I've Got These Woes and I Just Can't Solve Them

“Cleveland, Ohio! Cleveland, Ohio! C-C-C-Cleveland, Ohio! Cleveland, O-O-O—”

“Dude!” Garrett ran a hand through his very chaotic head of hair. “Knock it off,” he couldn’t help but laugh.

Peter scoffed in response. “Just because I want to be happy and loud doesn’t mean you have to rain down on my parade.”

A laugh tumbled out of Jared’s mouth. “I sort of think that you were a one-man parade there, dude.”

Peter sighed as a frown crossed his thin lips. He studied us all in the van: John now back to driving once again, a magazine in Jared’s calloused hands, my brother going back and forth with his face to his phone and then back to us again, Pat looking down as he attempted to fix his digital camera, Kennedy rather dozing off against the window, and then myself as I sat there and took all this in.

“I think you’re most definitely right,” he said, his reply directed to mainly Jared. “Let’s face it—you’re a bunch of downers.”

“We all can’t have the exceptional gift of being obnoxious 95% of the time, Peter,” said Jared.

The guy in the passenger seat frowned. “95%?”

“The other five percent,” I started, speaking up for the first time in hours, “is when you’re sleeping.” Kennedy’s eyes opened a little bit, probably a little startled from my voice. After all, the sounds my vocal chords produced probably went straight into his ears. I was leaning my face and hand against the seat in front of me, which was the one Kenny was sitting in at the moment. I mumbled an apology to him and he closed his brown eyes once again.

“Ha!” Jared and John seemed to laugh at the same time. Pat chuckled next to me.

“Wow, Cara,” Peter began. His pointed face mocked the true expression of hurt and disappointment. “We have intercourse through the phone and this is how I’m treated afterwards?” He sighed and shook his head before turning around. A chuckle couldn’t help but fall from his mouth as he turned the radio up louder. It happened to be Taylor Swift, somebody I was very familiar with as a person, as a rising star, as another lost teenage girl, but I didn’t know her music. However, I knew it was her as soon as the piano intro started to mix in with her clear, crisp vocals.

‘All this time I was wasting,
Hoping you would come around
I've been giving out chances every time
And all you do is let me down’

I sighed and sat back against my seat. My legs seemed to cross over one another by themselves, but I didn’t mind. I was barely paying attention at that point.

‘And it's taking me this long
Baby but I figured you out
And you're thinking we'll be fine again,
But not this time around’

The chorus was coming up, I could just feel it within my body and mind. I hadn’t ever heard the song before, but I could just tell.

‘You don't have to call anymore
I won't pick up the phone
This is the last straw
Don't wanna hurt anymore
And you can tell me that you're sorry
But I don't believe you baby
Like I did - before
You're not sorry, no, no, oh’

My lips moved against one another as I seemed to be forming a small smile. Maybe it was from the smooth, easy-listening of the song, or the way that my foot seemed to sway with the music’s melody.

‘Looking so innocent,
I might believe you if I didn't know
Could've loved you all my life
If you hadn't left me waiting in the cold
And you got your share of secrets
And I'm tired of being last to know
And now you're asking me to listen
Cause it's worked each time before’

Somebody understood us, right? Somebody had to empathize with our regretted pasts, our current dilemmas, these new feelings, and even understood about those emotions we weren’t even sure of yet. Right? Taylor Swift wasn’t in this alone, right? At one point or another, somebody approached her and let her know that they had been through the same thing, detail to detail, and that in the end, everything was going to be okay. It just had to. Somebody, out there in the world somewhere, had to have been through what I am going through. Right?

‘But you don't have to call anymore
I won't pick up the phone
This is the last straw
Don't wanna hurt anymore
And you can tell me that you're sorry
But I don't believe you baby
Like I did - before
You're not sorry, no, no, oh’

Just tell me what to do from here…

‘You're not sorry no, no, oh’

What is she doing now? Is she still in the same place as 2006 when she was introduced to the rest of the world—heartbroken, deficient, and teary-eyed? Perhaps, on a happier note, she is a changed woman now? What is up with Taylor these days? Did she get better? Did she recover from her emotional downfall?

‘You had me crawling for you, honey
And it never would've gone away, no
You used to shine so bright
But I watched all of it fade’

Could I?

‘So you don't have to call anymore
I won't pick up the phone
This is the last straw
There's nothing left to beg for
And you can tell me that you're sorry
But I don't believe you baby
Like I did - before
You're not sorry, no, no, oh’

I stiffly hooked my finger around a strand of straight hair and pulled it slowly away from my face, which was turned to the left, blank eyes staring into livid thoughts and telephone poles.

‘You're not sorry, no, no, oh’