Sweeter than Fiction: A Taylor Swift Fic

Chapter 5: How Long It's Gonna Take to Feel OK

I sliced my paddle through the waves, pulling myself and the board forward. The sun’s light cast the sky in pastels and made the clouds glow around the edges. It was still early — just 7 a.m., but it was warm already, and while I was in this topsy-turvy land down under, I wanted to soak up as much daylight as I could. Also, I wanted to shock Ed with my paddling prowess next time we went out in Rhode Island. I mean with my gangly limbs you’d think I’d be a pro already, but …

I tried to keep my eyes forward, but these waves, even on a relatively calm day, made me nervous. This was a whole other ocean, and if it was like so much of Australia it was big and beautiful and dangerous. I focused on keeping my board steady and perpendicular to the waves, and soon my arms and shoulders started to burn with effort.

“Ahoy!” someone called out from shore, and surprised I put too much weight on my right foot and, a couple of wobbles and one mad flail later, I tumbled into the water. My ankle leash kept the board close, and I draped my chest across it, feeling a bit like Jack on his little piece of the Titanic.

“I thought you’d be good at this by now,” shouted the same voice. It sounded like … Austin?

“Austin?” I yelled.

“I fly through the night, half-way around the world to surprise my sister for a pre-birthday and she doesn’t even recognize me. Figures.”

I flopped onto the board, then rose to my knees and paddled in to my brother. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but don’t you have finals right now or something?”

“Oh I didn’t have to write them. I was just all ‘Don’t you know who my sister is?’ and they gave me As.”

I laughed and my board wobbled, but I stayed upright.

“No, finished early. And I felt like celebrating. Your exit from the womb, my exit from this semester — all reasons to up the celebration.”

I dragged my board onto the beach, and wrapped Austin in a big, wet hug. “Well, I’m really happy you’re here. Thanks for coming.” He grabbed the towel I’d left on the beach and threw it at my head.

“I brought you a present too. I figured I’d been late at it so many years, I could right some past wrongs and deliver early?” He handed over a patterned box looped with ribbon.

As I opened it, he added, “Now it’s no Sony Cybershot, but it was my first good camera, and it was good enough to shoot photos of you on tour back in the day.”

“Oh my God! Austin! This is the best!” I picked up the camera and instantly loved the weight of it in my hands, all the possibilities of the dials and settings. I’d wanted to learn more about photography forever. I loved that it was all about looking for the light, looking for moments of beauty. I got to see so many incredible people and places, I wanted to try to hold on to them, to savour them in the moment and long after. 

“Now, first thing’s first, how do I add filters?” I joked.

Austin grimaced and in an awful German accent cried, “Miz Swift, there vill be no filters here!”

“So . . . I add them later,” I replied, smiling.

“Well soon enough you’ll be able to make your own filters, but I thought today we’d just walk around and work on composition to start.” He pulled his own camera out of his backpack, as I threw on my white summer dress over my suit and slipped on my Keds. Austin pointed down the beach. “Let’s start with that seagull.”

We walked over to a lone seagull padding through the wet sand.

“One basic trick,” said Austin, “is the rule of thirds. You know how you can have that grid on your iPhone camera? Well if you imagine that all the time, your subject often looks best if you place them along those lines or the places they intersect.” He knelt down and snapped a quick photo of the seagull in the lower right corner. “Like this. You try. I’ve got yours set to Auto, so just point, hold the button down halfway to focus, then shoot.”

I knelt, the sand still cool on my knees, and framed the seagull just as Austin had.

“How bout something more interesting? What if we focused more on the seagull’s footprints, and then just put a little seagull butt in the upper corner?”

“That’s my brother. Flies to Australia to photograph seagull butt.” I laughed. “Hey, how’s Shannon? She didn’t want to come on a getaway to romantic Australia?”

Austin kept his camera on the seagull. “She’s not that into romantic getaways at the moment. At least not with me.”

“Wait, what?” I lowered my camera. “Did you guys break up?”

“Yeah. In the cafeteria the day I left. Which means everything in that place is going to taste even worse when I get back.” Austin stood up and tried to smile, but ended up looking back at the sand, tracing lines in it with his toes. 

“Oh, Austin.” I wrapped my arms around him. “What happened?”

He rested his head on my shoulder a moment, then pulled away, focusing his camera on some driftwood. “She said the spark was gone. For her. But it’s not for me. I still thought she was beautiful, even in the drab caf, even in her sweatpants — especially in her sweatpants — even as she was breaking up with me over cold eggs. I still want to tell her about things that happen. I still think about her laugh when I’m feeling sad. Only now that makes me more sad, so …” He paused and snapped another photo. “Maybe I should have told her those things more often. But I’m not that good at talking seriously about my feelings. That’s your department. Hey, think you can write a song about it? And we’ll code her name in the lyrics?”

I smiled. “Now that will confuse people.” I lifted my own camera and snapped a couple candids of Austin. “But seriously, if she can’t appreciate you for the amazing guy you are, she’s pretty lacking. Don’t make me quote myself: Inside and out, you’re better than I am — I meant that, you know. And if you can’t talk to her anymore, you can always talk to me. Also I make a pretty mean break-up playlist.”

“You are a pretty mean break-up playlist,” joked Austin, giving me a real smile this time. I caught it with a quick snap of the shutter.

I checked out the photo on my display screen: Austin with an adorable half-smile, his striped shirt hanging loose, his brown curls glowing from the sun shining out behind him.

Austin peeked at the screen. “Nice solar flare there. Generally, you want to shoot on overcast days, but stuff like that can be really neat.”

“So look for beautiful things on dark days?” I asked.

Austin rolled his eyes. “Oh no, this is a break-up metaphor, isn’t it?”

I smiled. “Maybe. But hey, you’re the photo pro, I’m the heartbreak pro, okay? And in your role as break-up advisor, I think we need some breakfast, stat. Preferably pancakes. Whip cream is not optional.”  

“You’re the boss.”

“But first,” I held up the camera, “a photo of us. Come here.” I put my arm around him and held the camera at arm’s length. (This kind of photo I knew how to do.) The wind picked up and blew my hair into Austin’s face, and we both laughed. Just the photo I wanted. I couldn’t cure my brother’s heartbreak, but I could show him that even in the post-break-up fog of misery, there were great memories worth saving.

***

Next week is Taylor’s birthday week! To celebrate, which song should we look back on?

a)    “The Moment I Knew”
or
b)   “Never Grow Up”

Leave a comment below to help us decide!