How Long Will I Love You?

Chapter 35 - Lost Chance

                “So...” Laura and Taylor were at the latter’s doorway, about to say goodbye. “I better get going.”

                “Yeah,” answered Taylor, every part of her body wanting to ask Laura not to leave and to just spend the rest of the day with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. This day had been way too good for her to grab the chance of ruining it.

                “I’ll see you at work later?” asked Laura, not removing her gaze from Taylor’s face.

                “See you,” Taylor smiled. She watched Laura come closer to her and waited for what she was about to do. When her face was only inches from her, she felt her eyes close out of habit, and then she felt Laura’s lips just at the side of her own. Before she could stop herself, she sighed, smiling at the short but sweet contact. She’d been longing for this kind of contact in a really long time which made it enough for her, for now.

                Laura smiled back and started stepping into her car. But Taylor was okay. Because this time, she knew Laura really wasn’t walking away from her. This was her coming back. Laura was coming back to her. With that thought, she went back inside her place with the biggest smile in the world.

-o-o-o-

                Eleven days.

                Eleven long days ever since Taylor and Laura had that talk. Eleven excruciating days of waiting for something to happen that now seemed to be just a product of her imagination, of her being hopeful for something that was never possible anymore. Eleven days it took for her to have her hopes up, only to get crushed again by the same person who had made her hope in the first place.

                It had been eleven days ever since that night, when she thought her connection with Laura was back, when she thought that it never really went away. Eleven days since she woke up with a new-found hope that maybe, there was still a chance for her and Laura. She greeted that day with lightness filling her, thinking it was the day that she was gonna get her back, that she was going to be complete again.

                But it had been eleven days, and Laura had not said a word to her. She saw her at work later that day but Laura acted as if nothing happened, like it was some normal day that didn’t need any more attention than it already got, and Taylor had been okay with that. She figured that it was still too soon to talk about anything else. The moment they shared earlier that day still lingered and she had hoped for it to stay with her as long as it could and maybe Laura thought that, too.

                And then came the next day, and then the next, and then the next and Laura still kept quiet. She had not sent her a single message or hadn’t rung her phone. They would see each other at work, but she would barely say a word to her unless they needed to shoot a scene together. She would even barely look at her, it hurt.

                It was a mistake to think that they would still work out. It was a mistake to think that there was still a ‘them’ in the first place. Their relationship had been such a merry-go-round for so long now and it was stupid for her to think that she would never get tired of it. Because right now, she was too exhausted to even think of anything anymore. And so on that fucking eleventh day, that’s when Taylor decided that it was all just too much for her heart to take.

                So after work, she decided to do what she thought was left for her to do. She went to a private bar, somewhere she knew she wouldn’t be bothered and let all the alcohol she could consume that night take away all that she was feeling. She wanted the pain to go away and she yearned for the last eighteen months of her life to be magically gone as she drowned herself in all the drinks she managed to gulp down that time.