Page 84 of Take Care, Taylor

It was a habit we both tried to break, but by the third year, the messages had dwindled into little more than“Take care, Taylor”or“Take care, Audrey.”

By the fourth year, they’d finally become nothing at all.

I stopped sending letters.

He stopped sending postcards.

We both stopped sending emails.

And somewhere between all the silence, whatever we were stopped existing, too.

TRACK 35. SO IT GOES… (2:49)

TAYLOR

I’m sorry for holding that secret back from you all these years.

I can’t say if I would’ve ever told you because… I don’t know, Audrey. I just don’t fucking know.

I’m getting Gayle’s for dinner. Want me to pick anything up for you?

Can we please talk about this?

Please, Audrey…

She didn’t respond for the rest of the day.

I went to her suite later that night and knocked on the door, but she never opened it.

The silence between us felt heavier than it ever had before—like every unspoken word we’d collected since high school had come back to crush the air from my lungs.

Maybe I should’ve told her sooner. Maybe I should’ve trusted her with the truth before it turned into a wound we’d both have to bleed from. But I’d spent years convincing myself thatprotecting her meant hiding the worst parts of me, of my family, of us.

And now it felt like it was too late.

I peeled a Post-it note from my notebook and tried to offer a handwritten apology to cover every base I’d already failed to reach.

I debated the closing line for a long time—something different, something deeper—but in the end, I decided it was best to leave things the way they’d always been.

I’m sorry, Audrey.

Take care,

Taylor

TRACK 36. THE ANTI-HERO (5:33)

AUDREY

Subject:Personal Reasons

Dear Dean Worthington,

Thank you—and your wonderful staff—so much for selecting me as one of the scholars in your amazing writing program.

Over the past several months, I’ve learned more than I ever imagined possible, and I truly believe my writing has grown at a pace I never thought it could.

That said, due to personal reasons, I must immediately withdraw from the final six weeks of the program. I know this may affect my chances of being considered for the final ranking or scholarship opportunity, and I didn’t make this decision lightly.