For the second day in a row, Taylor had been pacing his room, mixed thoughts of Hayley and of Chad and of himself spitting venom at the girl in the backseat of his mother's Sorento swirling around in his head. If he was being completely honest, he really hadn't meant half of the things he had said. Well, he had at the moment, because he had been jealous; painfully so, and seeing her flirting with another guy had caused his anger at the fact that she wasn't his to bubble over and spill onto the girl's feelings.

He grabbed at his head, pulling the red beanie off and tossing it across the room as he sat down onto the edge of his bed. This was really doing his head in. It had been since the girl had asked his mother to take her home. The frown that had been etched onto his face had immediately softened to nothing when he saw the first few tears spill over onto her cheeks. She had wiped at them angrily, folding her arms and choosing to stare out the window, mirroring the position he had been in only a few minutes previous. He had wanted to say something, wanted to apologize, but his words weren't working because he hated seeing her cry and now he was the reason and he wanted to pull all his hair out for saddening the girl.

He took his head out of his hands and glanced over at his phone for about the 20th time in 5 minutes. He knew it was probably unlikely that she would call him right now; she usually chose to hold her grudge for at least a couple of days, to torture him he guessed.

What he didn't expect was for his window to slowly slide open, and for the girl on his mind to timidly step through.

He got to his feet immediately, not knowing if he was in terms good enough to go over and hug her. She had changed while she had been home, her black skinnies replaced by blue ones. His gray shirt was still on her top half, topped again by her black hoodie, hood over her head. For the second time in two days, she stood in his room; eyes rimmed red and looking down at the floor, face distraught.

She took a deep breath and looked up to him, pulling her hood off to reveal her newly chopped off hair.

Taylor frowned and took a step closer to her. "Did…you do that?", he asked her timidly.

Her eyes flicked away briefly as she gave him one curt nod.

"Why?"

Hayley sniffed. "Because I needed to."

He shook his head and walked forward, not caring about keeping his space anymore and he put his hands on her forearms, trying to follow her shifting eyes.

"No. No, you didn't," he said firmly. She stopped trying to avoid his eyes and exhaled, sort of deflating as she looked him straight in the face. Her eyes were swimming again.

"Hayley, what are you doing?"

He meant so many things by that question; and he knew that she understood all of them when she gave a choked laugh that sounded more than anything like a sob. She looked to him again, eyes full to the brim of tears that spilled over hot and fast. He closed his eyes and pulled her to his chest, into the hug he had wanted to give her since she had stepped in.

She didn't seem to protest, her hands sliding up his back to rest on his shoulders as she cried into his shoulders. His eyes remained closed and he almost wanted to laugh at how painfully similar today was becoming.

He pulled back from the hug after about 2 minutes, holding her at arms length again and looking into her eyes. She stared back and then suddenly dropped to the floor, shuffling back until her back was against the wall. She tucked her legs up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them.

"I have cried more in the past two days than I have in the past 2 years. And I hate it."

She looked back up to him, and there were so many feelings behind those green eyes, he almost began to feel overwhelmed. He moved over to sit next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and feeling his stomach settle when she tucked her head into his neck.

It always calmed him when she was with him; in his arms, safe, away from all the hurt and confusion that was life. He wanted to shield her from it, had since he had met the girl at 13, because she was so beautiful, inside and out, and he knew that if life had its go on her, it would tear her apart. I mean, look at what had happened in the past 2 days alone. She was breaking right in front of his eyes and he hated it. He longed for time to turn back, for it to be last week again. For them to be back at the fair, for her to be jumping up and down at the fact that her mom had gotten her…

"Oh my gosh," he suddenly said. Hayley picked her head up and looked at him quizzically.

"What?"

"Guess what we totally forgot about?", he asked her, getting up quickly to walk across the room to his desk. He retrieved the two slips of paper and walked back over, dropping to the ground with a sigh and fanning them out in his hand.

She gasped and moved to her knees, bouncing much like she had when her mother had first given her the ticket.

"Coldplay, oh my gosh!" she practically yelled, and he laughed and shushed her, because it was 10 o'clock and his mother and brother were asleep right up the hall. Her mother had surprised her with Hayley's ticket the week before, and she had rushed to his window, giving him her ticket for safe keeping, because she wasn't the most organized of people and she probably would have died if she lost it in her hurricane of a room.

She regained her composure, but the excitement was still visible on her tear streaked face.

"That's next week, isn't it?" she whisper yelled, still bouncing; only now she was crouching on the balls of her feet.

"That would be correct," Taylor smirked, stretching his legs out straight in front of him.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed, throwing herself down to the ground so that her head was resting in his lap. Then she flailed around a bit, resting with her hands over her eyes.

Taylor chuckled and reached down to move her fingers so he could see her eyes, and sure enough, there was no sign of the sorrow he had seen before. Instead, it was replaced with sheer excitement.

"You're a weird one, Williams," he stated.

She laughed and reached up to flick his nose. "You love it, Button."