The Soldier's Girl (Under Editing)

Chapter 9

CAROLINE'S POV

I was sitting cross legged on the floor of the living room facing the black TV screen, Taylor was siting directly behind me, braiding my hair. I don't know why but the way my hair was being tugged at kind of comforted me. Kind of like a lot of things Taylor did. I really wanted to lean back on her because I knew that she'd drop my hair and wrap her arms around me, but I resisted.

Sometimes I found myself doing things that I knew would make Taylor hug me. I liked the affection from her. After having no mom for almost 10 years I had gotten no affection whatsoever from any motherly figure. Now that I was with Taylor it was like a breath of fresh air.

I never wanted Taylor to be done braiding my hair, I wanted to sit there with her all day, with only the sounds of each other's breathing. Maybe if we were sitting there all day I would lean back, and she would hold me, and I would tell her that I missed my dad and reveal that I've had nightmares for the past two nights. And we could just stay like that and maybe I'd forget about everything. Then I remembered that I was 14 and not a little kid anymore, I needed to be responsible for my own happiness and be strong for myself.

Yesterday when we were watching the movie I fell asleep and she came up and put her arm around me. She put me down in her bed and made me feel special and important. Not that I haven't felt special and important before, but being made feel that way because of a mother figure was different, and I liked it. She treated me like both a friend and a daughter, it was a perfect mixture of the two.

I could always tell that she tried not to be too motherly though, I think it was because of what happened to my mom. I think she was in some way trying not to replace her. Even though Taylor was just my foster mom, and in no way did I really see her as my mom. Don't get me wrong, I loved that she cared about me, but it was in a different sort of way. I feel like a mom is someone you can tell when you have bad dreams, and I wasn't ready to talk to Taylor about that. That was okay though, because Taylor wasn't my mom. She was just perfect the way that she was.

I could feel a hair tie being wrapped into the bottom of my hair. Taylor's fingers ran down the long braid a couple more times and she fixed some fly away hairs before she was finally done.

"There you go." She said tiredly. I turned around and looked back at her, her hands were in her lap and she was yawning with her eyes closed.

"Does it look good?" I asked, only seeing the bottom of it.

"Yeah, it's pretty." She yawned. It was only 6 in the evening I didn't know how she was so tired, we had only just eaten supper. We both got up and she told me that she was going to take a quick nap before she had to get back up and do a interview on a late night radio show. She headed to her room and I headed upstairs to mine.

I wasn't going to sleep because I was kind of afraid of getting a nightmare. I had gotten one yesterday morning before I woke up and Taylor was at her meetings and I had gotten another at 2am last night. I hadn't gotten one when I was asleep in Taylor's bed watching the movie which was a blessing. 

Nightmares like the ones I had made me miss my dad even more than I already did. He had told me that as soon as he got to Afghanistan he would mail me a letter and we would set up a time to FaceTime each other. It takes one to two weeks for letters to get from there to here, so I probably wouldn't be getting it for another week.

I couldn't wait for his letters, I loved them most of all. He would write pages and pages in one letter, some pages were deep and meaningful, some pages were full of drawings and inside jokes. I went to the small wooden box sitting on my dresser and pulled an envelope out of it. All the letters my dad had ever sent me were in this box, I even had some he sent my mom years ago. I opened the envelope and pulled out this particular letter. It was dated September 18th, 2008.

The letter talked about how he and his buddies were and how he missed and loved me. He said that he hoped I was doing well back in Virginia. This letter was 4 pages long but I read it all. By the end I was crying silently, there was already teardrop stains on the letter, now there was more. Crying felt right at that moment, it was like I needed it, I needed a good cry. I hadn't properly cried since the day my dad left, I was trying not to cry very often because of Taylor, but now I couldn't handle it anymore.

I had never gotten all my tears out from the day he left, so now I was making up for it. I missed him, but not the terrible kind if missing that made your stomach ache. Just a small longing for him to be back here. I knew I'd get the stomach ache type of missing eventually, but I was dreading it already.

I allowed myself to cry a little more before I went to the bathroom to fix my makeup and pull myself together. I knew that Taylor might wake up soon, I wanted to leave behind no evidence of what just happened. As if on cue, Taylor came upstairs just as I walked out of the bathroom. She didn't look tired anymore and her makeup was flawlessly done.

"Hey girl! You coming?" She asked cheerfully. Judging by her tone, there were no traces of what just happened on my face.

"I don't know, am I?" I asked unknowingly. I wasn't sure if she wanted me to come to her radio interview with her or not.

"Yeah! If you want to." She said while still standing at the top of the stairs. I quickly grabbed my shoes and followed her downstairs. We took the elevator to the bottom floor and went outside to her car where I climbed into her passengers seat.

Without realizing it, this trip to the radio station had gotten my mind off my dad. Taylor had the radio up and was singing all the way there until finally there was no lump in my throat to gulp down.

We pulled up to the radio station place at around 8:45, right when the sun was starting to set. I walked in behind her and she met two people who I'd recognized. I knew they worked with Taylor, but I didn't know who they were exactly. We sat in a lobby area for a while, waiting for them to call Taylor into their studio. I was introduced to the two people by Taylor, the redheaded woman was Tree, her publicist. The man was Scott, her record label president.

Soon we were in the studio and Taylor sat in a chair with headphones and a microphone, while Scott, Paula, and I sat on a couch off to the side. When Taylor and the radio DJs started talking that 'oh my god' feeling washed over me. This is like something I would listen to in the car. Now I was in the room while she was giving the interview, better yet, she was the one who brought me here.

I knew that there would be questions about me sooner or later. They came rather quickly. The radio guy gestured toward me and asked Taylor to tell them about me.

"Well that's Caroline," she started. "And a couple months ago I decided to become a foster parent..." Then she told the whole story of how we met and everything. Right at the end one of the girl DJs interrupted her to tell me that she liked my hair.

"Thanks." I said with a smile.

"Yeah, I did that earlier!" Taylor said with a grin on her face. 

Chills swept my body, I was with Taylor Swift. The 'is this really happening' moments I'd had in the last few days had been endless. On one hand I could be super comfortable with Taylor and on the other I was continuously trying to make the butterflies in my stomach go away. I guess in my situation that wasn't a bad problem to have.

The interview was over in half an hour and when we walked outside it was dark out except for the glow of the city lights.

 Earlier I was crying because I missed my dad so much, now I was just filled with joy. Taylor had the power to do that to a person. I looked up at the moon before getting in the car. I knew that tonight Dad could see that same moon. I had a good feeling.