Page 49 of Take Care, Taylor

The taste of him hit—beer, mint, anger—and I hated how easy it was to want more. His tongue slid against mine once, rough, confident, before I bit down hard enough to make him grunt.

“Still think I’d want a pity fuck?” I muttered.

He laughed, breathless. “You tell me.”

“Seriously, Taylor?” A shriek from outside the window snapped me back.

“Erica?”

Her voice cut through the night. “I fucking told you the issue and then you go and rub it in my face?”

“Erica, wait!” Taylor jumped out, chasing after her.

I sat there, heart still racing, my lips stinging.

Whateverthatwas—it wasn’t forgiveness.

It was a mistake waiting to ruin us both.

My lips were still throbbing, my breath uneven, but beneath the heat there was something sharper—shame, maybe. Or fear that I’d finally let him see how easily he could break me.

My fake email address was the culprit, but they’d never be able to trace the messages back to me. Besides, Erica could do way better than Taylor, and he always wrote better broken-hearted.

He should bethankingme.

And maybe, deep down, I wished he would.

TRACK 19. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS (3:56)

TAYLOR

Audrey

Hey… I noticed you haven’t been back home these past few days. You okay?

I’m spending some nights at a teammate’s condo.

You plan on snitching on me to the staff?

No.

Is our apartment on fire? Is this an “emergency”?

Taylor, I was just being a fellow “human” and asking if you were fucking okay.

I’m not okay.

No need to text back, though. I’ll see you in class eventually.

TRACK 20. EPIPHANY (3:24)

AUDREY

My Monday morning class made me want to claw out my eyes and chop off my hands. Then again, even if I did those things, it’s not like any of the criticism of my work would’ve come any softer.

In Advanced Peer Critique, every essay was a lamb, and no one was immune to slaughter.

It was one thing to get private written feedback from a teacher, another to see red mark-outs, but that was child’s play compared to “Hot Seat.”