I'll give you my sunshine

Chapter 31

Taylor's POV:

That morning, when I woke up, I did my usual routine of hitting snooze on my alarm, then spent the 5 minutes I had before it went off again on my phone catching up with any overnight emails.

I was expecting to see the message I got from the tree with a link to the article about the actual cause of Frankie's mom's death.

What I didn't expect to see was a message from a UK-based number.

Skeptically, I opened the message, my eyes widening as I skimmed through it:

Taylor Swift,

I'm sorry for the circumstances I am writing to you about. My name is Joseph Morris, and I am Francesca Morris' biological father. I was contacted by someone in regards to the passing of my ex-wife, Louise, and was informed that you had gained custody of her. As I'm sure you've been explained, I've got custody over Frankie. However, I am willing to give my custody over her up on the condition that we get to meet in person first. I hope you are well and can respect my wishes. Send my regards to Frankie.

Joseph morris.

I stared at my phone, reading the message over and over.

Although I knew about Frankie's dad, I just hadn't expected him to reach out so quickly.

Not wanting to bother Frankie with all this this morning, I made a mental note to talk to her about it that night.

Just about scaring the life out of me, my alarm went off again, and I finally got out of bed.


Frankie's POV:

I had forgotten to turn my phone on silent when I went to sleep that night and had awoken to the constant 'ping' that was my notification sound.

Tired and grumpy, I picked up my phone, expecting to see a spam of messages from Lilah, but instead, messages were flooding in from just about everyone in my contacts.

Overwhelmed, I opened the most recent one, which was from someone I had shot a movie with a few years ago and had hardly heard from since.


Maia

Hey Frankie,
We've not spoken in a while, but
I've seen the news about your mom.
and that she overdosed on drugs. Hope
you're ok.


My heart sank below my stomach. It was one thing knowing that the whole world knew of my mum death. But now they knew how.

I didn't even bother looking at any news articles or whatever leaked the news. I was just angry, sad, and scared for how this news would change my relationship with the media yet again.

As if on queue, I got a spam of messages from Lilah.

I clicked on one of the notifications as it came through and read her very frantic messages.

I was unable to think of a proper reply. I just told her we'd talk about it later on set and turned my phone off.

I then struggled around my room on crutches as I got dressed, thankful that Taylor had made an appointment for tomorrow.

Then, after a quick cry, I made my way into the kitchen, where Taylor was making some breakfast.

"Hey Frankie, oh, are you ok?" Taylor was enthusiastic at first, but her mood changed when she saw my face.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, lying, as I sat down at the table.

"Did you see the..." she said, trailing off as she didn't want to actually say anything about the article in case I hadn't seen it.

"Yeah," I said. I was half smiling as my eyes welled up.

"Oh Frankie." Taylor said, putting down whatever she was making and walking around the table to give me a hug. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. I tried to get my publicist to delay the article, but there was nothing I could do." Taylor said it sadly as she continued to hug me.

"It's ok." I said half truthfully. While I knew that, realistically, there was nothing she could have done, I just hated the fact that this was out there at all.

"You don't have to go to set today; I'm sure the cats would love some company." Taylor said, shrugging as she pulled out of the hug.

"No, no, I want to go. Like I said, it's a distraction." I said, wiping the tears from under my eyes.

"Ok, but if at any point you want to go, please tell me, ok, honey?" She said she was going back to the breakfast.

"I will." I said it unconvincingly.

"Ok, good. Want some eggs?" Taylor asked, holding up the pan of scrambled eggs.

"No thanks, I'm not hungry." I said, shrugging. It was true that I didn't have an appetite, but even if I did, I had realized last night how much I had been eating and was planning on cutting down a bit.

"Well, you need to eat something. Toast?" She offered.

"I'm really not hungry." I said. I was hoping she would just drop it.

"Ok, at least have an apple, and we can get you something on the way to set." She said she was picking up an apple from the fruit bowl and placing it in front of me.

I begrudgingly picked it up and took a few bites before stopping when Taylor turned back around to serve herself breakfast.

We ate breakfast, or rather Taylor ate hers while I pretended to be interested in the apple, before leaving.

As Taylor and I left the kitchen, I saw her look back at my barely eaten apple and make a half-frow at it.

I felt guilty for not eating, but the thought of eating anything made me feel sick.

Taylor didn't say anything, though, and we made our way outside and to the car.

Taylor helped me into the car again, and as she got into the driver's seat, she handed me her handbag and told me to get a granola bar out of it to eat.

I sighed and rifled through the surprisingly messy bag for a few moments before finding one of the granola bars.

"We're white early; do you mind if you come sit up in my office for a bit when we get to set?" Taylor asked as we started driving down the driveway.

"Yeah, that's fine; I have some schoolwork to do anyway." I said, opening the granola bar and putting the wrapper in the back pocket of my trousers.

"Ok, remind me to talk to you about school later, will you?" Taylor said, putting on the radio.

"Ok." I said, nodding, nibbling at the granola bar while looking out the window.

It was a nice spring day, and it was starting to get warmer, which I was happy about as I did not like the cold.

"I might have you as my little helper today if you're not going to be doing any filming." Taylor said.

"I mean, I don't have any free hands using the crutches, but I'll try." I said that my dislike of crutches I had felt before getting my first prosthetic came back to me.

"Good point. Well, it might just be nice to sit on the sidelines today. She said.

"Sounds good," I replied.

A little while later, we arrived at the set—less paparazzi than yesterday but still more than what was comfortable.

"They'll have a new story by next week and will leave us alone." Taylor said, seeing my disapproving face.

"I hope so." I said, rolling my eyes.

We got out of the car and made our way up the hill to the building.

Once in Taylor's office, I sat down on the sofa while she sat at her desk.

I pulled my laptop out of my bag and logged into my online school site.

I had barely opened my math assignment before Taylor called me over to her desk excitedly.

Sighing, I picked up the crutches I had left on the floor and went over to Taylor's desk.

"I just got the first draft of the opening scenes." Taylor said, shuffling up on her seat to make space for me to sit down.

"Oh wow." I said, anxious that she was about to show me.

I had never liked watching myself in any shows or movies; I would always find things I did wrong and just cringe at the whole thing.

Taylor opened the video up, and after a few seconds of buffering, it loaded.

"This won't be the final cut, so just take it with a grain of salt." Taylor said this as the first scene started playing.

It depicted Betty and Sarah at their lockers, and James and Miles came up to them in a very cutesy typical-rom-com way.

What immediately caught my attention was my leg. This was the first time I was really realizing that my prosthetic would be on display to the whole world.

It felt a bit surreal, like it wasn't actually me I was watching, but rather some alternate universe version of me that happened to have no legs. I had gotten used to looking down at my feet and seeing one metal one, but I guess I hadn't gotten used to the overall appearance of my leg.

"Are you ok?" Taylor asked, noticing I was distracted and not paying attention.

"Oh, yeah." I said, clearing my brain if it's thoughts and refocusing on the laptop screen, but again, all I could see was my leg.

"Frankie, honey, what's wrong?" Taylor said, pausing the video.

"It's just. It's really weird seeing me with my prosthetic on film like this." I said, begging the tears I could feel forming not to roll down my face.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked, switching tabs so it wasn't frozen on me and my leg.

I couldn't help but briefly look at what was on the screen, seeing it was an email and picking out some of the words.

"Shit." Taylor whispered, closing that tab to leave the screen on a generic Google search bar.

I pieced together what the email was about, and my heart sank in my chest.

"Was that email from my dad?" I asked, looking up at a red-faced Taylor with teary eyes.

"Uh, yeah." Taylor said. Frowning apologetically.

"What did it say?" I asked, sucking in a breath.

"It was about your dad wanting to see you. He wants us to fly over to England to meet with him, and then some stuff about custody and your mom." She said it, her face soft as she tried to read mine.

"Oh, ok. Are we going to England then?" I said I felt scared to even think about going to England and what that would entail.

"Well, I want to talk to my legal team and consult a custody lawyer, but we'll probably have to go there at some point if we want to go through legally with me being your guardian." She said it like she would any other sentence, which I liked because it meant she wasn't trying to dumb it down for me at all.

"Oh. Ok." I said, processing what she said.

"Is that ok?" Taylor said, her eyes suddenly wide with panic.

"Oh, yeah, I just didn't know you were actually thinking about, like, properly having me live with you." I said, not quite believing what I was hearing.

"Of course, I offered to take you in, didn't I?" Taylor said, smiling.

"Well yeah, I thought that was just temporary until we found someone else I could go live with more permanently." I said, shrugging.

"Oh Frankie, of course I want you to stay with me; that's why I didn't tell you about the email at breakfast this morning because I wanted to know the best way to approach this in case your dad wants custody of you and you don't want to go." She said it, still smiling.

"Oh. Right." I said, slightly in disbelief.

"Come here, you." Taylor said, wrapping her arms around me.

I hugged her back, a few tears escaping my eyes before it ended.

"Are you ok?" Taylor asked as I wiped my eyes free of tears.

"Yeah, just happy, I guess." I said, laughing at myself.

"Good. Well, why don't we head out to the benches and see if any of your little crew are there?"Taylor said, turning off her computer and standing up.

I stood up too, and we left the office.

"Taylor?" I asked as we started walking.

"Yeah?" She asked back, looking through the stack of papers she had for the extras today.

"If anyone asks about who I'm living with now, do you mind if I tell them I'm staying with you?" I asked her.

This whole thing was involving Taylor just as much as me, so I wanted to know if she was okay with me telling a few people.

"Of course, but only if you want to." She said.

I nodded, and we made our way over to the tables where Lilah and Max were sitting and talking.

"Good morning!" Taylor said as we approached the table.

I took a seat as Taylor handed Max and Lilah a timetable.

"Because of what happened yesterday with Frankie's leg, I've had to rearrange the schedule a bit, so we're not filming anything with Frankie today, but you should know the lines of all the scenes anyway, so it shouldn't matter greatly." She said, pointing to where the changed parts were.

Max and Lilah both okayed everything, and then Taylor went over to the gathering of extras a few tables away.

"Did you just have a meeting with Taylor?" Lilah asked me like we were in a hot gossip session.

"Uhm, something like that." I said, not wanting to give anything away unprompted.

"Was it about your leg?" She asked.

"Well, it wasn't about my leg." I said, avoiding eye contact with her.

"You're not giving me anything to work with. Ok, new approach, do you know when your legs are fixed?" She asked, gesturing at my prosthetic-less leg.

"Yeah, we booked an appointment for tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be walking again by Monday." I said.

"Whose we? Is your mom not dead?" Lilah said it bluntly. "Woah, that sounded rude. Sorry." She said. Looking shocked at herself.

"No, it's fine; I meant who I'm living with right now." I said, knowing I was about to tell her and Max.

"Speaking of which, who are you staying with right now?" Lilah asked.

I sighed and took a deep breath. "I'm staying with Taylor right now." I said, staring intently at the table.

"Taylor, as in that Taylor right there?" Lilah said, pointing to where Taylor was taking a selfie with one of the extras.

"Yep." I said, smiling awkwardly.

"That's so cool, what the fuck?" She said this, looking quite amazed.

"Uh yeah." I was not sure what to say.

Just then, Naomi walked up to the table.

"What's all the commotion about?" She asked, sitting down opposite me and next to Max.

Lilah looked at me for a split second, like she was looking for approval, which I didn't even have time to give, before blurting to Naomi what I had said.

"Oh wow, that's crazy." Naomi said, looking at me with an "is she being real?" look, which I nodded to.

"Sorry Frankie." Lilah said, making an oops face at the fact that she had blurted it to Naomi.

"It's alright, just don't go yelling it to everyone." I said, shaking my head as I laughed at her.

The rest of the day was pretty normal, despite the news about my mom that had come out overnight. I figured that people were just uncomfortable bringing it up, so I left it alone, which I was grateful for.

I spent most of the day on the set with Taylor, sitting in her "director" seat while doing some work.

The day went by relatively quickly, and before we knew it, it was time to close for the weekend.

I helped Taylor clean up her office and the lunch tables before we headed to the car and back to Taylor's.

I was exhausted after a day on crutches, so I went to my room while Taylor did some work. It sounded like she was on a call to someone discussing music, not the film, but I didn't want to assume anything as Taylor hadn't told me anything.

Taylor had told me to do some research on some room inspiration to spruce up the room so it didn't look so spare-guest-roomy.

I saved some ideas to a Pinterest board before checking my Instagram for the first time in a few weeks, where I saw a crazy amount of activity on my last post.

I opened the comments, finding them full of messages regarding my mom, most of them positive but some saying really weird and creepy things.

I freaked out, closed Instagram, and did some more schoolwork.

An hour or so later, I got a message from Taylor saying it was time for dinner, so I made my way into the kitchen, where Taylor was dishing up some pasta.

"This looks nice." I said, looking at the red sauce on the pasta. Feeling hungry.

I had only had half a sandwich for lunch but still didn't want much, if any dinner.

"Good, because you're eating lots of it." She said, grating some cheese onto both bowls.

"Oh, I only want a bit; I'm not very hungry." I said, hoping Taylor wouldn't be offended and think I didn't want her food.

"Frankie, honey, you've barely eaten anything all day; please eat this." Taylor said sadly, handing me my bowl and a fork.

"Ok, thanks." I said, feeling horribly guilty.

We sat down at the table and ate for a few minutes before taking

"Ok, so you know I said earlier I washed to talk to you about school?" Taylor said, remembering back to this morning in the car.

"Yeah." I said, picking up another piece of pasta. I was trying to limit myself on how much I was eating, but it was just so good, even if I then felt guilty for eating so much.

"Well, we finish shooting right before normal schools break up for summer, so you're covered until then with the onset tutor, but what do you want to do for school after that?" She asked me.

"Well, I've only ever really done it online, and I know you're not only based in one location, so wouldn't anything in person be quite hard?" I questioned, thinking I knew where this was headed.

"Don't tell anyone this, but I've been beginning to work on some new music, and so I'll need to record that at some point, and I tend to do all that in New York, so after we finish filming, I was planning on staying there for at least half a year." Taylor said, I couldn't believe how nonchalantly she had mentioned new music; it was like she really trusted me.

"Oh, ok, I guess we can have a look." I said, terrified at the thought of doing in-person school.

"Great, when we're in New York filming in a few weeks, we can have a look at some schools." She said.

"Oh, and also, would it be ok if I invited my publicist over for dinner on Sunday night to talk about everything going on and how we want the media to release it?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, that's fine." I said, smiling.

We finished our meals, then Taylor had a Zoom meeting with some people I didn't remember the importance of, so I went to go take a shower and get ready for bed.

Authors note
I was quicker to update this time! (Finally)

I got my cast taken off the other day and now have just a splint which has made it a lot easier to type.

We were absolutely FED this weed with Taylor appearances, we had the premiere, SNL, then two separate outings with Travis like the contrast from now to a year ago is crazy.

Speaking of which, would anyone want any kind of relationship trope for Taylor and someone else, not necessarily Travis, just cause I want this to be a like joint effort, if the people want a Taylor relationship in this story who am I to say no 🤷‍♀️

It's 10 days until 1989tv!!!! I'm so excited it's about to be my whole damn personality.

Hope you're all doing well and having a good week,
Audrey xx