Before I knew it, January 2nd, my birthday, had arrived. It was 2003. I had just started the second half of my senior year, I was turning 18, and after I got out of classes that day, Taylor would be at my house for the first time since Christmas of 2001 going into New Year’s of 2002. I hadn’t seen him in just over a year. We had never gone that long apart, or without talking for as long as we had during the summer and fall. Not even when he was on tour. I was extremely nervous. I’m so glad I had Liz to talk to now if I ever needed an outlet to vent or get advice. I needed a friend, not just family, to know me and Taylor, and know what our lives were like. Liz, being my oldest friend and neighbor, now knew every detail. She had seen Taylor in his darkest hours, and she had known me since we were babies so we trusted each other. It all worked out so perfectly. With my permission, she filled her boyfriend Josh in on the situations between all of us all well, and he was also a great source outside of Ike and Zac for me to get guy advice. The four of us clicked, and they had both helped so much. Now I could tell them how nervous I was to see Taylor.

I wanted the day to fly by. It was my birthday. I didn’t want to be sitting in school, but every year my birthday was the first day back after holiday breaks. Even if Taylor wasn’t showing up, I wanted to be doing something more fun than work. I was glad he was coming though; it was going to make my birthday perfect, no matter how much I had been shaking since I woke up that morning. Each period of the day I watched the clock tick by. I felt like I was in school for days. I’m not sure why I even wanted school to fly by, other than the fact that it was boring me to death. Taylor’s flight wasn’t even landing until about 5pm, so I had plenty of time to kill in between getting out of school and his actual arrival.

I was so nervous for him to come back here. It was weird. I hadn’t even felt like this on his first visit when we hadn’t even met yet. So much had happened to us in the last year. For so long we hadn’t even talked. Even though Liz and Josh helped us out for the last month, and we had made our mends mostly, what we had been through was so destructive; I wondered what we would be like now as a couple. Would we have awkward times between us, or would we be even closer than we had been before all this happened? We were rebuilding slowly, but how was our rebuild turning out? Too many questions were racing through my head and it terrified me. He had been through a lot, and punished himself every day for what he did, and I felt bad for cutting off all communication with him when he needed help. He had been on the verge of suicide, going to my friend’s house was his last resort at salvaging something, and I felt extremely guilty looking back and wondering if even a simple e-mail, just one more e-mail, would have made his day, not that he even responded to any. Maybe he would have responded if I sent just one more. I wasn’t letting him off the hook by any means, I was extremely hurt in the situation too, but we were never a normal couple with a normal relationship. I had to remember that. I had let a lot of my anger get to me, and made a lot of assumptions that didn’t need to be made while we were apart. I was partially to blame as well. We were both in the wrong and we needed to figure it out together. This last month had been great re-connecting, but now I needed to see him face to face and do some real healing. We had to decide what to do next before we were able to move on.

Finally, my day ended, and I drove home. I had made plans with my friend Jill to go to the mall after school to waste some time and do some shopping before Taylor got to my house. I needed to stay busy or else I would sit and watch the clock and go insane. I would just analyze everything that had happened all this time apart just like I had been doing all day, every day since I saw him last. I had no other plans for my birthday but to visit with him and get dinner with my family. It was a real low-key night. I wasn’t big on partying anyway. When I got home, I was going to order Chinese food, have cake with everyone, and then get some time alone with Taylor to catch up. Jill followed me home from school, and when we got to my house, I dropped my car and my book bag off, told my parents I was going out. I told them I would be home before Taylor got to my house, and headed out.

The mall was fun. Jill and I spent a ton of time shopping, walking around, getting junk food to eat, goofing off, and losing track of time. Eventually, a few hours had passed by and we decided to head home. I checked the time on my phone and realized I was running really late. We stayed at the mall over an hour past when I knew Taylor would be at my house. I immediately felt shaky again as I knew what was waiting for me when I got there. I almost didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know how things would be. I let Jill keep my mind busy with more talk and music for the ride home, but soon we were pulling up to my driveway and I felt like throwing up. There was no avoiding it anymore. It was time to see Taylor for the first time in a year. I did my best to say bye to Jill and thank her for the day without letting onto my mood before I got out of the car and headed into my house.

When I opened the door and stepped inside, I wasn’t greeted by anyone, let alone being bombarded by Taylor or my family. I wandered through the front foyer and into the kitchen and found mom at the table putting frames together for dad’s newest stack of inventory for his next show.

“Hey birthday girl. We haven’t seen you all day” she looked up from her work.

“Yeah, sorry. We lost track of time shopping. Busy day…” I was pre-occupied wondering where Taylor was, suddenly disappointed. I glanced around real fast and went upstairs to change. Now I was sad. My birthday was over in my mind, not that I had even thought about it being my birthday anyway.

“Did you still want to get Chinese food? I’ll order now if you want me to. We were waiting for you to get home” she called to me as I began slowly making my way up to my room.

“Sure. The usual sounds good. I’m starving. Thanks. I’m just going to go put my pajamas on before I start some homework” I replied as I reached the top of the stairs.

“Okay. Hey you have some flowers here!” She shouted up to me. I didn’t think anything of it. My parents always got me flowers for my birthday.

“Oh. Cool. Thanks.” I yelled back and then looked into my father’s studio and greeted him as well.
“Hey. Eighteen today huh? Happy birthday Tish” he said looking up from his desk and acknowledging me with my usual nickname.

“Yep. Thanks. Did Taylor not show up or something?” I asked. I was fearful of the answer.

“He was coming here? I thought you two broke up?” He asked.

“Dad, you know all this. We have been talking for a month now trying to work everything out. I told you when I left this morning he was coming here” I said finally exasperated with a sucky birthday as I turned to go to the other end of the hallway where my room was. I suddenly wanted my bed. I was over this day. I didn’t even want dinner anymore. My new plan was to change, and crawl into bed to be consumed with sleep, then find out from Liz tomorrow why the hell Taylor was disappointing me yet again after I let all my walls come down. I don’t know why he would chicken out on me. I made it to my room within a few steps and opened my door. It was pitch black as usual and I got even more aggravated as I stumbled over my mess of a room to get to my light. I threw my bag down and finally got to it. When I turned the switch on, I got the shock of my life.

“Oh my God..” I exhaled as turning on the light revealed Taylor sitting on my bed holding a single rose. He was even dressed nicely in black slacks, a button down, and tie. He seemed to be pulling out all the stops on making things up to me. He looked at me and stood up.

“Happy birthday..” he said as a small smile showed up on his face.

“Thanks..” I replied as I looked deep into his eyes, but stood frozen. I glanced him over quickly. He was so thin, and looked as if he hadn’t slept in that whole year apart, but he was still handsome; at least in my eyes.

“Liz I’m so sorry. I truly am. I will do everything I can to make this up to you. I’m your slave for the rest of my life. I mean it. Anything you can ever want or need, it’s yours” he said as he looked at his feet before getting up and coming to kneel in front of me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned his head against my stomach.

I couldn’t think of anything to say or do, so I just moved my hands to entangle in his hair. As soon as I did, we both started crying. I thanked him for coming while he kept swearing how much he never meant to hurt me and he always loved me. It felt right when we held each other again. Everything else melted away. He rose to his feet and wrapped me in his arms, breathing deeply as we let a few more tears fall together.

After both our declarations, we held each other’s faces and our lips met. Our kisses were soft and slow at first, but things were getting intense quickly. I knew I really needed him this time. We needed to just become us again, and start over, but we couldn’t let it escalate now. We kissed a few more times before I pulled away slightly and looked into his eyes.

“Oh by the way, the flowers your mom was telling you about are from me too. Those are just part of your present. The rest we’ll get to later” he said as he held my face in his hands. I smiled and kissed him again before asking the inevitable.

“Chinese food?”

“Sounds perfect” he replied. He kissed me again before he headed downstairs while I got changed, and then I made my way down to the kitchen to join him and my family for dinner and cake.

We had a round of food with my family and they all sang happy birthday to me, before Taylor and I took the rest of our food and cake upstairs for a private picnic. We needed time alone to re-connect. Thankfully, my parents and sister knew that.

When we got upstairs, Taylor started setting up my room while I looked through my movies for something to watch.

“Maybe pick out a scary movie” he said as he lit some candles and turned my lights off.

“Okay. Any preferences?” I asked. He knew horror was my favorite genre so I didn’t question him.

“The scarier the better. That way I have a reason to hold you close…” he said as he turned to me while I looked over my shoulder at him and shrugged.

“You wouldn’t need a reason” I said as I picked The Shining off my shelf and put it in the DVD player before I crawled into bed and waited for Taylor to change for bed. Now that my nerves were settled, I was really starving. Round one never came close to satisfying me, especially when it came to amazing Chinese food. The movie started as I unpacked our second helpings and Taylor re-joined me in bed.
“Thank you for an amazing birthday Taylor” I said as we were finishing up our food and cleaning up so that we could curl up together for the rest of the movie.

“Thank you for forgiving and not giving up on me. I really wasn’t sure how much longer I could have gone on without you” his voice faltered as he ran his fingers up and down my arm. When I lifted my head from his chest and looked at him this time, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes for the first time and ached for him more than ever. “Can I ask you something though?”

“Of course” I answered as I kept looking at him. I really did miss him, more than I wanted to admit in all the time I was angry with him.

“How did you know? How did you know it was all fake and that I was telling you the truth? If any girl saw that, what you saw and what you went through, they would never take a man back. I know I explained it to you thoroughly, but still, it was so much for you to go through. I never meant to hurt you. I swear I didn’t. How did I get so lucky?” he asked as his eyes welled up.

“Well… I don’t think I’m just any girl. We’re not any random couple. I know you. I came across all of it on a bad day. I shouldn’t have made any assumptions without talking to you first. I knew it was causing problems from years before. I should have known something was really wrong when you just disappeared, or you weren’t answering anyone’s calls or e-mails. Then you just showed up at my friend’s house that you didn’t even know at the time to try to gain my trust back and ask for help and never gave up? Plus I thought back to our past and how things had added up, or weren’t adding up actually. I knew you would never just choose to cut off communication with me. I just knew something was wrong and we needed to talk. We’re not like everyone else. We can get through anything. I knew we agreed last time, but from now on, we do things together. I’m sorry for how I handled it” I answered.
He smiled up at me and ran his hand across my cheek and up into my hair as he brought me to him and kissed me more deeply and more intense than ever before.

“God I love you so much. You have no need to be sorry. This was my fault. I really missed you Liz…” he said as he kept kissing me.

“I missed you too. I love you more, Taylor”

“Impossible” he replied and kissed me again. We kept kissing for quite a bit, but decided we wanted to save some more intimate things for when we were really alone, and there was no chance we might possibly be interrupted, as much as neither of us wanted to really wait to be together anymore. We put everything on hold and decided to finish up the movie until Taylor yelled out of nowhere and scared the crap out of me.

“Shoot! I forgot the rest of your present! Your birthday is almost over.” He said as he sat up.

“I don’t need or want any presents. I just wanted us to be ok, and we are. What else could there be?” I asked as I was forced to sit up with him.

“Okay so you know how we were talking online one night about going away one day?”

“Yeah…” I said as I looked at him and kind of guessed what was coming.

“So you mentioned going to Vermont, and how it’s really peaceful and quiet, and I thought we could use that after everything we’ve been through. It would only be a long weekend really, but would you want to go there?”

“Really? Up to Vermont, alone, just me and you?” I asked, my eyes getting wide.

“Yeah. If you want to obviously. We don’t have to. I wanted to surprise you” He said.

“Of course I want to! Yes let’s go! When?”

“I got some time in a few weeks. Around the beginning of February. I booked one of those condos you were telling me about, where your family used to stay. It sounded perfect.” He said as he got out of bed and went into his messenger bag to look for all the paperwork.

“Really? I can’t wait! I don’t think we’ve ever gone away before” I said as realization dawned on me the second those words left my mouth.

“No we never have. You came to New York that time, but we were with a whole crew of people, so it didn’t really count and neither did Tulsa. My family was always around” he said as he went through the papers he was now holding in his hand. My skin got chills as I flashed back to our weekend in New York, and our time in Tulsa, and how amazing that had been just before it all went so badly. He got back in bed with me and we went through the itinerary together. I got out my laptop and we surfed the web looking at all the things we wanted to do in Vermont. Our movie eventually ended, and we were both exhausted. It had been a long birthday, but an amazing one. Hell, it had been a long year. We were back together again, and I was finally feeling happy and alive for the first time in a long. I think Taylor felt the same, and I couldn’t ask for anything else.

Chapter 20 | Guestbook