Chapter Two: Contact
'Cause I confide in wolves at night
Have you seen my baby girl?
She's lonely, so lonely.
Taylor sat on the couch and inhaled and exhaled slowly. She was listening to them. She was listening to the way the words sounded coming from their mouths, the way they articulated each syllable. It was probably her turn to speak. Everyone else had spoken up and now it was probably her turn. The problem was she didn't feel like talking. She was listening, but she wasn't hearing much of anything. Ryan was staring at her. She could feel his eyes on her. The problem was she couldn't look at him. "Taylor?" Someone asked.
"Huh?" She murmured, her knees pulled into her chest.
"How do you feel about all of this?" Sandy asked.
"What?" She inhaled slowly and her eyes fell to Kirsten. Poor Kirsten. Poor Kirsten Cohen who miscarried her birthday surprise. She frowned. Poor Taylor Townsend who could have gone to the Sorbonne or Oxford but was now stuck carrying Ryan Atwood's child. "Right. The house. You're houseless, homeless and that's certainly not a good thing to be. Your house was gutted and you'd like to stay here while they work on it and you want to know what I think about that. And you moving here would mean Seth moving here and of course Ryan moving here and how do I feel about that?"
She stopped talking. Sandy looked at her. "Taylor?"
"Huh?"
"How do you feel about that?"
She looked like she was going to say something. Her lips moved, her fingers moved with them, but she was still thinking.
"It's good. It's a good idea." She finally said. She stood up. "Excuse me." She told them, exiting the room in a hurry.
Everyone in the room's eyes followed her. Watched her legs start off slowly and then pick up speed in a matter of seconds. When she was gone, out of sight, they turned to Ryan. They weren't sure who should speak, but telepathically they elected Seth. "Care to explain what's up with Taylor?" Ryan didn't respond. "Do you know what's up with Taylor?"
"I wasn't aware anything was up with Taylor." Ryan shrugged.
"Really?" Sandy asked. "That wasn't anything?"
"She's Taylor." Ryan sighed. "She has her moments."
"Really? 'Cause I've seen Taylor's moments and I don't know what that was." Seth informed him. The two looked each other in the eye for a moment, Seth wanted the real story and Ryan could tell he expected to hear it later.
"I'll go talk to her." Ryan offered. He stood up and headed to her room. It's not like he didn't want to talk to her. He did. He wanted to talk to her, he just wasn't sure of what to say. What was there to say? Then again, what wasn't there to say?
"Hi." He greeted when he opened her bedroom door.
"Hi." She replied, sitting on the bed with something in her hands. Ryan didn't have to ask what it was. He knew. It was the ultrasound. She looked at him to shut the door; he obliged.
"Look – we'll figure this out." Ryan told her. It was the only thing he could think to say. He sat on the edge of her bed and tried to smile at her.
"Figure what out Ryan? What is there to figure out?" She asked him confused. "We're going to have a baby. It's pretty simple. Simple to say. In like six or seven months you and I will be parents. That is unless you want to nip this whole thing in the bud." He looked somewhat disappointed. "Right. See I don't know you that well, but I thought that was something you'd be against."
"And you're not against it?"
She shrugged. "I'm nineteen. I'm indifferent." She rolled her eyes. "I'm barely nineteen."
"We'll figure it out." She stared at him blankly. "I promise. Even if that means I have to …"
"Have to what? Quit school?" Ryan nodded. "Oh no. You don't get off that easy. I'm not Theresa. I'm not going to try and force you to come with me wherever I decide to go in the future and I would never, ever, ask you to quit school. Here's what we're going to do, okay?" She looked him square in the eye.
"We're going to go to Berkeley. I can defer the first semester in my field. I'll defer the first semester. We'll live in an apartment. You'll go to school. I'll get a job or there's always my dad. I mean - my dad may show his new dog more affection than he's ever shown me and I may never see him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot of money and feel the need to buy my affection." Taylor paused for a second, her mom had just admitted that she loved her, and she wasn't ready to lose that just yet. "So what if my mom will probably cut me off and stop speaking to me all together. That's why you have two parents and then there's my college fund. We could dip into that if we have to and you could get a job too. Work on campus. I don't know. That much we can figure out in the future." Taylor bit her lip. "The point is it's not my job to screw up your future. If you intend to do that, you can keep me out of it."
"Wow." Ryan said thinking it over. He fell into one of the pillows by Taylor's head. "Should you really be in here?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Cause I'm pregnant?"
"No." Ryan asked. "Should anyone really be in here? It's been cleaned up a little, but still seems like there's some work to be done, it's probably not the safest place to be. Broken glass."
"You're moving in right? I mean that's what they were saying. You can fix it up." Taylor smirked. "The Cohens can't afford a hotel for how ever long that structural stuff takes?"
Ryan shrugged. "But there is nothing like family."
"How's Kirsten?"
"Okay. I guess." Ryan put an arm around her. "She'll be okay."
"Is that your answer for everything?"
Taylor could feel him nod. "Yeah, because it will. Everything will be okay." He took the picture from her hands, "Even if life is ten times harder. Everything will be okay."
He put the sonogram on the nightstand. "Twenty times harder." Taylor elaborated.
"Thirty."
"Fifty."
"One-hundred."
She smiled. "Lets not get ahead of ourselves."
'Cause I confide in wolves at night
I'm like a virgin losing a child,
So lonely, so lonely.
April 2, 2009
Paris, France
I went to dinner last night. Foie gras. Frog legs. Mussels. A raspberry soufflé. It kind of went to waste. I certainly can't eat that much and it's not like I had anyone to share it with. If we were in Berkeley, Ryan and I would have shared. At least, we would have in the past. Would have before the accident. I'd order obscure things, things I didn't think he'd eat in a million years and he'd prove me wrong. He'd always prove me wrong. Chicken liver wrapped in bacon. Whatever. Atwood men are tougher than that.
He still hasn't called. I thought he'd call. Don't ask me why. I just thought. I didn't change my number. I didn't change anything. If he needs me he can contact me. He can call. He can write. Maybe not write. He could fax, he could email, he could instant message, but he can't even do that. He can't talk to me. I thought that space might be good for us. You weren't there; you couldn't feel that tension. I thought that if I left, if we didn't have to look at each other, run around that stupid apartment trying not to acknowledge the other's existence things would get better. He reminded me of her and I reminded him of her and I thought if I wasn't there I couldn't remind him of her and he couldn't remind me of her and we could move on.
Not move on. I don't want to move on. Aurelia was my world. You can't move on from that. Twenty years from now I'm still going to remember the way she said 'mama.' I'm still going to remember how cold she felt when she died. It's not like you can just forget things like that. It's not like you can just get over something like that, I just want to move past it. Move forward with my life. I want to be able to get married in the future. I want to be able to get married and maybe have another kid without her eyes haunting me. Now when I close my eyes she's the first thing I see - in all her splendor and beauty. The second thing I see? The guy that killed her. The third thing I see? The way Ryan looked at me on the way to the hospital. You didn't see that look. He can say he doesn't blame me all he wants, but that look says otherwise. That look brings me to tears. I can't remember the last time I didn't cry myself to sleep.
"It's all going to be okay. It has to be okay." He told me that. He held my hand. He held me in his arms and he cradled me. He cradled me like he cradled her when we brought home from the hospital. He was wearing his Berkley sweatshirt. The blue one, blue with white writing, his favorite – my favorite for that matter and he held her in his arms. She was tiny and he carried her like he was protecting her from the world, the big bad world that would eat her up and spit her out again. The last time I felt like everything was going to be okay, he was cradling me like that, protecting me from the big bad world. The last time I felt like everything was going to be okay, my daughter died and the big bad world started eating me up. I just want to know if it intends on spitting me out. Sometime soon would be nice.
You swear you did what you could for my eyes
And I'll try something, try nothing, try anything.
April 3, 2009
Berkeley, California
She called Summer yesterday. She hasn't called me once since she left and yet, she called Summer. Told her how great France was, asked how things were here, asked about me. I know Taylor, she's avoiding things, so she's avoiding me. She can lie to Summer a lot easier than she can lie to me.
No. I haven't called her, but I am not the one who left.
Do I miss her? Of course I do, but I'm not the one who gave up and left the country. I'm not the one who packed her bags and left when I was at school. I'm not the one who put a note on the counter and left without saying goodbye. She needs some space? Fine. I need some too and if space is what she wants, space is what I'll give her.
I guess, the problem is I don't really want to give space. I say that, but I don't mean it. I really don't, but if she was here right now I'd be giving her space unintentionally. Are ignoring and giving space the same thing? Can they be the same thing?
Why do I think that is? Why do I think I unintentionally ignore my girlfriend – ex-girlfriend – whatever she is? Again, it's hard to say. I guess it's hard to pay attention to a person when it's hard to look at them.
I used to know how to fight. I used to be good at fighting. It was a strength of mine really and then the drama kind of went a way. Life sort of fell into place and I stopped having to fight. I didn't have to protect Seth anymore and Marissa was dead, not really much protecting there. I lost my drive and then things spiraled out of my control again. I just don't think I have it in me anymore. I couldn't fight if I wanted to.
Do I want to fight? Well – for Taylor I do. I just don't think I can anymore. I let her go. I let her think I blame her. I don't blame her anymore than I blame myself. I blame myself more than I blame anyone, I blame myself the most.
I lied to her. You tell people it's going to be okay, that it has to be okay, but nothing has to be okay. I should know that. I was born to a mother and father who didn't exactly try to make everything okay.
But the thing is, I wasn't just lying to her. I was lying to myself too. I lied until I believed what I was saying. I sat in that waiting room. I sat with Taylor and I convinced myself it would be okay. It had to be okay and after a while I knew – I was so sure – that that doctor would come out and say that she was fine. They repaired the damage, no more internal bleeding. They were going to come out and tell us that they'd keep her for observation, but in a day or two we'd be able to take her home. We were going to hug and smile and when Kirsten and Sandy came with their fifty questions, Taylor was going to laugh through her tears. We'd had so much luck. I just didn't think you could lose luck that quickly. I probably should have known better.
Song: Wolves at Night by Manchester Orchestra
