Beneath the Sharps & Flats

♫Chapter 25- Reminising in Good Memories♫

Chapter Twenty-Five

"This is extremely important. I need to talk to you alone."

            I inhale sharply before quickly glancing around at our friends working hard to help me, clearly preoccupied with what they're doing. Good. This means they shouldn't notice.

            I look back at Taylor's tight-knit concerned expression before slowly nodding.

            A flash of relief passes over his face before he quickly covers it up.

            "So, can we go somewhere more private," he questions cautiously.

            "Sure, as long as you don't pull any moves, mister," I tease, wagging my finger at him.

            Apparently, he doesn't find this to be a humorous as I do and just frowns while furrowing his brows. I suck my lips into my mouth and look away, a slight blush of embarrassment tinting my cheeks.

            "Let's just go up to my room," I mumble, looking at the ground while I gesture awkwardly to the staircase. He nods as I just did a few moments ago before following me up the stairs and into my bedroom. As we enter, I glance around at the multiple pictures hanging in frames or just taped to my walls along with other decorations. Luckily, I chose to rid my room of all its messiness yesterday, clearing the piles of clothes and candy wrappers from my floor and vacuuming and dusting every inch. I'm glad that I don't have to be embarrassed of my slob-like life and that he can actually walk through my room without being in danger of stumbling over dirty underwear. Even though scenarios like this have occurred countless times in the past, if a situation occurred like that now, it would just be awkward and extremely weird.

            "Wow, you actually cleaned," Taylor comments, voicing my exact thoughts.

            "Yeah, strange right," I laugh, running my eyes over my purple painted walls lined with memories.

            Taylor suddenly brushes past me to stroll up to a certain section of my wall that I dedicated just to him when I was younger. It's lined with hearts and stickers from third grade. The titles specifically states "BFF" and other certain names I used to call Taylor like "woodsy." This all started based off of his last name, but also because he was always adventuring through the woods and climbing trees. I shake my head and smile as I picture tiny, wide brown-eyed Taylor with leaves and sticking out of his tattered clothes and hair, the muddy leafy smell stinking up my living room.

            "You still kept this up," he whispers, fresh tears glistening in his eyes, "After everything I've put you through for the past three weeks, you still kept this up?"

            "Honestly, I wanted to rip every single memory of you out of my room and out of my life at first. But then I thought, even if you did give up on me, I wasn't about to throw away fifteen amazing years of being your best friend. Even though I couldn't bear to glance at a single picture for a second, I also couldn't tear you completely off of my wall and completely out of my life because I still care about you Taylor. Just not in the way you want me to." I finish with a deep breath, an expression of sorrow plastered on my face.

            "That's exactly what I came here to discuss with you," he sighs, running a hand through his longer brown hair, "When I said I didn't want you in my life that one night, I did mean it. But then I went home and found that my eyes were excreting this sort of salty fluid that was completely foreign to me. I looked in the mirror at my broken heart and my puffy red cheeks and realized: wow, I'm actually crying."

            My chuckle cuts Taylor off. It's very true that Taylor almost never cries; I've only seen him cry once or twice throughout our whole lifetime. I've always admired him for that unbelievable strength and courage to constantly be tough and put up a façade. He never even shed a tear when he fell off of his bike and broke his arm. I'm still in awe of his immunity to pain.