good grief | tayley ★

first thing to go

Two months.

It was the longest Hayley had gone without talking to Taylor.

For the past two years, she'd wake up to a text from him, a simple "Good morning." The sight of it giving Hayley butterflies. Sometimes, whenever he knew she was having a particularly hard time, he'd call and walk her through her morning routine to make sure she got up and ate something.

Taylor was always sweet, taking such good care of her despite whatever he had been going through.

The thought of it makes a chill run over her. It's hot and cold at the same time, and makes her nauseous, causing her to tear the covers off of her. It scares Alf, making the poor dog quickly jump to his feet. He rushes over to lick her face.

"Good morning, butters." Hayley giggles, rubbing his fluffy head. At least she had him. "You ready to get out of bed, buddy?" she asks, getting a head tilt in response. "Yeah, me neither." Hayley says, turning so she could fully face Alf. She pulls up the covers and rests her head on the pillow, hugging Alf tight. It makes him squirm, but once he realizes Hayley's grip wasn't budging, he huffs and lies down with her.

They stay like that for what Hayley thinks is 20 minutes but is in fact an hour. It isn't until her phone rings loudly that she finally moves. Begrudgingly, she gets up, rolling over to see who it was. A tiny part of her hopes it's Taylor, but she knows it won't be.

It's Brian, calling about a meeting she was supposed to be at. Hayley can't believe she's allowing herself to get this bad, wallowing is one thing, but the fact that she's missing out on work is ridiculous. She just feels so guilty. She's let Brian down after promising to make it to today's meeting, leaving him to fend for himself.

Well, if she needed any more excuses to get out of bed, she had another one.

Brian says she should get therapy, that being this sad for this long wasn't healthy, but she wasn't sad. No. This wasn't sadness. She felt like she had dove headfirst into a raging ocean, no life jacket to keep her afloat. She had reached a boat, a lifeline, but they didn't take her, throwing a cold block on her, making her sink down to the ocean.

That block remains steady, holding her down so she couldn't get up, the fishes surrounding her all moving on. Too late to save her.

Alf jumps back onto the bed, although Hayley doesn't even remember him leaving, licking incessantly at her face. "Ok, ok, baby, I'm getting up," she groans, covering her mouth quickly so Alf couldn't stick his slobbery tongue in there like he often tries.

Alf follows her into the bathroom, making it almost like he was making sure she was doing her entire self care routine. She's grateful, with how bad she's been at remembering lately Alf's sweet little eyes reminding her is all she needs.

"Ok Alf, let's go outside."

Hayley takes him to the backyard today, deciding that she's spent too long inside. It's as far as Hayley has the energy for, sitting on the deck as she watches Alf run around.

She hums to herself, breathing in the air. She hasn't felt the sun on her skin in a week, something she's far too embarrassed to admit. Hayley's peace is interrupted once Alf comes barrelling over with his tongue flapping wildly as the wind throws his ears and fur back, making him look like he was just hit by a hurricane. She takes him back inside, telling herself she'll clean up his poop tomorrow, just like she said yesterday, and closes the door behind her.

She makes sure to fill both his bowls up, scratching behind his ears and pressing a kiss to his forehead before sitting down on her couch.

The house is quiet, save for the loud sounds of Alf chewing. Silence was something she used to love when she was younger. It's not that she didn't love the screams of Paramore's fans, quite the opposite really, but after years of constant fighting and screaming matches? A quiet house was a blessing.

Well, she thought it was. Now, sitting here alone with just her thoughts was terrifying. She tries not to focus on the loneliness that was settling into her bones and focus on Alf, but she just can't.

Hayley rubs her eyes. There's so much she could do right now. So many songs to write, so many shows to watch, so many rooms to clean, but the thought of getting up and doing something was unbelievably daunting.

So she stays on the couch, Alf finding his way over to her and plopping himself right next to her. It makes her smile, rubbing his belly absentmindedly, and she looks around the room. Her eyes take in the texture of the wall, the millions of pictures she has hanging up.

There's one of her and her mom. They look nearly identical, something she adores about them. She tries to ground herself, focusing on the creases of her skin as she smiles, looking at Hayley with immense amount of pride.

But how could she possibly focus on her mother when Taylor's in that picture, his hand sitting firmly on her back. She can still feel it, his hands calloused from years of playing guitar. She had tried to tell him to apply more lotion, but she knew that would that remedy the years of plucking at strings.

Hayley wonders if he still used the one she had bought him for his birthday. Last time they spoke he did, the strong smell of wood and cinnamon filling her nose every time he drew near. She tries to remember what they even said to each other, but it's all muddled together from how hard she had been crying. She racks her brain, running through their conversation over and over again.

She wishes it had been a fight, something to give her an excuse for their split to have such a strong hold on her, but it wasn't. He was as sweet as he had always been, fighting with his own grief to try to let her down gently.

She tries to remind herself of what he said, trying once again to replay the moment in her head, find ways that she had gone wrong, ways she could've been better. But she can't.

She couldn't even remember the sound of his voice.

She can't.

It starts in her stomach. It always does. Like it was being filled with cement, filling up every one of her intestines. It takes her ribs, cracking each of them as they pierce her lungs. It squeezes her heart, and she thinks maybe her throat can escape in time, but that fills too, being crushed in the crossfire. She lets out a whimper, falling into Alf as gently as she can will herself to. There are no tears, just dry heaving through a broken body.

Sixteen years. Sixteen entire years she'd known him. They'd been through their phases where they weren't close, but for sixteen years they'd been friends. A part of her knows that no matter how hard she tries, she can't deny that her new life had begun the day she met him. Yet now she couldn't even remember the sound of his voice.

She knew that being with him was a mistake. She knew that it was a step that could completely ruin everything they had built together. But she risked it anyway. He convinced her to take the leap, and she did, and he let her down. She let them down. She always had.

Alf, her sweet baby, licks at her tears, something that would usually make her smile, but she doesn't have it in her to smile. So she just nods curling into him so that they were cuddling.

"We're gonna get through this baby, alright?" she asks him gently, causing him to tilt his head and yip excitedly.

"Exactly Alf. We'll be by each other's sides the whole time. I promise," she says to him, gently caressing his face. She presses a kiss to his forehead and rests her head down on it gently. Singing to him softly until she falls asleep, Alf following soon after.