Page 71 of Take Care, Taylor

A Couple Weeks Later

No, no, no…

Please not today…

It took me two years to process the fact that I’d never hear my mother’s laughter again. Three years to fully accept that my father’s Saturday pancakes would never grace the family table.

I avoided the months of May and June like the plague, never wanting to feel the agony or the painful twist in my gut at the sight of Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Father’s Day sales.

I worked double overtime at whatever job I had, volunteering myself as tribute for regular pay if I had to. For so long, I simply woke up, worked, and slept. It was existing, not living.

This morning, I woke up drowning under a wave of grief and felt the sudden need to get away.

The metal seat was cold beneath my palms; the air smelled like rain and subway dust. My chest felt too small for the kind of hurt still living there.

I rode the subway outside of town on Sunday, needing to cry somewhere alone. No matter how many years passed, the memory of losing my parents still hit me like it was yesterday.

The memories were still as vivid, and time hadn’t done me the courtesy of making it hurt any less.

My phone buzzed with a call.

Taylor.

I didn’t answer.

I sat and watched the sun fall down the sky as my phone kept vibrating against my lap.

Somewhere between one blink and the next, the seat beside me wasn’t empty anymore.

Taylor was suddenly there—silent, steady—and before I could stop myself, I was in his arms, crying against his chest like I had years ago.

He held me tighter, one hand tracing slow circles down my back.

“You don’t have to do this alone anymore,” he murmured, and I nodded.

For the first time in years, the night’s silence didn’t feel empty—it felt like healing.

BULLY YEARS: SENIOR YEAR (SUMMER)

AUDREY

Subject:Come See Me Before Enrolling in Makeup Classes

Isat in the senior principal’s office, waiting for him to say whatever rhetoric he needed to say. I knew that missing months of school meant summer classes—personal mourning or not—and most of the colleges that had accepted me early would still want a transcript that reflected the spring semester.

Tapping my shoe against the floor, I took out my phone and scrolled to Taylor’s name, but I hesitated.

As “nice”as he’d been to me for the first few months since the tragedy, lately he’d been sporadic, most of his time spent getting ready to play college football.

That asshole didn’t even tell me what college he picked…

“Did you sayasshole,Miss Parker?” Principal Owen’s voice made me look up.

“Not at all, sir.” I stood quickly. “Sorry.”

“Follow me.” He gestured for me to step inside his office and offered me a chair.

“So… I assume you know what this is about, right?” He sat across from me.