The Way She Wears My Clothes

Baltimore had never felt so empty or unforgiving than it had when I got home from tour and the several silent weeks that followed. Taylor Jardine and I had had a fight, or a tiff, or a spat, whatever you wanted to call it, and I hadn’t called her and she hadn’t called me. It felt like we were at a standstill, or some kind of standoff, daring the other to be the first to cave in.

I wondered, as I tagged along with Alex and Sierra, who hadn’t been home in months and decided Baltimore was more interesting than Florida, as they went grocery shopping. I hadn’t really been given a choice, since they both found my “sulking” unsatisfactory. Sierra especially had a problem with my lack of communication, since she’d actually had a hand in getting us together.

“I don’t see why you don’t just call and apologize! Stop acting like such a pussy and actually do something about keeping your relationship in one piece,” she said, throwing a box of Pop Tarts into the cart, which Alex wrinkled his nose at but said nothing.

“Why are you so invested in my relationship?” I asked, grabbing a box of Lucky Charms and tossing it into the cart for Alex. He smiled at me.

“Because I put a lot of time and work into getting you together and I won’t have you fucking it up the minute I step away.”

“It wasn’t the minute you stepped away,” I snipped.

“Fine, at least you waited a week to fuck everything up,” she retorted with a sneer. I rolled my eyes.

“I tried to fix it, you know. I didn’t just go into this relationship thinking, how quickly can I make everything turn to shit? I tried to make it better before we left but, I don’t know. I tried.”

Sierra didn’t respond, only traded knowing glances with Alex while she grabbed a box of flax seed and rolled oats or whatever granola bars. Sierra’s taste buds, we’d all discovered over time, were so strange and unusual that whatever she put together had long since been questioned.

“Trust me on this one, Jack. Your heart would rather your pride shut the fuck up and just let you call her. Because that’s what she wants and that’s what you want,” Sierra put in one last time before flitting away. I stared after her and then looked to Alex who merely shrugged.

“Don’t look at me, man. She’s got a point,” he said before pushing the cart down the aisle after her, leaving me alone. I sulked away, wandering through the store on my own, staring desperately at my phone. Maybe I should just call her, I thought bitterly, opening Tay’s contact.

In a fit of morality and desperation, I sank into a display chair in the home goods section of the store and frantically hit the call button and closed my eyes. It rang slowly, agonizingly slowly, until Tay finally answered a century later, her voice breathy and full of laughter.

“Jack!” she called into the receiver, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she sounded on the drunker side of tipsy. I checked my watch, and smiled because it was just three o’clock now and Taylor Jardine was halfway to hammered.

“Hey Tay,” I said quietly in return.

“I love you,” she slurred. There was a giggle and a whoop from her end while I rested my head back against the seat’s cushions.

“What?”

“Don’t listen to her, Jack! She told her left shoe she loved it about five minutes,” an unfamiliar female voice filtered through the speaker.

“No, but I love him, Sam. Don’t I, Lindsey?”

“She does!” another unfamiliar female voice crowed. I rubbed my temples gently, trying to sort through the pounding in my ears and the twisting in my gut.

“Maybe I should call back tomorrow, when you’re sober,” I said.

“No! You finally called! I like listening to your voice,” she admitted. The noise in the background quieted and then there was a snap of a door closing. “Tell me a story, okay?”

“What kind of story?”

“Any kind of story. Tell me what you’ve been up to since the end of tour,” she mumbled.

“Okay. Well. When I got home, I laid in my bed all day, sleeping and eating what was left in my house. I spent some time at home with my parents, hung out with some of my oldest friends and have spent an extraordinary amount of time with Alex’s girlfriend and no time with my own.”

“Ahhh, yeah. I believe I told you to call me and it took you this long. Your fault, Jack,” she informed me.

“I know, I know. I was being stupid about it all.”

“I love you,” she blurted.

“Taylor.”

“I do, Jack. I knew it the first time I saw you. I knew it the first time you smiled at me. I knew it the first time we kissed, and the first time I fell asleep in your arms. I knew it even when you were being an ass, and I knew it when I was pushing you away. I love you and I’m sick of lying to myself because it’s too soon or whatever. I love you and that’s that, Jack. I don’t care if you feel the same way right now. It takes time, I know. I’ll wait. I just had to let you know. And,”

“Taylor, if you would just stop talking for more than a second!” I insisted before opening my eyes. Tay had a wonderful voice, whether she was singing or talking or rambling on about how much she loves you, it didn’t matter. She had a wonderful voice and I’d learned to just bask in it. But it didn’t seem like she was going to let me get a word in edgewise or respond to her declaration.

“Sorry,” she muttered apologetically. I could see her hanging her head in apology, holding her phone carefully to her ear while she sat in her room, or the bathroom. “I get chatty, when I drink.”

“I’m aware,” I replied coolly, playing with the ends of my hair. “As I was saying, if you’d stop talking for a moment, I would tell you that you don’t have to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

I didn’t respond and just let her alcohol-riddled brain catch up.

“Jack!” she cried happily. “Can you say it? I think, I think I just need to hear it, if that’s alright.”

“Taylor Kathleen Jardine, I love you.”