With each week that passed, Taylor found it easier and easier to resume his daily life, though he never stopped thinking about her. She invaded his every waking moment, and her words followed him everywhere as they remained tucked in his back pocket at all times. The letter that had once resided there and acted as a sort of security blanket had resurrected its old role now three years later. Although, as day after day passed without her, his hope faded little by little, and the letter didn’t offer the same amount of protection as it once had. The numbness that had settled over him since the day he’d last spoken to her grew with each day that passed without her. Before he even realized it, it had been over a month since he had even so much as heard her voice.

So his surprise was reasonable when upon answering his ringing phone one evening he was greeted with her gentle, “Hey, Taylor…it’s me,” in his ear.

His mouth opened to reply, but his speech floundered as he tried to gain his composure. “H…hey…”

“Is this a bad time?” she asked, sounding as though she was reconsidering her call to him.

Panicked at the thought of her suddenly hanging up, he quickly replied, “No! No, this isn’t…it’s not a bad time. I’m just…surprised to hear from you, that’s all.”

Exhale’s soft sigh filled his ear as he settled down onto the sofa. “I’m sorry I didn’t return any of your calls. It was just too…too soon.”

“I understand,” he said quietly. “I’m just happy to be hearing from you now.”

“I was calling to see if you would mind if I came over. I have something I need to talk to you about, and I don’t want to do it over the phone.”

Taylor could feel his eyes widen in response to her request. His brain froze at the thought of seeing her. As much as he had been desperately wanting to see her again, it suddenly occurred to him that if she wasn’t willing to reconcile on the spot, he might lose the will to live. “No…yeah, that would be fine…I’m not doing anything this afternoon.”

“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

Before he could reply, she hung up, and he sprang into action. His house was a disaster because he had simply stopped caring about anything. Dishes were piled in the sink for days at a time, the pile of laundry in the corner was dangerously close to tipping over and covering the floor, and he hadn’t made his bed even once. He simply climbed back in every night and settled into the same spot he always slept in. Knowing her house wasn’t very far from his and that he didn’t have much time, he did his best to straighten up and not look as hopeless as he felt. He didn’t want her to see him for the pathetic mess he had become since she had left him.

When the doorbell rang, he brushed his hands quickly through his hair and wiped his clammy palms on his jeans before making his way to the foyer. The loud beating of his racing heart throbbed in his ears as he reached out and turned the knob. When the door was fully open, he froze. Not a muscle in his body moved, except for those which controlled his eyes and let them roam up and down her appearance.

The thought passed his mind that he had never seen her look better. Her jeans and mint green sweater were nothing spectacular, but he had been thinking of her and remembering her so much that actually seeing her was made that much more intense. Her dark locks were swept back into a careless ponytail, though loose strands fell around her face and rested against the skin of her pinked cheeks and neck. Taylor slowly let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when Exhale smiled awkwardly and said, “So…can I come in?”

Snapping out of his daze with a shake of his head, Taylor laughed nervously and stepped aside. “Yeah, of course. Come in.”

After closing the door, he turned back to see her making her way to the living room, casually glancing around her surroundings. He wondered if she missed living there, if she wished she hadn’t made the decision she had made. He imagined that’s how he would have felt if the roles had been reversed at that moment in time. “Do you want anything? I have some water, and some…um, water.”

Laughing lightly, Exhale let her purse fall from her shoulder as she took a seat on the couch. “No thanks, I’m fine.”

Taylor followed her into the living room and stood there uneasily for a second, wondering where to sit and how close would be too close. Instead of the couch, he opted to sit in the armchair that neither of them really had ever used. “How’s, uh…how’s school going?” he asked, wiping his hands again. He wondered when a sweat factory had decided to open up on his palms.

“Good,” she said with a nod. “We started clinicals, so I get to do a bunch of fun stuff like give bed baths and change adult diapers.”

Relaxing a little, Taylor laughed and settled against the back of the chair, releasing some of the tension that had accumulated in his muscles. “Sounds like fun.”

“Oh it is,” Exhale replied sarcastically. “And how’s the album coming?”

“Um…really well, actually. I’m almost always over at Ike’s now…we’ve written a lot of songs the last couple weeks, and we’re hooking up with a lot of cool people on some of them in the studio. It’s been really good lately. I think we might even finish it up earlier than we expected.”

“Really?” she said with her eyebrows arched. “That’s great. I can’t wait to hear some of it.”

Taylor’s thoughts immediately went to the song he had begun writing the day he saw Raine in the grocery store on his return to Tulsa. It had been one of the easiest songs to write, and he had barely needed any input from his brothers on it. He knew just what he wanted to say, and the words had often gotten jumbled in his head as his hand tried furiously to keep up while translating them onto paper. When he had shown it to Isaac and Zac, they received it eagerly, beginning to set the words to music almost immediately. As happy as he was that he had produced material that got that kind of reactions out of his brothers, it hurt all the more that it had taken such a painful experience to bring it out. An early version of it had already been recorded, but they planned to work with it more before putting it on the album. The thought of playing it for her crossed his mind, but he didn’t want to make things any more uncomfortable than they already were between them. “You will,” he said with a smile. “Soon.”

“Listen, there’s something I came to talk to you about…” Exhale said, turning her eyes to the carpet suddenly.

Taylor felt his body break out in a cold sweat. Something about the way those words came out of her mouth left him uneasy. Nothing good could come from a phrase like that. “Sure,” he said, trying to remain calm. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s um…this is really hard to say, Taylor,” Exhale said quietly. The words she had rehearsed endlessly on her drive to his house escaped her. Away from him, it was easier to lie to herself about how much she missed him, but face to face, the feelings nearly consumed her.

“So just say it then.”

“I’m dating someone,” she said quickly. When she heard no form of reply from him, she glanced up from the carpet, tensed as if anticipating a physical blow. “I didn’t want you to find out from anyone else but me,” she continued when the awkward silence continued for what felt like an eternity.

Taylor unclenched his rigid jaw long enough to form the question, “Who?”

Sighing, Exhale wiped a hand over her face and took a deep breath before saying, “Brady.”

If the silence that had hung in the air before had been awkward, the one following his name was positively frightening. Minute after minute of silence passed before he finally choked out, “Are you fucking kidding me with this?”

“Taylor, I’m sorry, it just…happened.”

“Were you seeing him while we were still together?” he asked accusingly, his eyes narrowing harshly. As much as he still loved her, the urge to hate her was taking over. He couldn’t believe that after all they had been through, especially where Brady was concerned, that this was the news she had come to tell him.

“No!” she answered quickly, locking her eyes with his and shaking her head vigorously back and forth. “I promise you that. I didn’t even have feelings for him, and…I’m still not even sure how I feel about him. All I know is that getting over you will be the hardest thing I ever have to do, and if I don’t try now…it may never happen. Can you understand that?”

“No,” Taylor said evenly. “Getting over you is the one thing in the world I never want to do, and it makes me sick that it’s so easy for you, especially with him. God, Haley, are you really so fucking blind that you couldn’t see how much he wanted you? And then he just waits until you dump me for no fucking reason and happens to be there to pick up the pieces?”

“Taylor, it wasn’t like that…” she said, her voice shaking though she tried to remain calm. She had expected him to yell, she had expected him to be angry, but she hadn’t expected for it to affect her as much as it was. It killed her to finally know how much she had hurt him, and how much she was still hurting him. But what she had said was true. She felt as though she would regret it forever if she didn’t at least give a relationship with Brady a chance. If she didn’t, if she stayed home and mourned her lost relationship with Taylor as she had been before, she would never get over him. And as much as she didn’t want to get over him, she was tired of trying to force it to work when it was only going to get harder instead of easier as her school and career got in the way of being with him as much as she wanted to.

“Then how was it?” he asked accusingly.

Exhale sighed, trying to gather her thoughts. This was not at all how she had planned the conversation to go. “We ran into each other one night while I was with Raine watching Drew’s band. It’s not like he started asking me out from the second we broke up. We were talking, and…it just happened. I didn’t plan for things to happen this way.”

For the longest time, her words hung in the air as Taylor said nothing. Finally, he said, “You might not have planned for things to happen this way, but they did. And I have nothing left to say to you for that.”

“So…so that’s it then?” she stammered, her chin trembling as she struggled to hold back the tears filling her eyes. As badly as his words hurt her, Exhale understood where they were coming from, and that hurt even more. She knew she had broken his heart, and the news she had just dropped on him surely multiplied that heartbreak exponentially. He had more than likely expected her to walk through the door and say she had made a mistake, and she wanted to be with him. And as much as she wished she could do just that, she reminded herself of her convictions. As much as she loved him still, she believed in her heart that the decision she had made was right. “You’re just never going to talk to me again? After everything we’ve been through?”

Sighing audibly, Taylor shook his head. “I can’t say never again, but…not right now, Exhale. Just…go.”

At his command, her mouth fell open in shock. This is what they had been reduced to? He was kicking her out of his house? Without a word of protest, Exhale got to her feet, grabbed her purse, and hurried from the house before the first tear could fall. The saline gathering in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks blurred her vision as she started the car and got away from Taylor’s house as quickly as she could. She was silent as they fell and as she drove, aching to increase the distance between herself and the boy she would never be able to get over. When the ringing of her phone shattered the silence inside the car, she wiped her eyes dry so she could see the name on the screen. Brady.

He had known she was going to Taylor’s, and he had known what she was going to say to him. Though they had been together for several weeks, he could still see the uncertainty in her eyes when he kissed her, and he knew she still held feelings for Taylor in her heart. As badly as he wanted to be the one to force those thoughts away from her, to take Taylor’s place, he knew it was much too soon for that. It was for that reason that he had pleaded with her to break the news of their newly formed relationship to her former fiancé over the phone rather than in person. Brady feared Taylor and the power he still held over Exhale, because he knew that it would be a long time, if ever, before that power would be gone. It would only take a second for Taylor to convince Exhale to come back to him, that much he was sure of. Standing her ground, Exhale had affirmed that she owed Taylor to tell him to his face and not shield herself by doing it over the phone so impersonally.

Now though, as the tears she had just wiped away were followed by more hot droplets, and as she felt her stomach sink at the sight of his name because it wasn’t Taylor calling to apologize for his outburst, Exhale wondered just what in the hell she had made of her life. Despite how much fun she had with Brady, and how he could every once in awhile make her forget about Taylor for even the most fleeting of moments, she questioned her decision to jump into another relationship so quickly. It was mostly out of selfishness on her part, that much she knew. After so many years with Taylor, she didn’t know how to be alone anymore, and Brady filled some of that void within her. And there was something so exciting about getting to know someone new, someone who didn’t know her in and out, someone she could discover new things about…As she sniffled away the sob clinging to her throat and brought the phone to her ear, she coughed out a feeble, “Hey.”

“I guess it didn’t go well…” Brady sighed on the other end. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No…I don’t know…maybe. I don’t know what I want, Brady.” As the words passed her lips, she knew she meant them in more ways than one.

“Come over,” he urged. “I made cookies.”

Despite her conflicts, Exhale smiled and scoffed. “You made cookies?”

“Okay, so I burned cookies. We can scrape the bottoms off together and talk. What do you say?”

“All right, I’m on my way.”

Exhale hung up the call and turned the car in the direction of Brady’s house. As much as she didn’t like to let her mind wander back to the time she had been with Taston, she couldn’t help doing it now. She recalled the night she had made up with him after letting her feelings for Taylor slip at a dance, and she remembered the way she had laid across her bed and promised herself that she was going to let Taylor go and focus her attention on Taston and being the girlfriend she needed to be. Knowing a promise like that could never completely eradicate the love she still had for Taylor, she hoped that making it again could make the painful process of getting over him even the slightest bit easier. She owed it to Brady, but more importantly, she owed it to herself. Brady truly cared about her, and she felt terrible for the way she had been exploiting his feelings lately. She had given Taylor a chance to be civil with her about the whole situation, and instead he had kicked her out of his house. So in that moment, as she pulled her car into Brady’s driveway and saw him open the door to greet her, she decided to let go of some of the last little bit of herself that was still clinging desperately to Taylor. It was apparent that they still needed some distance between each other if they were ever to recover their friendship through all this. And as Brady welcomed her inside, munching on a slightly burnt chocolate chip cookie as he put an arm around her waist and pulled her close to kiss her temple, she hoped she had made the right decision. But even still, she wasn’t so sure she had.

INDEX | CHAPTER TWENTY NINE