what did you guys all think? I hope you actually do review, because I did work really hard on this (that's why it's so long - LOL).
Alright, bye guys! :-)