miracle | tayley

daydreaming into the night

     Hayley makes her way downstairs and settles Rowan between the clean cotton sheets that Michelle had placed on the pull-out couch for them. She slips her shoes off near the foot of the bed and pads over to the bathroom, flipping on the light and cracking the door just enough so there's a tiny bit of light in case Rowan wakes in the night.

     She doesn't want to kill herself by trying to navigate an unfamiliar room in the dark, though as with the rest of the house, seemingly little has changed in this basement in all the years she's known the York family.

     She flops back onto the bed, completely wrung out by the day's events. It's been a pretty good day considering, but definitely an emotional one too. She's cried more this past week than she can remember crying in years. She presses her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, squeezing to ease the slight pressure headache she can feel radiating from her sinuses.

     "Hey, Hayles," Taylor calls from the bottom of the stairs. "Can I come in?"

     He watches her from across the room. She's lying on the bed, eyes closed, fully clothed, with their daughter sleeping next to her. It's such an evocative image that he pauses, momentarily, on the bottom step, allowing his emotions to sweep over him and then settle around him like an ocean wave. 

     "Come on in," she calls back to him softly, in deference to their sleeping child. She opens her eyes, and lifts her head, briefly, before letting it fall back to the mattress, her hand falling to her side and her eyes slipping closed once again. Her body stays limp, never moving from her relaxed position.

     Taylor moves to the side of the bed and stops, dropping two pillows, a pair of sweatpants, and an old Paramore t-shirt onto the mattress beside her. Her red, sleeveless shirt has ridden up a little, exposing a sliver of smoothe, pale skin between it and the top of her jeans. He swallows hard. Seeing her here, like this... It brings back memories that he's pretty sure Hayley would rather he forget.

     He won't though, couldn't even if he wanted to... Which he doesn't. 

     He clears his throat. "The sweats are gonna be big on you, but they have a drawstring, so hopefully they'll work."

     "I'm sure they'll get the job done," she mumbles, sleepily, before going quiet, her breaths deep and even. Then, after a beat, her eyes widen and she sits up on the bed, seeming to realize how close to sleep she'd been. He watches her attempt to blink away the vulnerability of fatigue.

     Taylor smiles down at her. She's so exhausted. She never did well when her sleep schedule was disturbed. He can only imagine the havoc raising a child has wreaked on her circadian rhythm. "Get some sleep, Hayles," he says, fondly, taking a few steps back and then moving reluctantly toward the basement steps. "I'll see you in the morning."

     She shivers as she hears the familiar squeak of the stairs under his bare feet. Recognition slips down her spine, tickling and prodding old memories to life.

     She waits, holding her breath, wondering, and then just as he reaches the top of the stairs she hears it, a loud, purposeful creak. It's the second step from the top, the one he used to skip over when he'd sneak down here to see her late at night, anytime she slept over. 

     She thinks she hears him chuckle as the door clicks shut behind him. The jerk.

     There are so many memories in this house, she thinks as she moves to strip out of her clothes and tug on the soft cotton sweats and t-shirt. In this basement, even. 

     Especially in this basement, she thinks. 

     As she crawls into bed, she looks around at the familiar space. Her eyes land on an old air hockey table, now shoved into a far corner of the room, two matching bean bag chairs that are faded and worn with years of use, and a framed family photo of the Yorks, featuring Michelle, Peter and the boys grinning for the camera- all familiar relics from her adolescence. Suddenly, she's assailed with a million memories from that time in her life. Images of random holiday celebrations, weekend barbeques, band practices, and backyard parties fill her mind.