Yellow Brick Road: Bear Left
"Hey Haley" Taylor James said as from the kitchen as she noticed her younger sister walk in to the tiny apartment they shared.
"Hey, this place looks different." Haley told her sister, her voice on edge.
"What do you mean." Taylor reached up into the cabinet above the refrigerator only to pull out a half empty bottle of liquor.
"Oh, what I know what it is. Your not having sex on the couch and screaming at me to 'get the fuck out'." She laughed bitterly, knowing that the event she had described happened most too often.
"Oh Haley don't make a mountain out of a mole hill." Taylor huffed, slowly sipped her pink cocktail as Haley went to sit on the couch and look at the view out the window. "It's a guy huh?" Taylor spoke first- it had been about fifteen minutes since the last word had been said.
"Why the hell would you think that you have the right to talk to me." Haley usually never spoke out or cussed as she was doing now, however Taylor always brought that out in her, and the current situation didn't help matters much.
"Because, I'm the one who puts a roof over your head. And I'm the one who puts food in your mouth." There was a pause in between her surprisingly calm voice. "And I'm your sister." Taylor words were quite and mouse like, in contradiction to her usual outspoken loud phrases.
"Please." The younger sister sighed with a sound of disbelief.
"Haley I feel really guilty for what I did back then. We were really close, we were real sisters and then I left. I was seventeen and you were only thirteen, but I felt like I needed to go to experience life without people telling me what to do." Taylor had sat her drink on the small kitchen counter and placed herself next to her sister on the yellow worn loveseat. "I wanted to live in the moment and not worry about the english paper that was due next week. And I know that not saying goodbye was a really bitchy thing to do, but I didn't know how. I always sent letters though, and cards for your birthday and Christmas. I didn't forget you Haley and I didn't really leave you I just moved out."
"I know that Tay."
"And I know that the way I am and the way I live is, well, not the perfect scenario to finish raising a teenager so I will really try to clean up my act." Taylor promised her baby sister.
"Did you say goodbye to them before you left?" The younger James inquired.
"Yea I told them what I was going to do. They weren't happy but I think they knew that I would sneak out in the middle of the night. But that night I left, you were sleeping at Bevin's or something," she added "when I said goodbye it's wasn't like I was leaving forever. It was kind of just like 'I'll see ya later'." The sisters involuntarily thought of the last time they saw the parents that had given them everything they knew to day. The parents that they still loved immensely. The parents that were now gone forever. "Did you ever read my letters?" Taylor asked, blinking away that small puddle of tears that had formed inside her eyelids.
"Yea. I just never wrote back cause I thought it would make you mad." Haley laughed with her sister at her childish thinking. "Anyways, enough of this mushy stuff. I met a guy at the café I work at. And oh my goodness Tay, he's absolutely amazing." Haley gushed
"Is he hot?" The way Taylor asked made it sound as if she thought Haley was missing the entire point of the conversation.
"You have no idea…"
"Haley, stop your practically drooling." Haley smiled sadly at her sister that couldn't contain her laughter. "So, is he special?" Taylor wasn't really paying attention to the conversation at hand she was just admiring the fact that they were actually speaking like they once used to.
"He told me he loved me." Haley said her voice was a soft whisper. "But I didn't say it back."
"You don't feel the same way?" She inquired, trying to make sense of the situation before her.
"No I do. God, Taylor I love him! But we've only known each other for two months! And we haven't even dated really. I met him in the café that I work at, he came in one day and we just talked and then he came in the next day and the next day and then the next! But, He's and I'm, I mean, we cant!" Haley had some how managed to get off the couch and start to pace in the middle of her rant, however nearing the end she started flailing her arms in all different directions, her older sister sitting on the couch looking bewildered. Like a deer caught in the head lights.
"Haley your not making any sense."
"He's four years older than me! Damn it, why does this stuff always happen to me" Haley said falling to her knees. Taylor moved to sit on the old carpet next to her sister.
"Well age doesn't really matter. You and I know that. Mom and Dad got married when they were seventeen and right out of high school and Hales, they were so much in love."
"They were huh? "
"Yea, and ya know maybe you'll have the same thing with this guy. Then hen again maybe you wont. But you need to take a chance to find out. Maybe he's your prince charming." Taylor looked at Haley once more before leaving her on the floor and retreating to her their room.
You need to take a chance… the five words kept resonating in her head…You need to take a chance.