Page 13 of Take Care, Taylor

“It’ll take an hour just for us to get ready again, Audrey,” she whined. “Stop being so lame!”

TRACK 3. KARMA (2:07)

AUDREY

The following morning

“Why is the sun out?” I groaned as I opened my eyes. “It’s so bright and yellow…”

Hungover, I rolled off my couch and onto the floor. Across from me in the dining room, Cecelia lay sprawled under the table, snoring.

Laughing, I slowly stood up and wobbled to my coffee maker. After mixing in my much-needed cinnamon and caramel, I picked up my Postscript Scholars packet and carried it to the shaded side of the porch.

I savored every line with a long sip, fantasizing about the weeks I’d spend with fellow writers, hoping this place would be everything I’d dreamt it would be.

I read through the list of courses and stopped when my gaze caught the line at the bottom of the page.

This year’s main theme for all our courses:

The Stories We Never Told—Reflecting on Our High School Years with Different Lenses…

My throat tightened, and I dropped my coffee.

Memories from high school still haunted me on some nights—unwelcome, unannounced, piercing my heart in brand-new places.

I never wrote about it, never wanted to.

I folded those times into a folder at the back of my mind, locked it shut, and was simply waiting for the passing years to do their job.

They had yet to start, though.

“Time” hadn’t healed any of the wounds. Hell, it hadn’t even placed any Band-Aids.

I’d realized it was lazy, so I’d tried to fix it on my own, but every therapist I hired gave up on me after a month of sessions because they got tired of hearing about all the drama.

Of course, they called it “failure to let go and progress,” but if they’d actually listened—if they’d lived a single day in my shoes back then—they’d have held on to the pain, too. They’d understand exactly what it was like to exist in a world with Taylor Wolff.

Carrying the folder back inside, I rushed to my hallway closet.

I knelt and pulled out box after box—college essays, marked-up drafts, fading ribbons—until I found the one I’d been avoiding: my high school capsule.

Below the yearbook and keepsakes sat a sealed Ziploc bag of hate-filled letters from Taylor Wolff. Some were originals, some were copies, and some were printed emails and text messages.

The edges were still wrinkled from the day I’d crushed them in my hands and vowed to burn them, but I could never toss them into the flames.

I’d kept them as a reminder of what it felt like to hate someone to their core—visual proof for whatever therapist I tried next.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I opened my laptop, typed out my confirmation, and hitSendon the “I declare” admission email—making it official.

Maybe I needed to face those memories with my pen once and for all. And maybe, just maybe, being there would finally bury Taylor Wolff at the bottom of my mind’s garbage bin where he belonged…

TRACK 4. YOU’RE LOSING ME (1:12)

TAYLOR

Sports Illustrated

Bears’ Golden Boy Benched: Wrist Fracture Sidelines Taylor Wolff for Season Start