miracle | tayley

how did we get here

"Taylor!" He hears his brother call out his name and turns toward the sound automatically.

"In here," he shouts back, confused.

"We need to talk. Now." Justin states firmly as he enters the kitchen and moves directly past Taylor and over to the large rectangular table at the far end of the room. He pulls out a chair, but rather than sit in it, he gestures that Taylor should take a seat.

Taylor's eyes snap to his brother's face, his hands stilling on the half peeled potato balanced precariously between his wet fingers. Then his eyes flick toward his mom where she stands in front of the stove, stirring the food. She shrugs, seemingly unsure of what to make of his brother's uncharacteristically peeved tone.

Taylor drops the potato into the metal strainer in the sink, stabs the paring knife he'd been wielding into the half-peeled vegetable, and moves over to the table to sit down. He doesn't know what this is about, and while he doesn't appreciate being treated like a child, this behavior is so far outside of the norm for his brother that he knows he needs to question him until he figures out what exactly is going on.

"Justin, what's-" he starts, but is immediately cut off.

"How long have you known you have a daughter?" Justin asks, his voice shaking with emotion. Taylor can hear it all, boiling just underneath the surface, anger and hurt and accusation. He also hears a dish clatter to the floor and break somewhere behind him. He can't be bothered to turn his head to check how bad the damage is though, because the damage here in front of him looks pretty spectacular.

"What?" He gasps, his eyes never leaving his brother's face. "Dude, I don't know what you're..." He can't even finish the sentence, he's so taken aback by Justin's unexpected words.

"I ran into Hayley today at a music store." He leaves that there like it should mean something to Taylor other than the fact that he ran into Taylor when, to his knowledge, no one has seen her in three years.

He takes a moment to take in this piece of information. His brain latches onto it, temporarily pushing aside his brother's initial accusation.

Hayley.

His eyes drop into his lap. He stares at his hands, scarred and calloused from the days spent playing guitar. Rough from years and years of practicing and performing and writing with-

Hayley.

He'd screwed things up with her to a degree that none of them realized, but just by her continued absence from his life, all of their lives, he knows they have some idea of just how colossal his fuck up must've been.

He'd hurt her. He knows that. He'd been hurting, too, but he'd never guessed in a million years she'd just up and disappear like she had. He never even got the chance to apologize, to explain the things he'd said to her.

Hayley's in Nashville. Maybe he could-

"She has a little girl."

Taylor's head shoots up to meet his brothers eyes. He hears a gasp somewhere behind him, his mom already making a connection it's gonna take Taylor a few seconds longer to make.

"Hayley has a kid?" He whispers, shock clear in his voice, even to his own ears.

"You didn't know?" Justin asks, skeptically, though his eyes seem to shine with something like relief.

"She's a mom?" Taylor breathes, trying to reign in the dawning sense of loss he feels at this news. He'd known she was out there somewhere, living her life, and he knows, logically, that means that she could be with someone by now, but somehow he's always managed to convince himself that...